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

Steady pacing is easily achieved by painting a line every 100 meter on the road and set your watch (or a loudspeaker by the road) to beep at regular intervals according to WR pace. That's the way I do it on the track.

You were doing alright wejo until you wrote this: "...Renaldo DaCosta took the record to 2:06:05 in 1998. So since then we're halfway to 2:00:00". This is faulty analysis not befitting an elite marathoner who should know better. As Top Noticer wrote: "And 65 years from now, we'll be breaking 1:50 according to everyone's calculations. Good science, people." IOW the 3 minutes from 2:06 to 2:03 is simply not the same 3 minutes as 2:03 to 2:00.

I'm on record here as saying 2:03 would never be broken, well I'm proven wrong- but people are deluding themselves if they think suddenly 2:02xx will become routine. I would not be surprised if Kimetto's mark stands for a decade.

He just ran the fastest marathon ever on what has been established historically as the fastest legal course. It happened because all the conditions came together perfectly, including his own peak fitness. He's not likely to even break it himself. This was an outlying performance.

DavidSHM also has it right in his explanations.

ps: it's Ronaldo.

2 hour is not a mythical barrier, it is a real barrier that will never be broken. Already by 2030 runners will be running 2:00:0x. But they will fail to go under 2 hours. The final world record which will be tied by over 9000 Kenyans and Ryan Hall by the year 2776 will be 2:00:00.00.

It's more important to keep in mind that anyone running a sub 2 hour would have to run almost 1:30 for 2 halves in a row and that it's taken over 20 years for the half to not even improve 1:30, for one half!!!!!!!!!!

real physiology wrote:

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.

I'd take that bet, but my people don't live very long.

Why not just follow a lead vehicle with digital clock on it, as in Berlin, that is continuously displaying the time-differential between WR pace and current pace?

you're not Einstein wrote:

Steady pacing is easily achieved by painting a line every 100 meter on the road and set your watch (or a loudspeaker by the road) to beep at regular intervals according to WR pace. That's the way I do it on the track.

Yes and I agree, but try explaining it to the masses who don't truly get what happened on Sunday. Things have to be perfect with a capital P, and even then it still won't go down that easily when and if it does, 20-30 seconds at most. I too don't see anyone getting under 2:02 for a long time and laugh when runners say sub 2 hours! Dennis was "on" Sunday, but he was also totally spent, with nothing left as was 2nd place behind him. Yes, he should have been spent but that shows the effort put out to run that time on that day on that course. Dropping another 1:29ish for 13.1, twice in a row,...I don't think so. Again, comparing this to the mile progression is like comparing apples to dirt, it just doesn't fly and doesn't even belong in the conversation.I had one runner tell me that they could go 1:00:30 and then negative split by over a minute. He excluded the toll that the first half would take on their bodies and to be perfectly candid, that's not going to happen. These really talented runners can only go so fast for so long, even at optimum training combined with much needed rest to recover. Anyone who thinks Bekele is going to wipe that record off the books in Chicago doesn't really understand running. Sunday was special. Enjoy it as it's not going to happen for quite some time, and if it does, it ain't going to go by much. A 2:01 is almost 5 seconds faster per mile than Dennis went on Sunday. Think about it.

listen up... wrote:

Why not just follow a lead vehicle with digital clock on it, as in Berlin, that is continuously displaying the time-differential between WR pace and current pace?

you're not Einstein wrote:

Steady pacing is easily achieved by painting a line every 100 meter on the road and set your watch (or a loudspeaker by the road) to beep at regular intervals according to WR pace. That's the way I do it on the track.

Umm...it doesn't work that way, trust me.

We are not talking about how things currently 'work'. The discussion is with regard to what hypothetical improvements to the course conditions could be optimized to even chop further time off the record (e.g., huge oval course, etc.).

What I suggest is fairly simple to eliminate the athletes themselves having to do the math in their head.

But if you don't think the lead vehicle in Berlin actually did have a huge digital clock displaying time info in large red numerals to the lead athletes, then you're wrong.

But yeah David M, it wouldn't work on a relatively slow course like NYCM, because it is impractical to even-pace it with it's hills and typical wind.

If this is David Monti, maybe he too could comment on how it is a Kenyan gets entered in a big meet under a different name (see below). What, the NYRR work with their agent and their management companies? So Volares Sports would have been responsible for the miss-info in this case?

WILL NOT HAPPEN!!!!!!!!!!

maybe UNDER 2'01 !!!

Sub 2:00 is still relatively further away than a sub 26 10k.

Current marathon WR pace

5.719803 m/s avg. speed

For the marathon to break 2 hrs.

5.860415 m/s avg. speed

5.860415/5.719803 = 1.0245834 or 2.458% speed increase required

Current 10k world record

26:17

6.341154 m/s avg.

26:00

6.410256 m/s avg.

6.410256/6.34115= 1.010898023 or a 1.0898% speed increase.

So it will take a much greater speed increase to break 2:00 than it will to break 26... and you don't hear many people talking about a sub 26... maybe we should be.

Now some of you may argue that the marathon WR is nowhere near as strong as the 10k WR, but even if you say the marathon WR is equivalent to a 26:30 the math works out to a

6.410256/6.2893 = 1.01923 or a 1.923% speed increase required... so even if you pretend that the WR for the marathon is only worth a 26:30 for 10km, you would still need to more than break 26 minutes to be equivalent to breaking 2 hours.

I think we will see a few more records go down in the next decade or so, but we will see times level off around 2:01:57 +/- 20s

The reason no one is talking about a sub 26 is because no one cares about the 10k. And that specific time means nothing anyway. Sub 2 is something special. And it will happen in 2027.

Hey listen up..., you're responding to the wrong poster, or your axons and dendrites just aren't connecting. Reading is knowledge. Understand what you've read first and then make your feeble attempt to disagree, just to sound like you've got a clue.Where did I say anything about the lead vehicle not having a clock on it? I would bet 9 out of 10 runners know that. That's your point? That's all you've got?You think there is something new that is going to "work" versus what currently works? Please, enlighten me. I guarantee you that I've been there, and YOU haven't. There is no trick, it's hard, hard work and having the talent to do it. The difference between running 2:07 and 2:04 is not 3 minutes, but...it's closer to 3 minutes than the difference between running 2:02:57 and 1:59:59. My best guess is that I've lost you at this point, did I? The effort to run 1:59:59 on a perfect course in perfect conditions is something way, way way off in the future, NOT 15 years or anywhere close to it. Salad bar??, doesn't have a clue either. For the record, I don't come here often and "listen up..." is one of the reasons why.I am not David Monti, believe it or not. There are surely a few posters on this thread that get it, but most don't and I"m at a loss as to how people who are suppose to be runners can't figure it out. An uneducated person working out on a treadmill for 10 minutes as part of their routine, that I get. But people who actually run, I just don't get it. You're not seeing a sub 2 hour marathon on a certified course for a long, long time, and some people reading this will never see it happen. Don't listen to me, read the facts. No one is going to run 1:29 faster for 2 halves in a row when it took 21 years for it to drop 1:24. Dennis was depleted and gave it his all...great race Dennis!!!!!Hey listen up, listen up yourself and you may just learn something.

listen up... wrote:

We are not talking about how things currently 'work'. The discussion is with regard to what hypothetical improvements to the course conditions could be optimized to even chop further time off the record (e.g., huge oval course, etc.).

What I suggest is fairly simple to eliminate the athletes themselves having to do the math in their head.

But if you don't think the lead vehicle in Berlin actually did have a huge digital clock displaying time info in large red numerals to the lead athletes, then you're wrong.

Hey, I sometimes too don't agree with half the ridiculousness posted on here, but in this case, I suggest you breathe in, breathe out and relax a little bit so you can look at this rationally. If you review, you first replied to me (whether you meant to actually do that, or meant to reply to someone else, i dunno). But what you said to me was that what I said suggested wouldn't work in the real world "it doesn't work that way, trust me". All I suggested was a simpler way of supplying accurate pacing information to the runners, showing them a real-time clock (like they already do), rather than using a beacon of light on the road, or some greyhound rabbit running alongside of it.

You are picking an arbitrary limit. Why? There is no logic to it.

Why wouldn't a future marathon runner with a top speed of 8m/second, not be able to run for 26 miles @ 6m/second, which is well under 2 hours?

Limit was semi-arbitrary, but there was a calculation that led to it.

I assumed that the current marathon WR is equivalent to a 26:30 10km then decided to compare that to the current 10km WR of 26:17 10km(which most people consider to be pretty unlikely to go down anytime soon). The relative speed increase led to the 2:01:57 limit aforementioned (+/- 20 seconds came from a +/- 5 seconds/10km error which too is somewhat arbitrary).

Also these guys all can run 8m/s (thats only a 25 second 200m). But it seems like maximum speed is not the limiting factor on marathon success, otherwise you might expect someone like Mo Farah to be more successful.