Is the typical UK runner getting faster or slower over time? We consider this question in the context of the London Marathon, comparing runners in 2009 and 2013. Technological advances in shoes, training, and diet might suggest runners would be faster in 2013. An opposing viewpoint might say that with the average body mass index on the rise, people tend to run slower. In fact, all of these components might be influencing run time.
In addition to considering run times in this section, we consider a topic near and dear to most students: sleep. A recent study found that young adults average about 7.45 hours of sleep per night.2525http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=410837 However, researchers at Lancaster University are interested in showing that their students sleep longer than seven hours on average. We investigate this topic in Section 2.9.4.