My thoughts on Eliud Kipchoge's marathon/Nike stunt

This thread certainly proves a point: There are plenty of jealous folks out there.

Times change, we adapt, you don't adapt you become a dinosaur (as most of the zealots, "purists" and running moralists here are already)

The sport is not going to die anytime soon for those predicting marathon running doomsday after this event.

GET OVER IT!

"Versus" FTLOG

I'm sorry that you're not capable of running 8 mph.

Run007xx wrote:

Tried this, and I'm back to tell you the event was not wind aided.

You're a fat armchair pompous blowhard.

Your wrong wrote:

The event was in fact wind aided, because they had a major wind breaker driving in front of them. Instead of having a 13 mph "wind" in their face (their running speed against still air), they had lower air density which probably made it the equivalent of a 5 mph tailwind.

Try this: go run 8 mph into still air. Note your heart rate. On the same course, wait for a day with a 5 mph headwind, and then run your 8 mph. From an air resistance standpoint, that's the difference between 8 and 13 mph. Compare your heart rate between the two tests.

Then come back and tell me if the event was wind aided or not.

The Gatlin comparison is well taken. The theater of the absurd, yes, but it is amusing, yes, and informative... the same with Kipchoge although his run was much tougher than Gatlin's.

This idea is not new. There have always been verifiable performances well beyond the current WR either run under unofficial conditions or with excessive wind assistance. They have stood as outliers but I think there's the notion of possibility that they invoke, the speed up of official record closure.

Snoddy's 9.87 100 in 1978, assisted by 5+ meters.

Burrell's 19.61 in 1990.

Snell's 1:44.9 880y relay leg in 1960

Numerous runs by Walter George in the 1880s.

Nurmi training sessions for the 1500 and 5k in 1924.

I'm sure the collective LR can produce hundreds of these examples. Why is this new one any different?

It was an amazing performance. Nobody previously would have gone anywhere near that time and nobody in the next 20 years will either. I doubt the pace formation, shoes, pace car or special drinks helped that much. Certainly didnt help the other two runners. Kipchoge could run a similar time in Berlin if the conditions were right and he had decent pacing to 25-30km. Trouble is Berlin is a race and you have to leave something for the last 5km in case a Kipsang or Bekele or unknown Kenyan or Ethiopian has a good day and you have a bad one and fall apart with 5km to go because the first 35km was sub 2 hour pace. You cant race flat out from the start and expect to have anything left for the end. Thats for time trials and record attempts. Monza wasnt much different to track WR attempts for middle and long distance events. Good track, good conditions, great pacing all set up for one athlete. If Kipchoge is willing to risk it he would destroy the WR in Berlin.

Where the big names? wrote:

This will only push marathons even further to try and set high speed times, and I'm sure with time even Kipchoge's mark will be broken in a legit marathon. cause as Bekele said, winning a marathon in 2:10 doesn't give you full happiness. Achieving fast times PB's, improvement - that's what gives a runner and any man in any thing in life satisfaction- improvement, moving forward, aiming high, in any aspect of life. I'm sure that deep inside Farah is unsatisfied and knows that he hasn't yet set any mark, with his sit and kicks. Centro's gold medal is nothing but a joke, and I'm sure centro knows it.

I do not consider Centro's Rio Olympics 1500m gold medal a joke. But the race was strange and in several ways disappointing:

1) Yes, the overall time was pedestrian, but I wouldn't blame Centro. Centro is perhaps the least to blame for tactics that gained for him yet another championship medal, and he now has one of the superior trophy cases among middle distance and distance runners.

2) What disappoints me more is that Suleiman mugged Kwemoi and interfered badly with Iguider and was NOT disqualified.