Sub 2 Hour Marathon Discussion: My Thoughts and Yours

Haile Gebrselassie ran 203 high at age 35. and probably could have done 203 low if everything was perfect.

if you had a group of several guys with similar ability but in their mid 20's and they exchanged the lead drafting all the way, you could have a half dozen half-marathoners bring them to the half in an hour. i think someone in that group could go 202 low. perfect conditions.

peds figure into most of the records, so with the best peds and sports medicine you are looking at 4:3x miles all the way.

so optimizing all around, the 2 hour marathon is doable.

these kind of athletes would be able to run 10k in 26 flat as well.

Has anyone here heard about the genetic freaks that have no limit on their EPO/rbc production? It's something that basically all the EPO dopers are mimicking by taking EPO. I think it was found in a cross-country skier? He could basically keep up with all the EPO cheats naturally.

There are always genetic freaks - witness the super strong babies. They just have their muscle inhibitors turned off (both, not one or the other). Similarly, a German kid had one built arm (like Popeye) and one skinny arm! He was a beast arm-wrestler!

What we are waiting for, is for this to crop up in the East African gene-pool...

Here's another way to look at it. A 2:00:00 marathon requires a pace of 2:50.64/km or 4:34.61/mile. Assuming an equivalent performance to a 2:03:38 marathon, how long can today's best runners maintain a pace of 2:50.64/km (or 4:34.61/mi)?

By my simple calculations (using Purdy to determine equivalent performances), today's top runners can only maintain a 2:50.64 pace for 27.89 km (or a 4:34.61 pace for 17.33 miles), in a time of 1:19:19.05.

In other words, Makau can only hold that pace for 79 minutes and 19.05 seconds. The 2:00:00 marathon runner would need to extend that same pace by another 14.305km, or 8.8887 miles, or 40 minutes and 40.95 seconds.

crazy raisin wrote:

I'm gonna guess the fastest half ever in a marathon was the 61:30 from London in 2008.

Ronaldo da Costa (1:04:42/1:01:23). Imagine what he could have done with a more even pace!

DontFeedTheTroll wrote:

Ronaldo da Costa (1:04:42/1:01:23). Imagine what he could have done with a more even pace!

2:06:05 -> 2:05:32 (1:02:46, 1:02:46)

DontFeedTheTroll wrote:

Ronaldo da Costa (1:04:42/1:01:23). Imagine what he could have done with a more even pace!

Wow, didn't know about that split. Incredible. But the 61:08 from Berlin 2012 was still faster as I realized later.

It's like talking about 3:59.4 while your current PR is 4:06.7....

This in theory is very convincing about impossibility of a 2hr marathon, unfortunately very sound theories in the past were eventually disproven with time. I believe that even with all technology now and to come, there will be a time where we will perfect human running and stagnate. What I have a hard time understanding is why one thinks it is 2013. What happens even if it takes twenty years and some guys run 2.01? I can see conversations then being more cautious about the probability of a 2hr marathon.

Perhaps marathon times have fallen due to the peleton effect of having larger numbers of fast runners doing the pace setting, letting the "drafters" save their energy for the second half. I would like to see a race organizer put up prize money for each and every runner that holds sub-2 hour pace, paid out incrementally at 5K checkpoints. So if at 25K there are five runners still "on pace" they all get a payday. You need to encourage a team approach if you are to have any chance of doing this. No one individual can do it alone. A bit like cycling....the peloton moves much faster than an individual my himself. And yes...drafting does matter a lot at those speeds! Encourage a "team" approach, with a "team payday" for all participants, and you will have the best chance of success.

wejo wrote:

Nutella1 wrote:

I agree with everything in that article except the drugs part. You seem to assume that 12:37/26:17/2:03:38 are all clean performances. And I doubt that.

Trust me I don't rule out the possibility of doping with any of the world records. What I was trying to rule out was the invention of some wonder drug that helps performances even more or if there was no drug testing and someone broke 2:00 while completely doped.

One simple way to look at it is that the WR is now 2:03:38 and that is 3:38 away from 2:00:00.

Add 3:38 to the current WR (set in late 2011) and you go back in time 26 years to Lopes running 2:07:12. Lopes was perhaps the most accomplished 10k runner in history against the clock to that point. He ran 27:17, less than 10 months before the 2:07 WR. He had also run in the 27:23-35 range many times. The WR when he ran the first 2:07 was 27:13, and he was 2nd all-time at 27:17.

So we will can agree that he was a solid 27:17-27:30 runner.

There have been 5 runners under 26:30 and they have run 26:17-26:31, so that kind of time is on par with a marathon of 2:03:38 - roughly 2:05:00. Two of the Marathon WR-setters were also 10k WR setters and both were in that 26:17-31 group (Tergat and Gebrselassie).

So, for a man to run 2:00:00, the 10k WR would have to improve another MINUTE. I am not saying that the 2-hr-marathoner would be able to run 25:17-25:30, but they would need to be in that area.

Does anyone see anyone running 25:15? Or even threatening 25:30?

If the drug police are able to keep people at the 1970s/80s level of drug use ... I doubt we will see WRs in the 1500 through 10k until after 2050. If the drug use continues unabated, we will see some marginal improvements over the next 30 yrs but I think it will be something like this:

1500 - none or 3:25-high

3k - none or 7:19-high

Steeple - 7:51-2

5k - 12:34-36

10k - 26:15

Before you say I am crazy, take a look at how far the records were lowered during the EPO era and how little change there has been in the last 15 yrs. All the improvements have been in the marathon and the depth of the marathon. I can see that record drought of 15 yrs doubling to another 30 and it taking until 2045 to reach times like the ones above.

A sub two hour marathon on a world record course is possible with current runners. It's just that the extremely unusual conditions to bring it about are not sought out. I've done bike rides over two hours starting and ending at the same place with a strong tail wind the whole time--it is a rare thing, but it happens. In some places in the world, such conditions might be common. Also, an out and back course with the first half shielded from the wind, and the second half with a massive tail wind (40mph) would do it. There is a bike path that heads south out of Bowling Green, Ohio (just over 13 miles long) that is close to this because it has trees for much of it and the roads parallel are wide open. The trees are not dense enough to give a net benefit, I think, but they are close to doing so. There is a wind farm there; steady winds of 30 mph are common during certain times of the year, and some days gusts get much stronger (a friend was once standing his bike steady by the seat, and the bike was blown out of his hand and flew around 15 yards into a corn field). The path runs north-south, and the prevailing wind is from the southwest, so not perfect. We are close right there to sub 2 with current runners on a legal course.

So tell me again how you can get 13 miles protected from the wind completely and then a 30 mph tailwind on the way back on a loop course?

And how is it that these "extremely unusual conditions to bring it about are not sought out"?

One of the best things about Letsrun is you only need to read a little bit for about 3 minutes and you feel so much smarter than you did before.

napper wrote:

I think building a big, fast track that is sheltered from the wind is key. Build a temporary track at a nascar racetrack, bring in the top 20 elites and pacemakers, and offer a huge bonus for a WR and bigger bonus for sub 2 hours. In perfect weather, no wind, pacemakers to draft off of, the current elites could shave off a minute or two from the world's fastest time.

We're talking about a marathon run in under 2:00:00 in the same conditions as now. Normal roads, normal shoes, normal drugs, or no drugs, normal wind or no wind.

Everyone can figure out how to make a 26.2 mile road race easier and therefore not be a 26.2 mile ROAD race anymore. You could run it downhill, you could run it behind a giant car so the draft is HUGE, you could do all kinds of things ... that is not a normal road race.

We are talking about how a human (who may be able to run 2:03-2:05 now) might be able to improve to 1:59, not how to make it easier for these humans to run faster than they have under ideal conditions already.

Like if you ran 2:38 and you wanted to run 2:30, you work to improve, you don't run a 25-mile race and call it a 2:30.

good post.

what we should keep in mind is -unfortunately- a strong human will to cheat. right now it´s quite effective to analyze blood profiles (we all wish it would be common practice in east africa).

the next generation of doping will be genetic doping.

scientist around the world work like mad and we can see the finish line. therefore i guess it might be possible in the near future that we wonder about marathoners with fantastic recovery datas / blood values / enzymatic functions.

agree with most things here, except once Rudisha moves up to the 1500m, he will run 3:24. His speed 4/8 is unprecedented.

If they WERE to run good marathons, I could imagine Bekele, Tadese and Wanjiru going 2:02 maybe 2:01. Maybe some miracle runner 2:00:59. But under 2:00:00? Running back to back sub one hour halfs? I don't think it's posible. Some people seem to think that we will just go better and better without stopping...Imho we already found out the best genes (East Africa) combined with the most sophisticated training (when you think about the money that is now involved and the number of people running under 2:06).

My only hypothetical fantasy: Bekele in one of his top seasons with the help of under water treadmill training and this fryo-sauna, Wanjiru as pacer to 35k and Tadese with him to 40k. Haha.

tadesse clearly never was as good on the road as on the track. Bekele perhaps 2:02 although his gait is not suited for the marathon (heel touches buttocks).

London Marathon 2009

(Wanjiru 2:05:10 ++ 4:25 for the 19th mile)

@5K

1 WANJIRU, SAMUEL (KEN) 0:14:08

2 GHARIB, JAOUAD (MAR) 0:14:08

3 KEBEDE, TSEGAY (ETH) 0:14:08

@10K

1 TADESE, ZERSENAY (ERI) 0:28:30

2 WANJIRU, SAMUEL (KEN) 0:28:30

3 KEBEDE, TSEGAY (ETH) 0:28:31

http://www.sportsscientists.com/2009/04/london-2009-splits-and-pacing.html

http://results-2009.london-marathon.co.uk/index.php?splitw=FINISHNET&splitm=TIME01&a=t&event_id=RAT

Nice. Forgot about that. Despite starting out WAY faster than the 2013 group, they blow'd-up less.

How about this idea for pacing a sub 2 hour marathon - set the pace car to that pace (or slightly faster) and have the group try to hang on. I'd PPV that.