Triathlete Patrick Lange runs 2:39 marathon in the heat of Kona at the world championships

Bro - Mama wrote:

justanotheracc wrote:

The German triathlete Patrick Lange just ran an amazing 2:39 marathon at the Ironman Hawaii WC and broke the 27 year old course record, finishing third overall. What could this guy run in a solo marathon?

There have been quite a few of these through out the Iron Man history.

Going all the way back to Dave Scott, there would be a guy (or 2) that would crank out a 2:3x run.

None of them ever showed the ability to really drop their marathon time if they ran it alone.

Their strength is their strength, so to speak.

They would probably drop to mid 2:20s.

Mark Sisson ran 2:18 and Scott and Allen were in the same league for running. Allen never ran 2:20, but ran 29:59 for road 10K.

What someone like Lange would excel at is road 50-milers, but there is zero $$ in that.

John Kelly did his marathon split in almost 3:00 even. Fastest amongst the amateurs.

Name sound familiar? He is also the only finisher at The Barkley Marathons this year.

Per Kelly at the end of Kona:

"There’s not even a comparison. This was a tough one due to the heat and other factors, but nothing like five loops at Barkley. Finishing an Ironman ~= one Barkley loop in any amount of time; qualifying for Kona ~= Barkley Fun Run.”

80,000 miles on wrote:

Mark Sisson ran 2:18 and Scott and Allen were in the same league for running. Allen never ran 2:20, but ran 29:59 for road 10K.

Sisson, though, was a fast marathoner who turned to the triathlon, not a fast triathlete who turned to the marathon. No one was speculating about what a sub-2:40 in an Ironman might say about his potential as a marathoner.

I'm not sure how the myth of Mark Allen's 2:20 marathon started; my sense is that it was a combination of his own expressed aspirations and the projections of others. I first read of his alleged 29:59 10K twenty years ago, and I remember his attempts at that distance long before that, but I've never seen any race results or discussions that might support or at least shed some light on the claimed 29:59. I'm skeptical that he ever ran under 30:00 in a record-quality 10K.

Oh, and Brownlee, of course, is a different story altogether. There are a number of excellent Olympic-format triathletes who are also pretty fast distance runners.