Official 2014 BMW Berlin Marathon Live Thread

superb running efficiency no wonder a world record!

Bad Wigins wrote:

Then you can gloat on that other forum.

Why would anyone gloat?

e1mr wrote:

I was one of about 20 spectators in the stadium 3 years ago when she raced in my home town to qualify for the european u23 championships over 10000m.

I remember incredulously saying to my comrade and her sister that she looked like she was having fun whilst slogging through 25 laps on a track.

I guess thats just the way she runs...

Obviously it's the Gerolsteiner water.

"No results for Dennis Kimetto in the sport of Track and Field before 2011."

Incredible.

The splits for Kimetto were 61'45"/61'12" negative split! Had the pacing been better, Kimetto might have run at least 10 secs faster! This guy is a machine and so is Emanuel Mutai!

Someone earlier asked if Kimetto was the guy who picked up training late compared to most. Yes, there is an article in RT about him leaving subsistence farming after Mutai noticed him. He did run when he was younger; however, he had to support his family by farming. If you've been to Kenya, that "farming" is just to survive. But happily in a surprising manner compared to US standards. We can leave the value judgements for another day. This is a day to celebrate performance.

So Flanagan's 2:21:14 is the second fastest American female performance of all time, just getting by the 2:21:16 that Deena ran in London in 2003:

http://www.alltime-athletics.com/wmaraok.htm

Also, note that Florence Kiplagat WON the Berlin Marathon last year with a time faster than Flanagan's by only a second.

Shalane fell short of her goal, but not too shabby nonetheless.

Appears to be beautiful weather there.

Kapcherop wrote:

The splits for Kimetto were 61'45"/61'12" negative split! Had the pacing been better, Kimetto might have run at least 10 secs faster! This guy is a machine and so is Emanuel Mutai!

Maybe they need to readjust the pacing for these guys, but for a 2:03:23 WR, 1:01:45 is pretty damn good.

I agree, Shalane Flanagan is a very gutsy runner. Others have to step up and work if they want to win a race she's in.

Amazing effort by Shalane today- no question. My frustration is in the hype. Race after race after race she does countless interviews spouting a lofty goal. I appreciate dreaming big. I also appreciate that it gets people interested. But at this point- despite being a massive fan of her- I'm feeling a bit over the hype-spin cycle. It makes me doubt her, rather than believe in her. It feels a little too Kara Goucher for my taste. It also makes her running 4 minutes faster this year feel disappointing rather than incredible. That can't be good for business.

Besides all that- it feels like Shalane's running too fast in the first half of her marathons. I'd hoped having pacers would prevent this. It seems like the presence of pacers today only meant she wasn't physically leading when she ran the same race tactic as Boston and worlds (10k) and the Olympics. Has that tactic ever worked except for against Americans who are no where near her level? Jerry seems like a great coach in that Her times have so improved, but not a great tactician. Or maybe Shalane is making these calls.

Again, I applaud her PR. I just want her to reach her potential. :-)

That last post had a lot of "I" and "Me" and "My" in it

Consider that Berlin has now hosted the last SIX world records, in twelve years. The city of Berlin can also boast the 100m/200m world records.

Well, so much of the effort is psychological, and that includes the mental prep beforehand, and so her pre-race affirmations go into her resultant effort.

And she may have had a temporary reflection on the podium that possibly, if she had raced today (in lieu of the AR attempt), the placing might have been more favorable. Nonetheless, she knows she was resolute and steadfast in her primary objective today, right on pace at the half-way mark.

Van wrote:

This is a day to celebrate performance.

It is. Look at Kimetto´s legs. What a shape. Quit running, guys. The weather was just perfect. This will not happen too often again.

Experts, please explain Kimetto´s breath control. His mouth is really not wide open.

In Boston, she arguably went out too fast, as her stated goal was to run 2:22 (she said so after the race), as Jerry and she thought that would be fast enough to win the race, and yet went out in 1:09:xx. By way of contrast, the Hansons ask their runners to approach the Boston course with a negative split.

But here, the pacers took her through the half in 1:09:38, which was only a 20-second "cushion" on the AR, which seems reasonable. She had thought her workouts supported going out at AR pace, and she was in position until the wheels somewhat fell off after 30k. If there was a problem in Berlin, it was that Jerry's workouts misled as to her fitness, or maybe today just wasn't that perfect day.

Wow! What a show by Kimetto and Mutai. They really hammered it and the early pacing helped a lot. This is monumental, but I can't help but to wonder what the future holds for someone like Kimetto. He said he could have run faster, and there's no doubt he could have with slightly better pacing. I think it's becoming more and more likely that we'll see a sub-2:02 at least within the next 10 years.

As for Shalane, her ego's writing checks her body can't cash. She should have gone out with the hope of a PR and nothing more. She would have run better than she did. She needs to stop running her mouth and just perform. That lofty goal set her up for a finish that was slower than her potential.

call of kszczot wrote:

HJ wrote:

PR of 2:11:36 for Fernando Cabada for 10th.

There might be a glitch: he actually might be 11th behind Kazuki Tomaru

Strange. The German feed and the results originally had him 10th.

She wasn't sponsored by Gerolsteiner back then ;)

If I recall correctly she was only sponsored by run2sky, a team predominantly focussed on one guy who competes in stair races (weird).