I just watched without following any commentary from this forum, and my impression is that she didn't get much of a draft. She was pretty far behind runners ahead of her and it looked like a lot of people spread out around her rather than a tighter pack. Maybe that was from aggressive pacing relative to her fitness.
I agree with this. Also, I think 2023/24 Faith was in slightly better shape than currently. We have to remember she’s 31 years old. Might have given this a better go last year.
I reckon it's way simpler - it's just a case of someone parroting a Nike line without interrogating or communicating any logical challenge or issue with it. That's aside from the single trial comparison, the normal variation in performance, a placebo effect, and the fact that this athlete was highly unlikely to have been running as close to their own ceiling as Kipyegon would have been.
Kipchoge needed 2 attempts to go sub 2 in the marathon. The first one went well and he was close. The second one went very well.
Kipyegon's attempt did not have optimal weather and was not well organised in my opinion. It was breezy and the pacing was questionable.
But 7 seconds improvement? That's going to require a faster track and shoes also.
Drafting becomes exponentially more effective the closer you are. That's why competitive cyclists and race car drivers are right on the ass of the person in front of them. Everyone knows this, except apparently the geniuses at Nike. Instead they put this lanky 6'+ dude in front of Faith, and so she has to run several meters behind to avoid his huge back kick. It looked like they didn't even bother practicing the setup either, people were running all over the place with no coordination.
Some reality: she's 31 and more than likely not in PR shape. How many top 1500 runner can PR after 30?
But also, I doubt the 3% estimate is accurate. They would need to repeat the test many times with multiple runners to get a better estimate. Or better yet, somehow measure oxygen itilization/running economy while aided by pacers and speed suit.
I just watched without following any commentary from this forum, and my impression is that she didn't get much of a draft. She was pretty far behind runners ahead of her and it looked like a lot of people spread out around her rather than a tighter pack. Maybe that was from aggressive pacing relative to her fitness.
I agree. I was shocked at how much of a gap there was between her & the pacers. I don't see how she got much advantage from them at all.
A 3% improvement from one time trial to the next could be entirely attributed to the training effect from the first time trial, depending on where they were in their training cycle when they attempted the first one.
Let's contrast yesterday's post-race exhaustion versus her 2023 WR run (aka the Jog in the Park). First watch @ 5:20 from yesterday. Then watch @4:50 from her 2023 WR race (and be sure to look at the collapsed bodies strewn around the finish line).
Was that merely jubilation in 2023? Or a little sumpin' extra?
I just watched without following any commentary from this forum, and my impression is that she didn't get much of a draft. She was pretty far behind runners ahead of her and it looked like a lot of people spread out around her rather than a tighter pack. Maybe that was from aggressive pacing relative to her fitness.
I agree. I was shocked at how much of a gap there was between her & the pacers. I don't see how she got much advantage from them at all.
The leaders were able to follow the pacing lights because they were running comfortably hard.
But from what I saw before the race, the tree tops was a blowin in the wind.
That breeze would have been felt during the race and it must have made it harder for Kipyegon to follow the second row of lights, because that's what happened, making gaps appear within the pacing formation.
Simple answer. The 3% claim is just marketing BS. I bet if you took a dozen runners and had them run 1500m one week as fast as they could and then told them the next week that they had been given a new supplement that makes them run faster, they would run 1500m 3% faster the next week.
The other answer is that Kipyegon has been training and racing at an extremely high level the past few years. Most distance runners on the track have a window of about 7-8 years to run their best times. Kipyegon is probably as good as she can get and just didn't have any room to improve to get to a sub 4 mile.
The whole thing was dumb, why were there 25 pacers some being 30m behind her?
Why run in a 90% empty massive stadium on a Thursday in humid France?
I think she can do 4:03, 3 male pacer, small stadium, let the fans down to lane 3, DJ, and more realistic pacing.
Go out a little slower, and save a close coming home.
The point of the long line of pacers behind her was to delay when the air streams flowing around her rejoin one another. When a runner is running alone, the merging of the air streams behind them creates a zone of lower pressure that "sucks" them backwards. It's a very small effect, much smaller than sticking behind someone, but it does mean that having a trailing runner behind you is slightly advantageous versus having no one behind.
Thinking more about it, I wonder to what degree the drafting simulations were just flawed. All the published research on running drafting assumes "static" runners, whose arms/legs are not moving. With Faith being so much smaller than the huge guys in front of her in the "shield," I'm wondering if their arms and legs actually created a lot of turbulence for her that did not show up in the simulation.
I just watched without following any commentary from this forum, and my impression is that she didn't get much of a draft. She was pretty far behind runners ahead of her and it looked like a lot of people spread out around her rather than a tighter pack. Maybe that was from aggressive pacing relative to her fitness.
And you know when this website gets around to asking Rodger Kram about this, this is exactly what he is going to say. "Well it's clear she didn't maximize drafting the way we recommended, so our data is still valid". And this will remain the narrative until she actually runs 1609m executing the drafting strategy to perfection which is precisely how guys like Kram survive in these fields, just going on and on.... and on.... and on....
Which is why anything that comes out of a lab/computer simulation should be taken with a grain of salt 100% of the time, all of the time. I'm going to guess that the simulation showed that if she was to remain perfectly in formation of set distance X for the entirety of the race, there would be a certain benefit - the functional and practical realities of this are completely unfeasible as was proven today. I think what happened is that they tried blanketing her as much as possible in testing and she hated it so her team told the guys that a tight cluster was a complete no-go.
Bottom line is though, it convinced a lot of people didn't it? (including Nike - well, definitely enough senior managers that don't know a lot about the sport). The amount of people here that thought legitimate low 4's (4.00-4.03) was on the table was quite astounding to be perfectly honest.
They had correctly predicted that a sub-2:00 marathon would be possible with super shoes + drafting (in a published paper, before it happened), which is probably why Nike paid attention to their sub-4 mile paper.
Hutchinson is a grifter. He writes in the article that she was at 3:01.8 for 1200 meters, on pace for a 4:03 mile. That is absolutely not true. For a 'science guy' that is a fundamental misreading. He also claims she was on pace for 1400 meters. Again, not true.
She looked exhausted and strained the whole time, not smooth at all. I don't really blame her, lot of hype and pressure to perform, just didn't seem like her day. That being said, I don't think she gets and faster than 4:03.xx