Breaking 2 team releases scientific data on how Kipchoge was chosen and what are the best predictors of marathon success

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second serve wrote:
Great post above. That was also something that I did not understood while looking at Zersenay’s study.

One point in regards to the breaking 2 data is that we do not know at what point of fitness/cycle athletes were tested. If they were tested in between seasons or in the middle of training, then the results do not represent their physiological capabilities at the peak point, ie at the competition.

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If we steer a midway course between these two papers and give respect to the fact that Professor Andy Jones is involved in the one that rojo posted....

If we use 90% VO2 max for 2 hours the VO2max required to run sub 2 for the best trained runners would average around 74ml/kg/min

Not a genetic freak, no pharmaceuticals required.

Fitness baby.

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Geeky McNerdmore wrote:

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ummm wrote:

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Geeky McNerdmore wrote:

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ummm wrote:

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Geeky McNerdmore wrote:
Rojo, everyone here is completely missing the point because the summary is so badly written.

This is the important part:

"Using the value for O2 cost measured in this study, a sub 2 hour marathon would require a 59kg runner to sustain approximately 4.0 liters per minute or 67ml/kg/min"

In other words a completely normal metabolism and physiology. No special genetics or pharmaceuticals required.
Now can you see how important this is? It's freaking huge.
Waddya gonna do about it?

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You dont understand physiology. This does not mean that a 59kg runner with Vo2max of 67 can run a marathon in under 2 hours. It means that it is the O2 cost required to run marathon pace for 2 hours. The Vo2max of someone who could maintain that running at that O2 cost for 2 hours would be much higher.

For an elite athlete, Vo2max pace is around 3k pace, Marathon pace is a sub max effort so it would be a percentage of Vo2max. That figure for marathon pace is 80% of Vo2max so would require the athlete to have a real max of 84 in that specific scenario to be able to maintain running at an O2 cost of 4 litres per minute for 2 hours. And this is only if the athlete also has freakish running economy and lactate threshold as none of them work independently.

Vo2 max is not the be all and end all of performance but it still needs to be high to be elite. A low Vo2max elite athlete does not mean that person is not an outlier either, an elite with a low Vo2 max will have to have otherworldly running economy to be able to compete. So stop spamming the thread with this nonsense.

None of this is new btw Rojo, this is all pretty old hat science.

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You're missing the point. The O2 requirement for the best trained marathon guys for 2 hours is only about 10% lower than VO2max not 20%. You are way off there.

So the number is lower than most people believe.

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No, I'm not way off, for one, I actually work in this field, you just dont understand, no one is running for 2 hours at 90% of Vo2max(that is circa 10km pace for elite athletes), some who could sustain this intensity for two hours would be an otherworldly genetic freak. I think you may be confusing HRMax with Vo2max where sustaining 90% of HRMax is possible but still unlikely for two hours. You are looking at 80-85% of Vo2Max as the true maximum capabilities of an elite runner.

You are also leaving out the huge variability here, running economy because you do not understand the interactions.

And btw, heres the final nail in your coffin, this is actually where the actual 67ml/kg/min number comes from.

[IMG]https://i2.wp.com/www.sportsscientists.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Running-economy-and-max-for-2-hour-marathon.png[/IMG]

"The graph above attempts to establish this. It estimates the VO2max of the runner for two conditions: One is that the athlete is running at 80% of maximum intensity (shown in red) or 85% of maximum intensity (shown in green).

Running-economy-and-max-for-2-hour-marathon

So, for a given running economy, you can now see what maximal capacity might be required, or vice-versa, given a VO2max, you can estimate the running economy required for two different conditions.

Two examples: High economy vs lower economy
The white lines show 2 examples. Example A is based on the measured economy of African athletes (including some Olympic medalists) who have a measured economy of around 190 ml/kg/min. At 2-hour marathon pace, they use 67 ml/kg/min. That athlete, running at 80% of maximum, must have a VO2 max of 84 ml/kg/min. If they were able to sustain 85% (which I don’t think is possible), they would have an estimated VO2max of 79 ml/kg/min.

Example B shows the European athletes plotted in the very first graph of this post. Here, a running economy of 210 ml/kg/km requires a much higher maximal capacity; in this case, either 92 ml/kg/min (at 80%) or 87 ml/kg/min (at 85%). The point is clearly that in order to run a sub-2 hour marathon, the athlete requires BOTH an exceptionally good economy, and a high maximal capacity. I guess the third option is that they could get away with worse economy if they were able to sustain 90% of maximum for that length of time, but I don’t see this as very likely (but not impossible).

The Zersenay Tadese example: Something missing in the picture

So where does this leave us on the question of the sub-2 hour marathon? On paper, or in theory, a two-hour marathon is possible because we have seen running economies of 180 to 190ml/kg/km, and we also see runners with VO2max values of 80 ml/kg/min. According to the graph, a runner with these “characteristics” can run the 2-hour marathon. However, I’ve yet to see the two together, with the exception of Zersenay Tadese, with his measured economy of 150 ml/kg/min and VO2max of 83 ml/kg/min. However, as I said earlier, there’s something not quite right there…

Here’s the problem: With that kind of economy, Tadese would be able to run at a speed of 2:50/km while using only 53 ml/kg/min. Think about that for a moment: he is running at only 64% of his maximal capacity, at 2-hour marathon pace. He would be jogging to the world record if that was true.

Even his 10km pace of ± 2:40/km represents an underperformance, because at that pace, he would only be using 56 ml/kg/min, or 68% of his maximum. We know that elite athletes run at at least 90% of maximum for 10km, which means Tadese should be sustaining a VO2 of 75 ml/kg/min, which, given his economy, predicts a 10 km time of just outside 20 minutes!

Clearly, something is wrong with that picture. I actually emailed Carl Foster about this a while back, to ask about it, and he graciously replied, but then my computer got stolen, along with that email. So Carl, if you are reading this, feel free to chime in! I seem to recall that it had something to do with the timing of measurements – Tadese’s VO2max and running economy were not measured at the same time, and therefore using them together created a problem. And this is crucial – when we make this kind of estimation, we’re assuming that VO2max and economy are measured together. And if they are, then the more economical a runner, the lower their VO2max is likely to be"

Now, can you please realise that you are talking nonsense.

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Excuse me, who the heck are you? Why are you quoting data about Tadesse that was known to be unreliable many years ago.

Did you even bother to read the abstract?

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ummm wrote:

I did read the abstract, I'm giving you the other variables of what would be required for a 59kg athlete to run at sub 2 hour pace using 67ml/kg/min. Or do you think that there is no other variable at play?

I'll tell you what, for your hypothetical scenario of someone been able to run at 90% of Vo2max for two hours. You say that it's possible with a 74 Vo2max, tell me what the the economy measurement would be for that athlete. Give me their bodyweight and their required running economy. Just a simple question you should have no trouble answering.

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Geeky McNerdmore wrote:
rojo rojo rojo please please please pay attention here, 20 years of dreadful pseudoscience crap posted here endlessly.

67 ml/kg/min @90% VO2max. So the true average VO2max requirement is around 74.

No superhuman genetics, no Pharmaceutical products required.
Professor Jones alluded to this back in 2006. That the concept of 'Aerobic development' is fundamentally flawed. Isn't about time people learned some basic physiology in the running world?

Whaddya gonna do about it?

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Really. I thought it was as simple that he was the fastest marathoner in the world. What a coincidence that they found scientific evidence that supported this notion.

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Dope Hardstrong wrote:

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Geeky McNerdmore wrote:
rojo rojo rojo please please please pay attention here, 20 years of dreadful pseudoscience crap posted here endlessly.

67 ml/kg/min @90% VO2max. So the true average VO2max requirement is around 74.

No superhuman genetics, no Pharmaceutical products required.
Professor Jones alluded to this back in 2006. That the concept of 'Aerobic development' is fundamentally flawed. Isn't about time people learned some basic physiology in the running world?

Whaddya gonna do about it?

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Tell you to stay in your lane. You hardly have a clue.

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Primo Numero Uno wrote:
Really. I thought it was as simple that he was the fastest marathoner in the world. What a coincidence that they found scientific evidence that supported this notion.

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You science honks have such a childish need to justify your existence. It's weird.

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Geeky McNerdmore wrote:

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Dope Hardstrong wrote:

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Geeky McNerdmore wrote:
rojo rojo rojo please please please pay attention here, 20 years of dreadful pseudoscience crap posted here endlessly.

67 ml/kg/min @90% VO2max. So the true average VO2max requirement is around 74.

No superhuman genetics, no Pharmaceutical products required.
Professor Jones alluded to this back in 2006. That the concept of 'Aerobic development' is fundamentally flawed. Isn't about time people learned some basic physiology in the running world?

Whaddya gonna do about it?

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Tell you to stay in your lane. You hardly have a clue.

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So how is your comeback going Dopey? Still on target to set the world on fire?

And since when did you have an interest in science?

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Geeky McNerdmore wrote:

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ummm wrote:

I did read the abstract, I'm giving you the other variables of what would be required for a 59kg athlete to run at sub 2 hour pace using 67ml/kg/min. Or do you think that there is no other variable at play?

I'll tell you what, for your hypothetical scenario of someone been able to run at 90% of Vo2max for two hours. You say that it's possible with a 74 Vo2max, tell me what the the economy measurement would be for that athlete. Give me their bodyweight and their required running economy. Just a simple question you should have no trouble answering.

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For the proposed data, the economy number is 192ml/kg/km

But that's not what you are disputing is it. You don't believe that a marathon runner can sustain 90% VO2max for 2 hours, despite dat showing otherwise.

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Geeky McNerdmore wrote:

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Primo Numero Uno wrote:
Really. I thought it was as simple that he was the fastest marathoner in the world. What a coincidence that they found scientific evidence that supported this notion.

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If you can get past the journalistic hyperbole as I'm hoping rojo can, the study shows that Kipchoge's performance wasn't because of superhuman oxygen uptake, which 99.9 % of people are led to believe by plain old bad science that has been around for far too long.

So I'm asking rojo to get acquainted with the work of researchers who actually study this stuff in a more informed manner.

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I'm surprised no one is taking psychology into account. Tadesse could just be mentally weaker over the later stages of a marathon. There was a cool part during the Breaking 2 documentary when Jones was talking about the mind and how it is unknown to him how to quantify its effects. That apart from the fact that his marathons prior to Breaking 2 were run without drinking water through the whole race. At least that's what they mentioned.

Just think, if they didn’t pick Kipchoge, breaking2 would of been such an utter failure. His breaking2 is still probably his greatest marathon. After that INEOS 159 was just a formality, everyone knew Kipchoge was going to do it. Still doesn’t make sense to choose Tadese at the time even with his half marathon world record. At the time, he was still a 2:10 marathon. There’s a reason for that, he can’t keep up that speed for a marathon. They should have chosen someone else in the 2:03,
2:04 range.

VO2 max is a bad predictor for race performance. Yes the aerobic capability must be extremely developed to run fast, but the best runners have in fact a suprisingly high variation in VO2max. Also for a group of fast runners, it seems that RE = Running Economy (O2 used per pace) is inversely correlated to VO2max. One starts to believe that increasing VO2 max might reduce the RE. But this might be false. One explanation is in fact that VO2max and RE is not really connected, they just seem to be statistically correlate. It is obvious that running at a certain pace is a piece of work meaning to get your body weight from A to B in a certain time. This piece of work needs a minimum amount of energy per time and can be calculated as VO2 minimumly required. If you are very efficient you would need less, if you are less efficient you need slightly more VO2. If your VO2max is too low, that might limit the maximum marathon pace (but not really for the best as it is impossible to run too close to VO2max for 2 hours), if it is high you might have plenty to run a fast marathon.
The runner comes in a variety of shapes and forms and so also the combo of VO2max and Running Economy. And the fact is nevertheless that Vo2 cannot be a limiting factor or else you wont run fast enough for such a long time. If the VO2max is relatively low, the RE needs to be high to utilize the VO2 efficiently.
Both Vo2max and RE are individually bad at predicting race performance. Combined they may be a little bit better, but actual running performance is obviously better at predicting, since it is not predicting performance, but is rather measuring it directly.
Increasing VO2max is also questionable. For young runners, the body while growing is increasing VO2max a lot. But developed runners tend to NOT develop VO2max at all in their prime. It does not seem to be a good indicator or something that isolated gives improvements. Running Economy is connected to how efficient (used O2) one is at a certain pace and if you run faster at the same VO2 consumption you are per def more efficient and you have per def improved the pace. So RE as an indicator relative yourself is a good and direct indicator the same way as time trialing.
Science and statistics can be used the good way and the wrong way. One can easily be fooled by numbers.
But the good trainers out there dont bother too much about the numbers, as it is so easy to measure improvement in running directly.
I guess the perfect indicator for marathon performance is running a marathon...

Researchers found that the best estimation for marathon performances comes from assessing a runner’s critical speed. Critical speed is essentially the fastest a runner can possibly travel for an hour. [/quote]

Brilliant, so it took the best scientists in the world to figure out that you can figure out who the fastest marathoners in the world.. and then have them run for a full hour.

Yeah because NO ONE has ever heard of using a half marathon as a prediction time before or anything.

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Geeky McNerdmore wrote:

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need more information wrote:

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Geeky McNerdmore wrote:
rojo rojo rojo please please please pay attention here, 20 years of dreadful pseudoscience crap posted here endlessly.

67 ml/kg/min @90% VO2max. So the true average VO2max requirement is around 74.

No superhuman genetics, no Pharmaceutical products required.
Professor Jones alluded to this back in 2006. That the concept of 'Aerobic development' is fundamentally flawed. Isn't about time people learned some basic physiology in the running world?

Whaddya gonna do about it?

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Just go ahead and share your theory

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It's not my theory.

But sink her teeth into this:

https://www-inscyd-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.inscyd.com/blog/2019/9/26/physiologyeliudkipchoge?amp_js_v=a6&amp_gsa=1&format=amp&usqp=mq331AQFKAGwASA%3D#aoh=16052074204974&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.inscyd.com%2Fblog%2F2019%2F9%2F26%2Fphysiologyeliudkipchoge

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You know what they say when you assume, Jon.

Source on the actual VO2 mac of Kipchoge.

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Dope Hardstrong wrote:

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Geeky McNerdmore wrote:

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Dope Hardstrong wrote:

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Geeky McNerdmore wrote:
rojo rojo rojo please please please pay attention here, 20 years of dreadful pseudoscience crap posted here endlessly.

67 ml/kg/min @90% VO2max. So the true average VO2max requirement is around 74.

No superhuman genetics, no Pharmaceutical products required.
Professor Jones alluded to this back in 2006. That the concept of 'Aerobic development' is fundamentally flawed. Isn't about time people learned some basic physiology in the running world?

Whaddya gonna do about it?

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Tell you to stay in your lane. You hardly have a clue.

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So how is your comeback going Dopey? Still on target to set the world on fire?

And since when did you have an interest in science?

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Fantastic, yes and every day.

Now why didn't you break 2 with your average Joe ability? It's good enough after all.

Secretariat was just a fit cart horse, right?

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