2:04:26 WILL be broken. 2:03 will not. ever.

What is wrong with the original poster\'s statement.

GROUPING bekele and hall in the same sentance as \"likely candidates to break the world marathon record\". Bekele can run halls 5k pr twice in a row.

You will NEVER need more than 640K of memory. Ever.

Film buff wrote:

If anyone has ever seen the 1970 film The Games with Michael Crawford, Ryan O'Neill and Charles Aznavour then you will remember the attempt on the 2 hour marathon. The coach (Stanley Baker) of Harry Hayes (Crawford) wants him to go for the 2 hour marathon - so that his name will live forever. Hayes runs the 1st half in 59:13 and blows up in sight of the stadium and finishes a la Dorando and Jim Peters. The Yank (O'Neill) collapses on account of his drug abuse and the Australian sprints past the Czech (Aznavour)in the final straight. Weird film!

Saw that years ago, Michael Crawford was the only credible character in that flick.

i think i may have seen that about 25-30 years ago. was there a part in the movie where the race director told the runner who was drinking you got a little beer belly, and then he raced an african and he beat the african and the race director said thank you for going easy and making it close, to which the star runner replied, i wasnt going easy, that's the hardest i ever ran in my life? if so how life is imitating art.

it will be under 2 hours by the end of this century, certainly

think about how Bekele will run

and then the great succeeding Ethiopian or Kenyan

and so on for a few generations

I personally feel that we haven't seen anything yet

Time marches on, and so do Athletics World Records:

Marathon WR Progression from when it first went under 2:10:

2:09:36 December 3, 1967 Derek Clayton

2:08:33 May 3, 1969 Derek Clayton

2:08:18 December 6, 1981 Robert de Castella

2:08:05 October 21, 1984 Steve Jones

2:07:12 April 20, 1985 Carlos Lopes

2:06:50 April 17, 1988 Belayneh Dinsamo

2:06:05 September 20, 1998 Ronaldo da Costa

2:05:42 October 24, 1999 Khalid Khannouchi

2:05:38 April 14, 2002 Khalid Khannouchi

2:04:55 September 28, 2003 Paul Tergat

2:04:26 September 30, 2007 Haile Gebrselassie

Mile WR Progression over the same time period:

3:51.1 June 23, 1967 Jim Ryun

3:51.0 May 17, 1975 Filbert Bayi

3:49.4 August 12, 1975 John Walker

3:48.95 July 17, 1979 Sebastian Coe

3:48.8 July 1, 1980 Steve Ovett

3:48.53 August 19, 1981 Sebastian Coe

3:48.40 August 26, 1981 Steve Ovett

3:47.33 August 28, 1981 Sebastian Coe

3:46.32 July 27, 1985 Steve Cram

3:44.39 September 5, 1993 Noureddine Morceli

3:43.13 July 7, 1999 Hicham El Guerrouj

Thanks for one of the more substantive answers so far.

Let's look at the same era's 10,000 M progression:

27:39.4 July 14, 1965 Ron Clarke

27:38.4 September 3, 1972 Lasse Virén

27:30.8 July 13, 1973 David Bedford

27:30.5 June 30, 1977 Samson Kimobwa

27:22.4 June 11, 1978 Henry Rono

27:13.81 July 2, 1984 Fernando Mamede

27:08.23 August 18, 1989 Arturo Barrios

27:07.91 July 5, 1993 Richard Chelimo

26:58.38 July 10, 1993 Yobes Ondieki

26:52.23 July 22, 1994 William Sigei

26:43.53 June 5, 1995 Haile Gebrselassie

26:38.08 August 23, 1996 Salah Hissou

26:31.32 August 4, 1997 Haile Gebrselassie

26:27.85 August 22, 1997 Paul Tergat

26:22.75 June 1, 1998 Haile Gebrselassie

26:20.31 June 8, 2004 Kenenisa Bekele

26:17.53 August 26, 2005 Kenenisa Bekele

There's a lot to analyze here, but I will note that Geb has been the one guy in recent history to take down records by authoritative margins- the 10,000 by 10.7, 6.7, and 5.1 seconds- this when there wasn't a lot of room to move it much lower. KB comes along and manages to tweak it 5 full seconds over 2 attempts. If the 10,000 is any indication, then KB can move it 20 seconds lower than whatever Geb does- assuming 4 times the margin of improvement for 4 times the distance of the event. So for KB to be sub 2:03, Geb should be closer to 2:03:20.

That mathematical analysis doesn't really hold any water. The relationship between the two events isn't linear, and it definitely isn't linear between two people. I suppose Ryan Hall should be running around 27-flat soon?

Um, how much do you think 5 bucks will be worth in (todays dollars)in 2047? Or as Yogi Berra put it, "A nickel ain't worth a dime any more"(!?)

To say that 203 will never be broken is stupid. This opinion has been used as long as people have measured athletic performance and it is ALWAYS proven false. You can be 100 percent sure that you will never do it but putting this limit on everyone else just increases the probability that someone someday will step up to the challenge. It is why we compete.

"No one can say, 'You must not run faster than this, or jump higher than that.' The human spirit is indomitable.”

-Roger Banister

Marathon WR Progression from when it first went under 2:10:

2:09:36 December 3, 1967 Derek Clayton

2:08:33 May 3, 1969 Derek Clayton

- last marathon WR with the use of caffeine

2:08:18 December 6, 1981 Robert de Castella

2:08:05 October 21, 1984 Steve Jones

2:07:12 April 20, 1985 Carlos Lopes

- last marathon WR without altitude training or pacers

2:06:50 April 17, 1988 Belayneh Dinsamo

2:06:05 September 20, 1998 Ronaldo da Costa

- first marathon WR record with the use of EPO

2:05:42 October 24, 1999 Khalid Khannouchi

2:05:38 April 14, 2002 Khalid Khannouchi

- second and third marathon WRs with the use of EPO

2:04:55 September 28, 2003 Paul Tergat

- last marathon WR record with the use of synthetic EPO in small doses

2:04:26 September 30, 2007 Haile Gebrselassie

- first marathon WR with the use of genetic manipulation

A good 'rule of thumb' for predicting marathon performance at elite or near-elite level is to double the half-marathon time and add 5 to 6 minutes.

For a 2.03 marathon, this implies a half-marathon best in the 58.30 to 59 minute range. The top guys are right in that timeframe already. With good preparation and favorable conditions, 2.03 may come sooner than everyone on this thread is predicting.

Dave

Half-marathon means (next to) nothing re: marathon performance. I say that's a better rule of thumb.

And the past 25 years are littered with super HM guys who bombed at the marathon w/re to the WR.

Also Gebrselassie says that the 2:04:26, with which he improved Paul Tergat’s (Kenya) time from Berlin 2003 by 29 seconds, will not be the end of the story.

“I believe that I can run 2:03. I had said that before but could not do it on Sunday. But I am convinced that I can achieve such a time in Berlin.” Gebrselassie added: “I think Berlin offers the best conditions for a World marathon chase – the course, the weather conditions, the spectators. So I think that when World records will be broken in the future it will happen in Berlin.”

Asked if he believed that one day the two hour-barrier will be broken in the marathon Haile Gebrselassie said: “Yes, of course. That will happen. But I do not know when – may be it will take 20 years or may be 40. For now I am happy that I have finally broken the World marathon record since my name is now on this record list. And in a 100 years people will still see that and say, ‘ah this was Haile Gebrselassie’.”

The only reasons people used (still use?) EPO is because with regular blood doping you have to wait for your blood to return to normal RBC level to resume decent training (ie: you were slower after taking the blood out, so you'd have to do this during off-time, say during the dark days of Finnish winter), regular blood doping is very expensive and can be very dangerous, and you also have to store the blood so it's very visually detectable. EPO was nothing more than blood doping in a syringe. Of course blood doping with your own blood is undetectable once it's in the body. Now that synthetic EPO can be detected, and blood doping from an outside source (Tyler Hamilton case) can be detected, it's back to good 'ol Lasse Viren Blood Doping.

Alna

MarathonMind wrote:

I think it's fair to say that Haile's marathon WR will eventually be lowered- if not by Geb himself then by Bekele or Ryan Hall or one of the other likely candidates. And while the future record may dip into the 2:03's, I do not think we will ever see sub 2:03.

If a far-past-his prime, doped-to-the-gills Geb can run 2:04:26 in good but not perfect conditions, why couldn't a doped-to-the-gills runner in his prime, like Bekele, run much faster in better conditions?

2:04 will be broken by one of these athletes: haile, wanjiru, bekele.

2:03 might not be broken by any of them but the next generation of distance record-breakers have a good shot. will they come on to the scene in a few years or in a few decades... i do not know. but it most certainly will be broken. and 2:00 will most likely be broken as well a long long time from now. 2flat would probably take someone who has haile/bekele's ability plus a little who focuses on the marathon from his early 20's instead of track.

I think the problem with that theory is that someone in their early 20s might not have the muscular economy gained from years and years of running needed to run record breaking marathons. Salazar was the exception not the rule.

Alan

Another good post by yo, thank you. And here's another good quote:

"I think the idea of a two hour marathon is ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. I cannot foresee, ever, anyone breaking two hours." —Derek Clayton