This thread was started before the race. We changed the title and merged it with a 2nd thread that was started with the title of "Ethan MF Shuley 2:07:13 Marathon at 2026 Osaka Marathon". We have an article up oon the race here: https://www.letsrun.com/news/2...
Really? If this guy had been Kenyan you all would been pelting him with all sorts of accusations.
oops. Was replying to this.
This is a false equivalence. There are dozens of no-name Kenyans who run 2:07 and nobody throws major accusations. Alex Masai ran 2:04 and beat Mantz and I didn’t see doping accusations. Granted that’s helped by him being a US-based athlete. Still, 2:07 isn’t a time that elicits many sorts of accusations for a Kenyan.
I wouldn't give a ton of weight to the fact that he won the 2014 KY 2A 3200m state title in 10th grade (in 9:30). I'm from KY and it's objectively not a strong state, relative to the others. This was in 2A also, which is the 2nd division in KY (3A = large schools, 2A = medium schools, 1A = small schools). He would've been 5th in the 3A 3200m race that year, and there were probably 1000 other kids stronger across the country. Not saying he was a slouch by any means, and understand he was in 10th grade, not 12th, but certainly wouldn't put him on the level of the KY legends of the last 30 years - Bobby Curtis, Jacob Thomson, and up and comer Paul Van Laningham. He did appear to win the 2015 1600m (4:18) and 3200m (9:29) easily, so if not injured for 2016 maybe he would've laid down some national-class times. All this is more support that the meteoric rise is astounding and awesome. No one would've reasonably predicted him to become a 2:07 guy in high school. IMO that would be reserved for the top 5-10 aerobically-inclined kids in the country in a given year...
I changed the thread title since Ethan Shuley just ran 2:07:13 in Osaka.
This has gotta be one of the most out-of-nowhere results in the history of US marathoning. I thought Matthew Richtman running 2:07:57 in LA last year was wild (and it still doesn't make sense to me given the low volume he was running) but Richtman was at least 26th at NCAA XC.
Here is Shuley's progression, best I can tell. He's 27 years old:
2014-15: Two-time Kentucky 2A state champ in XC. 2016: Graduates HS with track pbs of 4:14/9:10 (full mile/2-mile). Those are both from his junior year (no results as a HS senior) -- those are pretty strong marks for a HS junior in 2015. 2016-20: Goes to BYU but barely races. Only mark is 8:45 for 3000 in January 2020 -- or 10+ seconds slower than Jane Hedengren. That's at altitude in Provo on a bad track, but still not very impressive. 2021-24: Only one result during this span: 8:42 for 3k on the JDL Fast Track (flat track) 2025: Surfaces in Japan, runs 2:18 at Nagano Marathon in April. Runs 63:06 half in October, then 2:11 at Kobe Marathon in December. 2026: Runs 61:02 half in Osaka on January 25. Now four weeks later runs 2:07!
So he barely raced at all for almost a decade -- two races from 2016-24. Now 2:18 to 2:11 to 2:07 in the span of 11 months.
Isaac Wood just told me he coaches him. I'm going to call him and get the scoop.
Thanks Jon, why did he not run senior year? I'm surprised. Usually that's a good year to prep film/tape for colleges, etc. Unless I'm missing something. GREAT RUN!
I grew up in the Cincinnati area the same time Ethan went to high school in northern Kentucky and I remember hearing his name floated around a few times. You’re not wrong when you say this might be the craziest out of nowhere result you’ve ever seen. Absolutely wild stuff.
It was cool seeing his half training vid (The 61-flat run before Osaka) wearing a Bengals hat. Lots of respect. WHO DEY
Agree the WA tables don't reflect the effort, but...
Go to Runnerspace.com, then "Tools", then Performance predictor and enter his 61:01 half time. Two of the four predictions are very close and the other two now far off. And even the average of the four is 2:08
Pete Riegel's is the closest at 2:07:12 Here is a quote from the explanation/credits page from this calculator:
"Pete Riegel's Model: t2 = t1 * (d2 / d1)^1.06 where t1 equals the initial time, d1 equals the initial distance, d2 equals the new distance being calculated for, and t2 equals the predicted time for the new distance. The formula was developed by Pete Riegel and published first in a slightly different form in Runner's World, August 1977, in an article in that issue entitled "Time Predicting." The formula was refined for other sports (swimming, bicycling, walking) in an article "Athletic Records and Human Endurance," also written by Pete Riegel, which appeared in American Scientist, May-June 1981."
IMHO this is an excellent prediction calculator. I have used it for several year. It is often so accurate, that there have been times after racing hard after a 10 milers (Flint Crim) or Half Marathons (USATF Masters championships), that boggles my mind; < 00:00:10 off.
Great site and very useful tool - kudos to them to making this calculator public and free!
Riegel’s is good, but most of those calculators don’t work for “slow twitch beasts,” who are tailor made for the marathon. Honestly, more Americans should do what Shuley did but don’t wait ten years to do it. Go Japan-style either in Japan or over here right after high school. Tons and tons of volume, most of it very easy. That’s what they do in Japan, which is why there are so many fast 18 and 19 year olds.
Having said all of this, the super shoes definitely shave time. I don’t think they’re worth five minutes as some knuckleheads assert, but I definitely think they’re worth two minutes and one minute in the half. So, an equivalent 1:02 and 2:09, even in the good ole days was still happening. No huge shock here.
I remember HRE and Bob Hodge with posts on Japanese training here years ago. Some of them would run triples (!) and about 20-25 miles a day and up to 160 mpw.
Bronze Age Mindset wrote: Video: Great video. Lots of guys have the false idea that if they're a blue-eyed American in Japan, dating would be easy. I would say this guy is slightly above average in looks and apparently he can't get a single date.
That is one depressing video. Social media is no way to get dates for a guy. One thing he could do is show a little affect, but then tough to do that when you're announcing that you got one unsuccessful date over a month on eight different dating apps at once. Good for him that he could turn his energy elsewhere. Maybe that was his key, running on pure frustration. When George had no sex, he got smart; Ethan got fast.
"I have to learn how to be alone without feeling the pain of loneliness." I sincerely appreciate this man's apparent penchant for the dramatic.
But, it's honestly wild that we've: (1) got a 2:07 marathoner out of nowhere and (2) he's published this kind of Youtube content on his public account lmao.
I was reading JRN’s Osaka Marathon preview and Japan-based American Ethan Shuley is looking to run a 2:06 at Osaka. I had never heard of him and could not find any mention of him on these boards. I did some research and it appears that he ran at BYU and was a High School state champ in Kentucky. He set a half marathon PR of 1:01:01 last month.
I changed the thread title since Ethan Shuley just ran 2:07:13 in Osaka.
This has gotta be one of the most out-of-nowhere results in the history of US marathoning. I thought Matthew Richtman running 2:07:57 in LA last year was wild (and it still doesn't make sense to me given the low volume he was running) but Richtman was at least 26th at NCAA XC.
Here is Shuley's progression, best I can tell. He's 27 years old:
2014-15: Two-time Kentucky 2A state champ in XC. 2016: Graduates HS with track pbs of 4:14/9:10 (full mile/2-mile). Those are both from his junior year (no results as a HS senior) -- those are pretty strong marks for a HS junior in 2015. 2016-20: Goes to BYU but barely races. Only mark is 8:45 for 3000 in January 2020 -- or 10+ seconds slower than Jane Hedengren. That's at altitude in Provo on a bad track, but still not very impressive. 2021-24: Only one result during this span: 8:42 for 3k on the JDL Fast Track (flat track) 2025: Surfaces in Japan, runs 2:18 at Nagano Marathon in April. Runs 63:06 half in October, then 2:11 at Kobe Marathon in December. 2026: Runs 61:02 half in Osaka on January 25. Now four weeks later runs 2:07!
So he barely raced at all for almost a decade -- two races from 2016-24. Now 2:18 to 2:11 to 2:07 in the span of 11 months.
Isaac Wood just told me he coaches him. I'm going to call him and get the scoop.
Thanks Jon, why did he not run senior year? I'm surprised. Usually that's a good year to prep film/tape for colleges, etc. Unless I'm missing something. GREAT RUN!
He was injured his senior year of high school after XC finished.
See @Ackley's post #82 on the previous page:
> His story is that he won his first Kentucky state track championship as a sophomore. He won a couple more but got injured after his senior cross country season so he missed his senior track season.
And the marathon WRs weren't exactly stagnant before 2016, meaning they would have improved without supershoes too. So clearly less than 2 minutes for the top male marathoners.
Or are you saying that K. Kiptum and Kipchoge etc were that mucb less talented than Kimetto + E. Mutai?
Japan has an extreme anti-drug and anti-doping culture, as the dingus from Sweat Elite found out the hard way. Japan has zero history of athletes getting popped for anything. The idea that a Mormon moved to Japan to begin a doping program is absurd. What the Japanese do have is a very long history of high mileage athletes who perform very well at half marathon and the marathon. Go look at Shuley’s Strava.
2:07 might be big news here, but in Japan, it makes you just another guy.
Japan has an extreme anti-drug and anti-doping culture, as the dingus from Sweat Elite found out the hard way. Japan has zero history of athletes getting popped for anything. The idea that a Mormon moved to Japan to begin a doping program is absurd. What the Japanese do have is a very long history of high mileage athletes who perform very well at half marathon and the marathon. Go look at Shuley’s Strava.
2:07 might be big news here, but in Japan, it makes you just another guy.
I wouldn't give a ton of weight to the fact that he won the 2014 KY 2A 3200m state title in 10th grade (in 9:30). I'm from KY and it's objectively not a strong state, relative to the others. This was in 2A also, which is the 2nd division in KY (3A = large schools, 2A = medium schools, 1A = small schools). He would've been 5th in the 3A 3200m race that year, and there were probably 1000 other kids stronger across the country. Not saying he was a slouch by any means, and understand he was in 10th grade, not 12th, but certainly wouldn't put him on the level of the KY legends of the last 30 years - Bobby Curtis, Jacob Thomson, and up and comer Paul Van Laningham. He did appear to win the 2015 1600m (4:18) and 3200m (9:29) easily, so if not injured for 2016 maybe he would've laid down some national-class times. All this is more support that the meteoric rise is astounding and awesome. No one would've reasonably predicted him to become a 2:07 guy in high school. IMO that would be reserved for the top 5-10 aerobically-inclined kids in the country in a given year...
Source: ky.milesplit.com
Uh, I can think of one far more talented runner from Kentucky…
Those shoes aren't dragging him out of bed and through 150 mile weeks. On race day he still needs the mental fortitude to push through the pain for a 2:07. Congratulations to him. Hopefully this will inspire plenty of high schoolers, collegiates, club runners, pros, etc.
All one needs for a sub 3 hobby thon are super shoes and a cup of epo tea, maybe some 30 min jogs.
Bronze Age Mindset wrote: Video: Great video. Lots of guys have the false idea that if they're a blue-eyed American in Japan, dating would be easy. I would say this guy is slightly above average in looks and apparently he can't get a single date.
