Official 2014 Paris Marathon Live Discussion Thread - Kenenisa Bekele Makes His 26.2 Debut

You also hedged with the entire 2:05:01.01-2:05:59.99 window, vs. the other guy who was only off by a few seconds. Say 2:05:00 next time if that's what you really meant.

cmondude wrote:

You also hedged with the entire 2:05:01.01-2:05:59.99 window, vs. the other guy who was only off by a few seconds. Say 2:05:00 next time if that's what you really meant.

If you look closely you'll see Athleticsillustrated was saying he wanted the CR (2:05:12), so clearly the 2:05-2:06 window was not what was meant.

I was thinking right at 2:05. My guess is that he would know if he is in shape...we aren't talking some up and coming runner, so he would aim for that and get it. His coach sorta knows what he is doing too. If weather went sideways, then I could see a blow-up or a give-up.

I have an article that suggests 2:04:57 as well - based on IAAF scoring tables.

Wrong there , actually 90% of Letsrun folks hate Mo with passion

Mo Farah CURRENTLY is the BEST long distance runner on the planet , hate it or love it , its what its

I think it very likely that Dubai is short. Apart from Haile, all of the amazing times that have been set there have not been reproduced by the runners in any other subsequent race. This year an 18 year old ran 2.04.32 on his debut. Not really credible in my opinion.

tony the tiger wrote:

Mo Farah CURRENTLY is the BEST long distance runner on the planet , hate it or love it , its what its

ummmmmm, ever heard of Bernard Lagat? Given the dudes age he is the undisputed heavyweight champ of running right now.

I was only 4 seconds off, so 2nd place. Hopefully my 2nd predict holds.

Fluid Mechanic wrote:

2:04:59 CR, setting him up nicely for a 2:02:59 WR in Berlin.

I really want to see him have another go at being the dominating force he once was. I started following the sport late in high school when he was untouchable on the track around 2005, and I fondly remember watching him lay waste to field after field. While some people like seeing the king deposed, I'm always pulling for the best of the best to one up themselves.

Lets go KB!

adam&eve wrote:

I think it very likely that Dubai is short. Apart from Haile, all of the amazing times that have been set there have not been reproduced by the runners in any other subsequent race. This year an 18 year old ran 2.04.32 on his debut. Not really credible in my opinion.

I posted this after people were talking about this very thing after the Dubai marathon this year:

"Average GDP/capita in Ethiopia = 470.22 USD (from google, which is an amalgamation of sources)

Average GDP/capita in USA = 49,965.27 USD (google)

200k to your average Ethiopian (and I think most of these runners are way below the average, since they are typically rural farmers and the cities have the money) goes as far as

$21,251,869.34 in the USA9 [200,000 * 49,965.27 / 470.22]

That's not even the whole story; the opportunity cost for a rural Ethiopian farmer to train his balls off all day every day is negligible because he is making so little money otherwise. Take away any opportunity cost from the average American and the financial incentive goes even higher.

The financial incentive for winning Dubai to an Ethiopian is roughly equivalent to the being one of the 10 best players in America's best-paid sport (obviously discounting endorsements outside of the player's team-paid salary).

Source:

"

Combined with the consensus being that all East African's stated ages aren't accurate, maybe this will make the results of Dubai seem a bit more credible.

That the debutante wasn't 18 but probably 25 yes.

The fact that times haven't replicated later indicates

the opposite.

might be rcs wrote:

2. It is very easy to run the tangents (ie THE ACTUAL RACE DISTANCE). While London is really quite flat, the turns are frequent and often sharp. NOBODY runs the shortest possible distance, and if they do they either use more energy or slow down minutely as the take the corners. The tightest turns in Dubai are bends you can see literally a mile away. The turns are rarely if ever even as tight as an outdoor track.

Agreed about the turns in London, but Dubai has at least TWO HAIRPIN TURNS which are worse than 3 or 4 corners combined.

2010 course map:

2011 course map:

2013 course map:

The fast times started with Geb in 2008:

http://www.dubaimarathon.org/news-media/results/

Do you know who measured the current and past courses?

malmo wrote:

rojo wrote:

The temperature will be 56-60 degrees but with very high humidity (86% to 80%) and it will be windier than one would like.

Weather:

http://www.weather.com/weather/hourbyhour/graph/Paris+FRXX0076:1:FR

I spoke with John Kellogg earlier tonight before looking at the forecast and asked him what he thought Bekele might do. He was bullish and said sub 2:05. He thought a 2:04:35-2:04:55 performance was possible.

Rojo, seriously. Why on Earth would you think that it was "muggy"?

The Dew Point never went over 53°. That's about as perfect conditions as you could possible expect.

I agree, people would be better off if they never ever thought in terms of the Relative Humidity because they make too many mistakes when they do. Look only at the dew point.

when the Temp is 70 and the dew point is 53 the relative humidity is 54% which does not sound too bad, although the temp is a tad high. With the temp only 58 with a dew point of 53 the RH is 83.4%. Now that sounds 'high' but is vastly better than the RH of 54% and temp of 70 (a 12 degree difference in temp is huge at that level).

Nappy Hair wrote:

=There is a decent chance he's doping which is why he burnt out on the track and switched to marathon, but who cares. When there's that kind of money at stake, nobody of his name recognition will go down.

Why deal with facts when you can create a conpsiracy theory.

Conspiracy theories always sound great - that's why they are theories.

But you don't think Tyson Gay, Asafa Powell aren't bigger names than Bekele? Marion Jones? Lance Armstrong? They all went down. AROD, Bonds, etc.

-Rojo

PS. I have no idea if he's doping or not but do know your post is just ignorant.

dkny64 wrote:

Wins in 2:05:06.

HM at 61:55, which blows off the field soon after, then blows up himself at the 21st mile. Has enough dignity to still crawl under the course record of 2:05:11.

[/quote]

Nicely done - I believe we have a winner! [although 3 flat / kilometer from 35k to the finish is some pretty fast "crawling"]

RoJo - what do we have for our champion? I hope you can do better than the classic "year's supply of Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco treat".[/quote]

I dont think that prediction is good at all. If he'd just made the prediction fine but he offered a lot of details which were 100% off. Bekele didn't fade at al. He was on 2:04:50 pace at 25k and ran the final 17k all alone at basically that pace.

-Robert

So he gets nothing.

tony the tiger wrote:

Wrong there , actually 90% of Letsrun folks hate Mo with passion

Mo Farah CURRENTLY is the BEST long distance runner on the planet , hate it or love it , its what its

I agree Mo is the best currently. And in his last race. He lost at 13.1 to Bekele.

The big thing for me to Bekele is he came through. 2:05:03 is what you'd expect from someone with his pedigree at 26.2 assuming he's good at the marathon. We didn't know 100% he'd be good at it.

REmember, that 13.1 race he beat Mo in was the first half marathon of his life. Now that's hard to believe.

As for Farah, he's a 3:28 1500 runner. My brain simply won' allow me to think he's going to be great at 26.2.

falsified wrote:

ummmmmm, ever heard of Bernard Lagat? Given the dudes age he is the undisputed heavyweight champ of running right now.

You are kidding right? Bekel is the champ.

Did your brain allow you a 10000m champ to run 3:28?

His reality

falsified wrote:

tony the tiger wrote:

Mo Farah CURRENTLY is the BEST long distance runner on the planet , hate it or love it , its what its

ummmmmm, ever heard of Bernard Lagat? Given the dudes age he is the undisputed heavyweight champ of running right now.

rojo wrote:

My brain simple

That is probably the most accurate thing that rojo ever wrote.