Emacs has some incredibly powerful tools by themselves, but combined you can have superpowers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon_world_record_progression
load in a web browser and simply highlight and copy one of the main tables
open a new buffer
C-x b testing
paste in the contents to this buffer
C-y
put buffer in org-mode
M-x org-mode RET
Select contents of buffer
C-x h
Convert to org-table
C-c |
Navigate with <tab> to the `Notes` Column and remove it. To delete column:
M-S-LEFT_ARROW
Use the same method to remove the `Source` and `Events/Place` columns
Add a new empty column at the end of the table
C-e M-S-RIGHT_ARROW
Navigate to beginning of first data line
C-a
Start Recording a Macro
C-x (
Copy hours segment
TAB C-space C-s : C-b M-w
Enter calc mode and paste
C-x * c C-y
multiply by 3600 to convert to seconds and quit calc
60 RET 60 RET * * q
copy minutes segment, first move to first digit in minutes segment, and then follow similar procedure
C-f C-space C-s : C-b M-w
enter calc, paste, and multiply by 60 to get seconds
C-x * c C-y 60 RET * q
copy seconds segment by use ‘move to end of table cell’
C-f C-space M-e M-w
enter calc, and add up total
C-x * c C-y + + q
move to last column and past using calc paste
C-e S-tab C-x * y tab
now move to beginning of line and save macro
C-a C-x )
C-x e
Did it work?
let’s do 5 lines
C-u 5 C-x e
undo all of the calculations you’ve done so far
C-/
You want the last column to be empty. If your undo buffer runs out, just delete the values
Now select all the data lines of the table and run `count-words` I do this by starting at the first dataline and then:
C-space M-S-> M-x count-words
You will get the number of lines output in the mini-buffer. My count is 49.
Navigate back to first data line
Now run the macro on all 49 lines
C-u 49 C-x e
You just used Macros, ORG TABLE and Calc to do a very tedious task.
Practice this over again several times to absorb it. Being able to do this on the fly and knowing these commands is really practical.