Ahead Of Friday's Run With The Cops, One Registrant's Pace Data Doesn't Match The Rest Of The Field

WAUKESHA — Earlier this week, a PaceWatch Waukesha analysis of public Strava data suggested the 287-runner field registered for Friday's 12th annual Run With The Cops was, on average, training at a pace closer to a walk than a run. Buried in that same dataset, according to blog author Kyle Dunmore, was one conspicuous exception: a 47-year-old Fox River-area man whose logged training pace has not once cracked 8 minutes per mile all month.

"Gene Studlien's numbers don't look like anyone else's in the file," Dunmore said. "If the field average is 34 minutes a mile, and one guy is consistently under 8, that's not a rounding error. That's a different event, pace-wise."

Studlien, reached at his home near the Fox River, confirmed the pace but pushed back on any suggestion it meant anything in particular. "I'm not really a competitive runner," he said, checking a watch that displayed his current pace, his 30-day average pace, and his lifetime average pace across all 12 years he has run the race. "I just like being out there."

"I'm not really a competitive runner. I just like being out there."

— Gene Studlien, 47, a 12-time participant averaging under 8 minutes per mile in training

A Streak Within A Streak

Studlien is a member of the Waukesha Citizens Police Academy alumni association, roughly 88 residents who volunteer at the race's aid stations each year rather than run it competitively, a distinction Studlien said he takes seriously despite his numbers. "The alumni group isn't out there to win anything," he said. "We're out there to hand out water and make sure nobody trips on the Veterans Park curb again like 2021."

Race organizer Ellen Trachte, the Waukesha Police Department civilian employee who has coordinated the event for six years, said Studlien's pace has come up before but has never affected how the department scores or times the race. "We don't have an elite wave or anything like that," Trachte said. "Gene finishes near the front every year and then waits around for everyone else. It's very in keeping with the spirit of the thing."

The Rest Of The Field

Dunmore's original analysis, published Tuesday, matched 61 of the 287 registrants to public Strava profiles and calculated an average training pace of roughly 34 minutes per mile, a number he said would put a typical finish somewhere north of an hour and forty-five minutes over the 3.1-mile course. Asked whether Studlien's data changed his overall read of the field, Dunmore said no. "One fast outlier doesn't move a 61-person average much," he said. "If anything it makes the gap more interesting. Somebody's going to be standing around at the finish line for a very long time."

Trachte said the department's finish-line tent will remain staffed "as long as it takes," consistent with prior years, regardless of the spread between the field's fastest and slowest registrants.

Friday

Packet pickup begins at 5:30 p.m. at Veterans Park, with the race starting at 6:30 p.m. Studlien said he plans to run it "the same as every other year" and then help the alumni association break down the aid station near the one-mile marker. Asked one more time whether he considered himself competitive, he said no, then added that he'd "have to check the split" before he could say for certain how the first mile went.