Sub 2 Hour Marathon Discussion: My Thoughts and Yours

I think it would be seriously interesting to see just how long group of elite marathoners working together as a team could hold a sub 2 hour marathon pace. Could they make it beyond 30K? What if a race organizer were to host a n event with a group payday for an attempt at this? No serious group of elite marathoners would go out at this pace in a standard marathon event as they would consider it stupid. Remember this is how they make a living, so why try something so crazy. If however a race was set up with payouts starting at the half marathon, and progressing at regular increments, you might be able to encourage a group of elite runners to give it a try. If the payouts were designed progressively so that they were paid incrementally more for each additional mile where the average pace was still under the 2 hour pace, then they would have an incentive to keep trying, and to work together. It is almost silly to consider this to be an individual´s achievement now-a-days. This is a team time trial, just like what we see in cycling. So....are there any race directors out there willing to host such an attempt? Most would not want to "highjack" an event like Berlin, Chicago, London or Rotterdam, so it would probably require a separate non-traditional, perfectly designed course. I think sponsors would line up for it, if properly marketed and televised And the athletes would line up if the payday was on par with what they could win with a top finish in a major marathon race. Any takers?

Not longer than 28K or 1:19:38.

Rocket2 wrote:

I think it would be seriously interesting to see just how long group of elite marathoners working together as a team could hold a sub 2 hour marathon pace. Could they make it beyond 30K?

25km WR is run @ 2:51 pace and therefore no way anyone could maintain that speed longer

You're crazy.We saw in cycling, EPO benefited everyone (in multi-stage grand tours). If we look at track records during this famous "EPO-era", we see that the best times can be attributed to only a few athletes. If EPO use was so beneficial, and so rampant, why doesn't it help everyone, the way it did in cycling?

14-Flat wrote:

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.

Also, 30K would have to be run in 1:25:19 (2:50.6/km).Moses Mosops current world record is 1:26:47 (2:53.6/km).

Rocket2 wrote:

Could they make it beyond 30K?

Completely straight course with maximum allowed drop and perfect running surface. Perfect pacing and drafting. Perfect temperature and hydration.

If the running surface had cushioning then the runner would not have to wear shoes.

http://www.asbweb.org/conferences/2012/abstracts/261.pdf

"Advocates of barefoot running assert that it is more

metabolically efficient than shod running. This

idea makes sense because wearing shoes adds mass

to the feet, and this increases energetic cost.

Frederick et al. [2] showed that VO2 increases by

approximately 1% for each 100 grams of added

mass per shoe. Previous studies that controlled for

foot/shoe mass suggest that shoe cushioning may

provide an energetic advantage over running

barefoot [1, 2, 3]. Further, running in lightweight

shoes has about the same metabolic cost as running

barefoot [1, 4], suggesting that the positive effects

of shoe cushioning may counteract the negative

effects of added mass (Figure 1)."

How much tailwind is allowed in the marathon?

Good point! Perhaps with more people to draft off of, and a tighter field of super elite runners, someone would be able to get well past 25K at this pace. Mosop´s record was set on the track. You could stage the race as a "world record attempt" to gain popularity with the media and sponsors. The 25K and 30K world records would likely fall in the process if you had 10 or 12 elite (sub 59:30 half marathoners) in the field...all of which would get paid if any one person made it to 28K or even 30K on pace. Assuming you let 3 or 4 of them hang back and simply draft off of the top 6 or 7 runners, then they may just have enough energy left to hold the pace beyond 25K. I would let Tedese and Komon help do the pace setting early on. Then look for the guys with the most "staying power" to try to hang in for longer. The key would be making them work together. The pace itself is insanely fast when run solo, but we all know that drafting makes a big difference even in running events. I would argue that one of the reasons why times have fallen so much (besides potential drug use) is simply do to the absolute number of very fast East Africans that are in the field for major races like Berlin or Rotterdam. In the olden days you had maybe 2-3 guys who could go sub-209. Now a big race like Berlin will have 10 guys who can go that fast, all sharing the pacing duties along the way. Anyone here ever done a team time trial on a bike? The team goes way faster than the individual! Less so for running, but still an important factor! It begs the question as to whether or not it is really fair to consider world records to be an individual´s accomplishment. Do people care about finishing times in cycling? The top two marathon times ever run both had great pacemakers....perhaps those guys are the real heroes! -Just one man´s opinion

Keep smokin' whatever it is that you're smokin'!!!

You think pacers would have run a pace that would have brought them thru in about 1 hour flat for the first half, if not faster (ever hear of hills for the 2nd half??) , and they would have kept that up?

Ryan Hall was essentially a pacer and look what happened. Dropping 3 minutes plus is about 8 seconds per mile, much harder than you think.

Are you a 3 hour marathoner????? Just askin' as your logic is for the birds.

They had perfect weather and took advantage of it as the results speak for themselves. Going out in 1 hour and attempting to keep it up would have resulted in a slower finishing time, NOT faster....they would have blown up, period.

Smell the coffee dude and wake up as the cocoa beans in Nutella are giving you abnormal thoughts.

I don't understand your post. I proposed two scenarios; both actual instances in the real world. The first is very rare with the winds changing as one goes along the loop (in my case, triangle) course. As I said, there may be places where such wind conditions are common. The second is mostly out and back in concept, but you come back on a road rather than a bike path, which is a few hundred yards to the east of the bike path (there is also one just to the west). Look it up on google maps. This would be a world-record legal course since, so far as I know, wind advantage is not prohibited as such; it is just that the course requirements normally make a wind advantage very rare on current marathon courses. If anyone knows of an explicit rule against natural wind advantage as such, let me know. As I said, the path is not quite shielded enough, I think, but it is close.

Will we see a sub 2:00 in my lifetime: No

Will it ever happen without major enhancements to the runner or the course/surface: Maybe

Why not?

Last 15 years improvement per event

1500m - 0.00 seconds improvement

3:26.00 (1998- set 15 years ago)

3000m - 0.00 seconds improvement

7:20.67 (1996 - 18 years ago)

5000m - 2.01 seconds

12:39.36 to 12:37.35 (1998-current 16 years)

10,000 - 5.22 seconds

26:22.75 to 26:17.53 (1998 - current 16 years)

If Wejo's argument about the marathon catching up with the track events is true it will take a very long time to make the time.

10000m equivalent of 2:00 at least a 25:46 10k.

So even if the 10k progression is a linear one (which its not) at 5 seconds per 15 years (or 1 second every 3 years) it would take 93 years to progress down to 25:46 and thus should take about the same time to get down to 2:00.

So my prediction is 100 years from now it might happen.

I agree with your logic. But let´s not forget that most track events are tactical races where each man is trying to "break his opponents" and win the race. What if a group of guys were working together. Remember the 10,000 in Berlin back in 2009 when Tadese did all the pacesetting work, only to be beaten in the last lap by Bekele. Could the race have been faster had Bekele shared the workload with Tadese? What if we took 15 top guys all capable of going sub 27 of 10K, and got them to work together? How fast could they get someone across the finish line? Perhaps we could see a new 10K world record.... I think most people continue to see this as an individual achievement...but to improve from here, we need to see team tactics start to take hold. I personally think the distance records could continue to drop if this approach was taken. Take out all the mid-race surges, get all of the runners to work together, and let one or two guys go for it in the end, after having sat in the middle for most of the race. The benefit that you gain from drafting increases in a nonlinear fashion as speed increases, so this is clearly the key to improving times. Any physicists out there reading this blog?

drafting with a peloton will be key.

right now they run haphazard.

on the track some 336-7 1500 guys get in the right race and go 3:33. then they think they're a step away from a major medal. you don't compare that 3:33 with a ryun 3:33. ryan is really 6+ seconds better if you had them run solo.

you can try this, get a solinsky type guy to pace you in mile repeats and fit in behind him close. then try that workout by yourself. compare.

right now 2:03 guys could go 4 seconds a mile quicker with the right peloton. even quicker with neat pacing.

now you have a 2:02.

enter a race with several future young phenoms like gebreselasse. now your're talking 2:01.

then enter future al-salazars with new tricks and what do you have?

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then there is history to look at. the 13 flat time was fictional back in 1980. Ten or so years later they were running 13:10 half way in the 10k.

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finally, running 4:3x miles is not fast, elite runners can stride easily and comfortably at that pace. however elite track runners run out of gas, most can go an hour or so.

figuring out how to maintain energy after an hour and a half is THE remaining problem - to crack 2 hours. i think there is room for advancement, big advancement in this area.

peloton and energy - that is the ticket.

aren't the split in the sub 2:04 races pretty even.

Drafting with a peleton is cheating in my opinion.

Drafting already happens in just about every major road race with prize money. They call in the rabbits (pacemakers) and pay them to set a pace....or in other words to front run so that the real competitors can get a good finishing time. If you think this is cheating, then all the world records that have ever been set with pacemakers should be nullified. Now we are back to individual time trials, so we will be sending off each runner in 30 second intervals.... Do you see my point? we are already pregnant! We have a host of records that could never be achieved by individuals on their own. Tadese may be a rare exception, and is either the greatest athlete, or the stupidest racer I have ever seen! Why on earth would anyone try to front run a race. Drafting makes a big difference! I watched a 50 year old 1:16:50 half marathoner run 1:13:01 in competition, a couple of years ago, largely due to the fact that he was able to draft off of a big pack of younger faster runners the entire way. If you orchestrated it correctly, you would start with good 10K runners and let them do all the work upfront for the first 10-12K, letting the good half marathoners and marathoners conserve energy... once they drop out, you let the good half marathoners take their turn at the front, hopefully they can keep the pace going to about 25K. Beyond 25K, it will be up to the remaining players to work together to see how long they can hold the pace. It is the ONLY way we will see records drop from here. Even drugs won't help an individual do it alone. The marathon distance is too long. You need team tactics to make it work. I think we can go well below 2:03.. I expect to see 2:02 if some race director finally figures it out. Anyone out there listening? This is the only way forward. from here.

holinshed wrote:

What about this?:

Richard Branson decides to stop worrying about space flight for a while. He buys a large, flat plot of land in western Nebraska and builds a 5km track (fast surface, long straight-aways, broad turns). He throws appearance fees at the world's 15 best marathoners to come in and massively incentivizes fast marathon times: $ for keeping

I can see it clearly. Makau goes out hard with two rabbits who takes him through 13.1 at 57:05 . The chase pack includes Wilson Kiprotich, Kirui, and Stephen Kiprotich, but the early pace is daunting. Makau laps the three chasers but is reeling. At twenty he can't hold on and is subsequently passed over the final kilometers. Wilson Kiprotich times his finish sprint down to the last second and wins in 1:59:58 becoming the first sub two hour marathoner and the first to set a world record on the track after being lapped.

Rocket2 wrote:

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.

This is actually a very cool idea that I'd never heard before but it sounds totally obvious now.

crazy raisin wrote:

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

Who did that? Mutai split 1:02:12/1:02:03.