Nick Symmonds 3:00:35 at Honolulu - Neg split.

The IAAF charts are not real equivalents because they're skewed by participation demographics. Road races involve people of all ages and ability levels with officially recorded stats available to compile. The 800 and 100 rarely have anyone competing seriously beyond college. X percentile of a road race distance is not as good as X percentile of top high schools, NCAA and elites.

It makes no sense to call 2:20, which is about 140/123 = 114% of the world record, with a 1:51 which is about 111/101 = 110% of the WR. It is worth a 1:55.

Why did it take longer for marathon to reach 2:20 than 800 to get to sub 1:50? Mainly because of the strict amateurism. It takes longer to develop an athlete's potential for marathon than track, and careers were shorter in the past, so top performances weren't what they could be.

Symmonds was injured after the half that he ran which is part of the reason why he hasn't been posting bc he hasn't been running so there's no video to record. You are vastly underestimating the work and amount if time it takes to run a 2:20. It's well known that you begin to lose fitness after only two weeks off of running and it's also well known that the end of Nick's pro career was filled with injury and time off of training. He'll run another one and if he's healthy he'll do much better. Not 2:20, bc that actually takes a ton of work.

johnny bean wrote:

gods among us wrote:

Nick Symmonds trainings from July to December with two weeks off in October and runs 3:00:05 at the Honolulu Marathon

Ryan Trahan resumes training for ten days and runs 2:59:16 at the BCS Marathon

Just curious, what does everyone here think of this?

I was gonna bring this up but I doubt many people here know Ryan. Basically, he's a mid-15 guy in HS and ran 18:30ish for the 8k in college. 4:15 miler. Anyways, he quit for 2-3 months, resumed training for 10 days, and ran 2:56 (2:59 officially but it was a long course) while talking to his college buddy on a bike the whole way, smiling and waving while it was live streamed.

He "quit" for maybe a few weeks, and had been putting in high mileage prior to that. If you want to get into the comparison, 3:00:35 at Honolulu is easily good for a few minutes faster on the BCS course. Neither time is super impressive anyway

But did hid he beat Oprah?

Xcool wrote:

oboeviolin wrote:

Now you are starting to understand. If you can't run 2:20 or better, you aren't a marathon runner.

2:20 in the marathon is like a a 100 m runner running 12.3 for the 100m.

Or a 400m in 53 seconds.

Or an 800 in 2:05

Get it? Its ordinary. Your problem is you all think so small.

According to IAAF charts

2:20 marathon = 990 pts

12.3 100= 543

2:05 800= 653 pts

53 400 = 712

990 pts (2:20 marathon) = 1:51 800, 10.66 100, and 47.9 400

You’re significantly underestimating what it takes to run a 2:20. That is at a level that the vast majority of devoted runners will never reach.

2:20 marathon is national class, in the hunt for an Olympic trials birth. 12.3 is a fast 100 meter time for a talented high school girl(high school defensive backs are on either side of 11 flat). 53 for 400 is also a girl's state time in high school.

Jack Daniels provides a chart in his second edition that equates a 2:20 marathon with a 4:13 mile, 14:33 5k, 30:16 10K and 1:06 half marathon. Most of those times are still records at many universities.

About one in a thousand Americans finishes a marathon each year and only about 1 in 2000 of those marathoners runs 2:20 or faster. There were about 20 men at 2:20 or under in Chicago last October out of 44,000 finishers. It is a very uncommon occurrence; .001 x .0005.

Back when I was a junior in Oz, we had a juniors running better than 2:20. 3 K steeplers, 5 k guys who entered it for a lark.

We had an ordinary guy who ran 2:10.

You have all lost your aspiration.

Who cares what the decathlon scoring tables are? Not me.

I know that guys who ran 2:20 when I was running, were not invited to sit at the adult table.

Go back in history and you'll find a lot of blooms of great runners. That's because they had others to show them it wasn't impossible.

You all sit on this site and drool over average times and limit yourselves. There are women running sub 2:20.

That alone should get you off your couch.

show some respect to Oprah, she is hot again.....NOT NOT NOT

lolhesucks wrote:

Nick Symonds has been irrelevant the past 5 years. We need to stop paying attention to a so called "professional runner" who cant even break 3 hours in the marathon. SAD!

Yeah, but Flotrack worships him. They are the only ones that pay attention to him.

I guess he forgot to FULLY PRIME HIS MUSCLES.

Want to break 3 hours but not sure why.

Check this guy up Kevin English running on Facebook.

No BS training online plans, lots of practical knowledge, cheap rates, and Exceptional record at coachin.

Dublin24

I'm not surprised at all. When I was 40 I could run 56 in the 400, 2:11 in the 800, and in the mid 18s for 5k. During the previous decade I did run a long run of about 12 miles once a week. After a summer of running 800s on the track I began my marathon prep in August. I worked up my long run to 3 hours but then shifted back to 2 hours and then gradually built it back up to one more 3 hour run. I did run a half marathon in 1:24 that autumn and a 20k on a very flat course in 1:19. I was fortunate enough to go to a camp in which Arthur Lydiard was the resident guest for two summers before the marathon. He gave me my training program. I was also very fortunate to have a friend who was a 2:30 marathon runner pace me. Though the course was very hilly I was well prepared as I had done a lot of training on hilly courses. The weather was perfect as well. My time was 3:00.44. If they only hadn't put in that mile long grade at about the 23 mile mark!

Ashton Eaton: same/similar result as Nick Symmonds

Trey Hardee, Pascal Behrenbruch, Nicklas Wiberg, Daniel Almgren: 3:00 at 50k

Luke Puskedra, Evan Jager, Kyle Skaggs: 2:48 at 50k and 7:00 at 100k

Ryan Crouser, Sam Crouser, Chris Mulverhill, Kyle Visser, Dakota Jones, Luke Beevor, Chris Moen, John Isner: 3:00 at 50k and 7:00 at 100k

Chris Derrick, Scott Fauble, Trevor Dunbar, Johnny Gregorek, Mac Fleet, Will Geoghegan, Brad Nye, Nathan Davis, Ben True, Chris Solinsky: 2:55 at 50k

Galen Rupp, Chris Froome: 2:40 at 50k

Ryan Hall, Jason Hartmann, Ryan Diem, Greg Clausen: 3:30 at 50k