NOW do you not think a sub-2:00:00 marathon will happen?

p.s You can offer someone 100 million dollars, but that type of enticement is a moot offer considering the task at hand. It's not going to happen for a very, very long time.

60 years ago, people were saying a sub 4 minute mile was impossible. It was broken. A decade later, high school kids were running sub-4. The WR is now 3:43. I am not suggesting a linear improvement in the marathon is going to happen now but anyone who thinks we have nearly reached the limits of human physiology is daft. We are not even close to the limits. Having so many guys running so close to WR pace suggests we are not even close to those limits.

"talent hits a target no one else can hit, genius hits a target no one else can see"

Improving to 2:02 from 2:02:57 is one thing, you are comparing apples to dirt if think that 2:02:57 to 1:59:59 is the same thing, because they are not.

Your comparison with the 4 minute mile has been mentioned 100's of times over the years, but it doesn't hold water.

Comparing the mile to the marathon is again, comparing apples to dirt.

I never said that we have nearly reached the limits of human physiology...but there are limits and yes we are close.

Did you read the "facts" that I laid out, numerical facts? You do understand that you're saying that the marathon wr will improve faster for 2 halves in a row, versus the one 1/2 that took 21 years and improved 1:24...you do get that, right?

Having so many guys running that close suggests that they are closer to the today's limits than you think.

Running at 2 hours for 4:35 is going to take a lot longer than 15 years.

Clayton's record was about 45 years ago. They have improved about 5.5 minutes in all those years with all the advancements in training and shoes. Now you think someone's going to run 3 minutes faster in 15 years at the pace they are going at now? Wanna bet?

I respectfully disagree.

I believe we will soon reach the ceiling and face an era similar to that in women's running.

The crackdown on drugs in Kenya was overblown. Nothing really happened. Some foreign coaches were thrown out of the country but guess what - the "pharmacy" in the Nairobi airport Hilton still exists.

However, this won't continue forever. Controls in Ethiopia are already rather tight and athletes are slower now. This will happen in Kenya, too.

They were lucky until now - big $$$ from western coaches, but no money for anti doping. I was basically paradise.

Oh, btw, Kimetto's agent is Dutch. Just saying.

DavidSHM wrote:

p.s You can offer someone 100 million dollars, but that type of enticement is a moot offer considering the task at hand. It's not going to happen for a very, very long time.

Define long time. 10 years seems unlikely 50 years on the other hand..... The problem with long time periods is you start running into unknowns. What if nobody is running the marathon in 50 years?

Of course we just need NIke to come out with a shoe that is 2% more efficient and we would be sitting right around 2 hours:) Or find a way to lay down a track in the middle of the city so you can run for 26.2 miles on nice synthetic surface.

Even with drugs there will always be a ceiling. Komen's 3k record is still there. Women's records off the charts. Drugs will always be ahead of testing. Its a matter of marrying talent with training with pharmaceutical manipulation.

Alan

DavidSHM wrote:

Did you read the "facts" that I laid out, numerical facts? You do understand that you're saying that the marathon wr will improve faster for 2 halves in a row, versus the one 1/2 that took 21 years and improved 1:24...you do get that, right?

You are misusing statistics. Those "facts" of yours aren't causal or limiting. They are retrospective. Where were the stats that predicted Geb would take off so much time in so little time? All it takes is the right athlete. You use numerical facts to determine when or if.

Sub 2 possible with...?

adidas Boost

+

Dennis Kimetto, E Mutai, G mutai, and W kipsang pacing each other and sharing the duties at the front. Potential to reduce wind resistance by huddling like a cycling peleton.

+

Banked course with perfect road surface and no sharp corners = no deceleration and no acceleration.

can we has run on tredmill? are tredmill record of world certified? run 1:59:59 on tredmill. like no epo even needed its in the tradmill.

runningart2004 wrote:

Even with drugs there will always be a ceiling. Komen's 3k record is still there. Women's records off the charts. Drugs will always be ahead of testing. Its a matter of marrying talent with training with pharmaceutical manipulation.

Alan

It's not about drugs Alan. You should really know better than that. You have been spending too much time on these boards reading posts by ignorant people and ignoring the intelligent ones.

It's about efficiency. Faster racing = less total energy expenditure.

I bet a 2 hour marathon could be approached somewhere like St George / Tucson / Sugarloaf. Yea, not record eligible courses and for good reason. But still, it would be interesting to see what a truly elite marathoner could do on one of those courses.

(Having done St George, I believe it's 10 mins faster than the flat equivalent (for those in the "BQ" range of times))

I do think it will happen, one day, many many years from now. I hope I live long enough to see it, but don't expect I will (I'm 49).

1+

Your logical reasoning sounds pretty much on point. Kinda reminds me of watching the 2004 Olympic 10 000m and seeing how Bekele, Sihine and Gebs worked together to totally destroy the Kenyans. Such tactics are fabulously effective when carried out by such 'freaks of nature.'

I'm older than you. I bet you $1million it happens in my lifetime. If you die first, you lose, if I die first you lose. So either way you lose.

There are faster courses wrote:

I bet a 2 hour marathon could be approached somewhere like St George / Tucson / Sugarloaf. Yea, not record eligible courses and for good reason. But still, it would be interesting to see what a truly elite marathoner could do on one of those courses.

(Having done St George, I believe it's 10 mins faster than the flat equivalent (for those in the "BQ" range of times))

Yes, not legal, but that is along the lines of what I am saying, just as in downhill running, more eccentric muscle work = less energy expenditure. It takes a lot of practice to do it for long distances on the flat, but it's the key to faster times, as long as the concentric work isn't neglected.

Think of it this way; the sub 2 hour marathon camp currently draws from a pool of runners created mostly by happenstance. Their environment, nutrition, mindset, talent, training, etc., was all really a matter of the right pieces coming together in a 1 in a billion chance.

Sort of like the way Ian Thrope or Lionel Messi were chemically aided in their upbringing we will see more and more "nutritional aids" applied during the formative years of a human's life. Those aids will lower the odds from 1 in a billion to 1 in a million. When that happens you can throw out all the records.

I think our sub two hour marathoner will be born in the next 10 years and will have access to the best upbringing that science can provide - either gene sequencing or hormone therapy.

All this intervention really is just moving further along the S curve. We don't really know where the top of the S is but, for sure, it's under 4:35 pace.

Interesting perspective, with a ring of possibility. I just looked up Messi on Wikipeadia; "Commonly ranked as the best player in the world and rated by some in the sport as the greatest of all time...At the age of five, Messi started playing football for Grandoli, a local club coached by his father Jorge...became part of a local youth powerhouse that lost only one match in the next four years...At the age of 11, Messi was diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency."

:-|

Yikes....the dystopian nature of the "Gattaca" movie be upon us?

Sciatica Road wrote:

Messi was diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency."

Messi was simply destined to be a borderline "little person", around 5 feet or so. He was already a brilliant soccer player.

The diagnose was made so they could feed him growth hormones throughout the next years until his late teens which really allowed him to become the greatest soccer player of all times.