2:11:53 - not possible w/o drugs, supershoes?

Doping isn't confined to the marathon.

Right here. This. The marathon was a thing for slow runners who couldn't compete on the track.

Now, the money is there. A good runner can race twice a year and make money. Especially in the African nations where a couple thousand dollars a year makes you comfortable.

Shoes are getting better, training methods are evolving. Injury prevention and recovery are improving. Cross training is getting more specific.

Just the effect of the modern shoes (Not just super shoes) make it possible for more runners to run more mileage and stay injury free.

I asked on another thread- what time(s) do the naysayers think are possible without drugs?

What do "you" think the world records would be if there were no PED's available just the "legal" technology?

Also- what time might she have run if it was a woman only start and she didn't have a phalanx of men surrounding her for much of the race? Maybe only a couple women pacers for 25K-30K Iike the men get).

BTW, there isn't any "event specialisation" now. We see a former 800m runner taking the women's marathon record, and runners like Hassan covering all distances from the 800 to the marathon. Jakob of course confidently claims he will take all the world records from the 1500 up. It's marvellous what doping can achieve. Stamina unlimited. No one ever tires any more.

If only Rudisha knew he had a sub-2 marathon in him.

I think the clean limit is about 1.58.Anyone faster than that is a doper.A lot of people wont agree with me,but i dont care.

Hopefully you're being sarcastically dumb on purpose. But, every great 800 runner doesn't have a fast marathon in them, just like every sub 4 miler doesn't have one.

But speed helps in the modern marathon.

Correct - the drugs have always been around - well, at least since the 70's - but they change by the week. That is why WADA can't catch most of the dopers. The drugs are also constantly improved like sports cars coming off an assembly line. And they sure are fun to drive! The shoes are little more than an improvement in the tyres - without the improvements in the engine and construction they don't do anything.

No, it doesn't. It is endurance that counts. There is no necessary connection between sprint speed or even md ability and running a good marathon.

I think it is faster than that. Ann Packer, a novice over the distance, ran 2:01 on cinders at Tokyo in '64. Taking into improvements in training and modern tracks I give 1:55-56 the benefit of the doubt for the very best athletes. But anything faster reeks of fumes.

As we see here, it is demonstrably difficult for many sports fans to understand that driven and ambitious people - as top athletes usually are - will take advantage of any opportunity they can to succeed - as such personality-types will do in so many other walks of life. The hardest thing for such an athlete is not training and competing - they live for that - but to choose not to take something that will boost their chances while they know others will be. That will mean losing - anathema to the athlete who competes to win. So that is why most sports are now lost to doping.

Thats cool,but most olympic final level 800 meter women have muscles,funny jaws,noticeable adams apples and strange shaped bodies that training alone cant account for.

Um - have you seen Hodgkinson?

It's been proven e Africans don't dope. Not sure where all this conjecture is coming from.

In this simple construction, it is the soles with new material which improves efficiency with each step.

Whatever you want to suggest is just your own suggestion based on no knowledge. It has no weight until you provide substantial facts -- which you cannot.

You only display how little you know about the sport with each post. Assefa changed her speciality, and her training, for the marathon.

I could be persuaded that some of these magic potions are real if you could provide some supporting facts that suggest doping can provide all these benefits you believe.

But you cannot.

No you couldn't.

This is probably the most dishonest thing you've ever said on this forum, and that's certainly saying something.

So, we have a 29-year-old long distance runner who used to be a sprinter (4x400m in 2012) and middle distance runner (2014-2016) who dropped from international competition in 2017, returned as a 34:35 10K runner in 2018, improved to 31:45/1:08:24 in 2019; was a 30:52/1:07:28/2:15:37 runner last year take a leap from "only" being able to hold 5:08.79 for 13.1 miles (and 5:10.35 for 26.2 miles) to 5:01.81 (nearly nine seconds faster/mile over the marathon) a year later?

The sudden and extraordinary improvement in Assefa's performance, especially when considering her time away from the sport, does raise some intriguing questions. While it's essential to not jump to conclusions, it's fair enough based on logic and reason to wonder if there are factors at play that contributed to this dramatic transformation. Her hiatus from international competition, though, opens the door to speculation about what transpired during that period.

Assefa's performance is truly remarkable and almost unbelievable.

*I* do not think any distance runner can run the marathon faster with drugs, then they can with "legal" methods, so the records are what they are.

If such PEDs truly existed for the marathon, more non-African women would have run many more sub-2:20s, and more non-African men would have run many more sub-2:10s.

The pacing is a good question -- *I* think that is probably worth 1-2 minutes.

Back in the Daegue 2011 World Championships, at least 30% of athletes at the games anonymously admitted to doping at the time.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/29/sports/2011-study-finds-widespread-doping-in-track.html

Multiple Studies have Linked EPO to increases in Running performance.

journals.plos.org

Haemoglobin Mass and Running Time Trial Performance after Recombinant Human Erythropoietin Administration in Trained Men

Recombinant human erythropoietin (rHuEpo) increases haemoglobin mass (Hbmass) and maximal oxygen uptake ( O2 max). Purpose This study defined the time course of changes in Hbmass, O2 max as well as running time trial performa...

Open link

There was a study in 2019 that explored the effects of EPO on trained Athletes living in Altitude in Kenyan.

https://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/Fulltext/2019/02000/Effects_of_EPO_on_Blood_Parameters_and_Running.10.aspx

The conclusion of that study's finding

“Although the rHuEpo-induced increase in key hematological parameters in these altitude-adapted Kenyan endurance runners was blunted compared with white athletes living and training at or near sea level, the relative improvements of ~5% and ~3% in running performance immediately after the rHuEpo administration and 4 wk after the last injection, respectively, were similar in both groups. This finding is also in line with the overwhelming scientific literature.”