We're back baby - 3 Americans at 2:08:00 or faster in Boston

Ryan hall was a Christian saint back in the day. Ran with true clean honor witho it drugs although I have way too many second thoughts about his suspect wife Sara Hall!!!!!!!! Now because of that I then begin to wonder why Ryan dialed back on his Christian righteousness to start allowing Sara to dabble in drugs you feelin me!!!!!!!

Sport is a constant battle with my conscience these days!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, and a 2:08 runner has to have the fitness to run 10sec/mile faster to be internationally competitive--15sec/mile to be a threat for a global medal.

And out of those 10 2:08:00 or faster runners, five did it in the past year. 'Super shoes' have existed for nearly a decade now, no significant changes have been made in more recent versions. The US has just gotten a lot better. It shouldn't be surprising after seeing all the fast NCAA times the past several years, even before super spikes we were seeing record NCAA qualifying standards. In a few more years after a bigger subset of these 27:XX and sub 13:30 guys move to the marathon we'll have even more 2:08 and faster guys. Some becoming 2:06 or even 2:05 guys. Maybe Mantz will find a 2:04 in him. Maybe Fisher will have a successful transition to the marathon and run 2:04/2:05 in a few years at the age of 30 (today is his 27th birthday)

Nice downvote. Our 5th best marathoner in the past year is 2:08 flat. Only six minutes off the fastest time in the world over the past 18 months. When was the last time we had five guys that close to the best in the world? When Ryan Hall was in his prime and 2 minutes off the world lead of 2:03 and our 2nd guy was Ritz in a distant 2:11, our 5th guy over an 18 month window was Justin Young way back at 2:13:54. The world lead hasn't gotten much faster in 15+ years, only about 2 minutes faster, but our depth has improved about 6 minutes. We have closed the gap by over a kilometer. US marathoning is way better today than 15-20 years ago.

So what you're telling me is that Dick Beardsley and Alberto Salazar would have ran sub 2:04 that day in 1982 if they had raced in those shoes? Hmmmmmmmmmm.....

There was no claim that it improved time by 4%. It was claimed to improve running efficiency by 4%. And it is not an additional 3% (for an aggregate 7%); there is a purported 3% improvement from current Nike and Adidas models.

This! Times a jillion!

With the shoes after 2019 worth 2 minutes on the elite level and the new Pumas another 90 seconds, anything from that time onward should be taken with a grain of salt.

moron speak above.

i'm canadian on the passport, and canada as an organizational entity was negative value in the sport to me personally. in business, canada gov good the older admin.

the US experience in track however, certainly with no monetary reward to help a young runner, in many instances and places, my allegiance is with the USA baby, all the way.

basically the above is a self serving, what have you done for me, type thing.

be nice if US lose the politics and race things, debating nonsense like trans, and crap on their mind, a disturbed place, with a lot of lovely people at the core.

canada loses, USA wins,

Correct. No way they would have ran over 5 minutes faster. The shoes might give them 1:30 to 2 minutes if the stars align, but not 5 minutes.

Seems in Japan anyone fast just runs the marathon, their 5k and 10k performances are nowhere near the depth of the US. And their top tier marathoners aren't really better than the US. They got 6th and 13th at the olympics, our top two were 8th and 9th. If we would have sent CJ instead of Leonard Korir after running 3 marathons in 6 months CJ probably would have put up yet another 2:10 and finished around 20th. If all of our 27:40 and faster track guys were running the marathon we'd have 10+ more 2:08 or faster guys to go with our current 5. And the courses in the United States that our top guys typically run aren't as easy to run fast on as all the pancake Japanese courses. These Japanese runners rarely set PRs outside of Japan.

I'm not sure how much this is trolling, Rojo??? No doubt, there have been a few faster times from US men and women in the past 2-3 years, but both groups are getting further behind the world's best. That's just fact.

I love how hard Conner Mantz grinds; appreciate the blue collar approach of Young and Richtman, but they're finishing a mile behind the best men in the world---just in front of the best woman in the world.

American marathoners making a living at it are full on DEI hires. If it were solely about merit, they're just not there. Conversely, our 1500-5k athletes are legit world contenders right now.

Do you actually have empirical support for that claim? There's certainly a massive amount of empirical evidence contradicting it.

And meanwhile the Canadian record is faster than the two decades old American record.

Pretty weak for a country of 350 million.

You mean slow performances?

Let's play a game. Which runner(s) do not belong?

Updated all-time US Marathon list (all conditions)
Rank Time Runner Race
1 2:04:58 Ryan Hall 2011 Boston
2 2:05:08 Conner Mantz 2025 Boston
3 2:05:38 Khalid Khannouchi 2002 Chicago
4 2:06:07 Galen Rupp 2018 Prague
5 2:06:53 Biya Simbassa 2024 Valencia
6 2:07:04 Clayton Young 2025 Boston
7 2:07:47 Dathan Ritzenhein 2012 Chicago
8 2:07:56 Leonard Korir 2019 Amsterdam
9 2:07:57 Matthew Richtman 2025 LA
10 2:08:00 Ryan Ford 2025 Boston

I think this is the closest to the truth. 4 sec per mile, so 1:45 over 26.2. So, Salazar and Beardsley conceivably would’ve run low 2:07s.

the canadian record was 210 for about 40 years, till lately...

Boston is a downhill course, it doesn't count for anything.