Official NN Mission Marathon Discussion Thread - Will Kipchoge return to form or is he on the decline?

This is Jim Kiler wrote:

Sell to UPS or Amazon. They're using lots of 747s around here.

UPS in Germany already uses really loud old 747s to wake everyone up in the middle of the night. Given current parcel loads, I'm wondering why they aren't buying Antonovs - those things are massive in comparison.

Fantastic result for Kipchoge. Has to be the favourite for Tokyo at this point.

runderun wrote:

no farah wrote:

Surprised to see kipchoge in Vaporflys and not Alphas

Product placement by Nike. They were the Vaporfly 2 which aren't selling very well atm. Not because they are bad, mainly because Nike released three colours of the Next % late last year to early this year and saturated the market. I'm even seeing adverts for the Vaporfly 2 on my Twitter feed which never happened for any of the previous versions.

Shoes aside, great run out for Kipchoge today. 2.04 in a glorified time trial on a crappy course is a brilliant result. In a race, I think that's worth a 2:02-high to 2:03-low. I'm planning mining the gold on him now, the GOAT is back

I came this thread to ask for a shoe report and here it is. Thanks for being on top of it.

Well if they want to sell more VP2s, getting Kipchogie to run in them and not that alpha will slow alpha sale's I'd imagine.

Just watched replay of finish. Wasn’t even working hard

Random question xyz wrote:

Just watched replay of finish. Wasn’t even working hard

Be that as it may, the slightly slower splits every 5k cause me a slight pause. Sure, if I had to bet on the Olympic marathon this year, I'd pick Kipchoge, but it does not seem pre-ordained anymore like it was in 2016.

Random question xyz wrote:

Just watched replay of finish. Wasn’t even working hard

I agree, Kipchoge looked very comfortable at the end of the race. The turn around to Sapporo is fast for his normal spring/fall schedule, so probably it was volitional that he took his foot off the gas in the 2nd half of the race, but it would have been nice if he had thrown in one super fast 5K in the 2nd half to put fear into the hearts of his competitors. Well, this result will lead to more interesting discussion as we wait for August.

Kipchoge seemed to take off 1:35 into the race. I'm curious how fast he was running because he pulled away from the number 2 and pacer very quickly at that point

He's good but he definitely is not untouchable anymore.

I'm a little underwhelmed by this performance.

Definitely the favorite for Sapporo. Olympic marathons in the past have had various unpredictable winners but he did this easily and should win unless heat is a wild card.

runderun wrote:

no farah wrote:

Surprised to see kipchoge in Vaporflys and not Alphas

Product placement by Nike. They were the Vaporfly 2 which aren't selling very well atm. Not because they are bad, mainly because Nike released three colours of the Next % late last year to early this year and saturated the market. I'm even seeing adverts for the Vaporfly 2 on my Twitter feed which never happened for any of the previous versions.

More likely that VF > Alphafly as many of us have been saying

I think it was a very good performance, never looked troubled throughout. Yes 2:04 isn't that fast (relatively speaking, for Kipchoge); but I think you've got to take in to account:

1. It was an exposed environment - doesn't sound like it was especially windy, but being in an exposed open space can't have helped. I run in similar open areas quite a bit; and even on calm days there always seems to be some constant light breeze, that never lets up

2. Cold temps at start can't have helped

3. Lack of fans - IIRC one of things Nike said they learnt from the first breaking 2 attempt at Monza race track, was that the lack of crowd support was a factor; even for a metronome like Kipchoge. Got to think a crowd such as in London or Berlin would have been worth something time wise

Considering those factors, and the fact that the race wasn't that deep at the sharp end, then I think 2:04 looks pretty good

VF over Alpha for sure. As we see with most elites, but when it was specifically designed for Eliud basically, I always expected to see him run it them. Same with Rupp - who probably has no choice being a US Nike poster boy.

But I'll take the point about the VF2. They were a strange release anyway. I don't know who's giving up weight for a 'more comfy' upper in a racing shoe. VF1 has done fine it seems so far. I get it might let out water better, but how often are we peak racing in the rain

The camera angles looked off for most of the race, definitely not the ones you usually see for a major marathon. His stride looked fine at the end, when they finally panned out as he came down the straight. IMO he's locked and loaded.

John Wesley Harding wrote:

I think he’ll run 2:04-mid, win by about a minute, and we’ll be left with little clear indication that yes, in fact he has started to decline. He’ll go on to finish 2nd-4th at the Olympics.

Wow! You are a psychic.

Obviously it's all just speculation, but I really think Kipchoge used this as a tune up race for Tokyo, not a stand-alone peak race (obviously like he treats his typical two marathons each year). I would bet that once he secured the win that he intentionally took his foot off the gas a bit to save his body, treated this like a really REALLY hard training run/tune-up race. Bet that was his plan going in - think of this as a piece of the training puzzle toward peaking at the Olympics. Would imagine he comes out of this thinking that's exactly what I wanted to do, now let's get after it and get ready to redline it at the Olympics.

This was totally a training run for Kipchoge. The YT report said steady headwind for portion of the course, and Kipchoge was predetermined to stay in a certain range. Basically, 2:04:30 is a training tuneup. Final 5 miles was a snooze fest for him.

I don’t think there’s any reason to doubt him for Tokyo gold.

Keep in mind that there weren’t really any fans in the crowd, which has previously reported as having a pretty significant effect on him

landon wrote:

Keep in mind that there weren’t really any fans in the crowd, which has previously reported as having a pretty significant effect on him

which Kipchoge has*