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

Andrew Norman 1 wrote:

Geeky McNerdmore wrote:

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

Poorly written article with far too many assumptions. 5 minutes advantage secondary to being shielded? C’mon, man.

Yes I agree, 2 minutes tops. I linked to that article to further the discussion about what percentage

VO2max can be held for 2 hours. It's much higher than 80% but probably not 92% as suggested there.

Please stop with the superhuman oxygen uptake nonsense. It's just plain bad science. It's the reason why idiots who don't understand energy kinetics came up with this this blood boosting and EPO fantasy.

Enough with the pseudoscience please.

Thanks Alex, great post.

jiggymeister wrote:

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.

That and/or metabolism to properly fuel during a two hour event.

jiggyjiggy wrote:

The athletes were 29 ± 4 years of age, 1.72 ± 0.04 (1.63-1.80) m tall and weighed 58.9 ± 3.3

226 (54.7-66.3) kg.

If it is ± 0.04 m, how do we end up with 1.63 m and 1.8 m on the lower and upper ends? It does not add up.

It adds up. 1.72+/-.04 is mean+/-SD. According to fundamental stats, the 95% confidence interval encompasses +/- 1.96 SD. So an easy way to get reasonable assumption of the range is to multiply the SD by 2. I like to think of height as cm, not m. So we are talking 172cm +/- 4cm. Multiplying the SD (which is 4cm) by 2 gives us a range of +/- 8cm... That's 164 to 180cm, which is almost exactly 1.63 to 1.8m.

my takeaway was that a key physiological indicator of marathon performance is economy but that economy doesn't quite mean what I thought it did.

Traditionally economy is defined as oxygen utilization at a given speed. But all of these guys have good economies using that definition and should be able to go very low 2:00 (theoretically)

It seems that running 2 hours at 4:40 min/mile pace just beats up your legs. It's very hard to use your oxygen capabilities after 90 mins if your legs are super fatigued and pounded down.

It seems like resiliency is super important and seperates good and superb running performances.

This jives with my every experience as a runner. It seems like the faster you go over long distances (>10k) the more leg fatigue is a factor.

Having a bouncy, reactive quality stride at mile 23 seems to be the most important predictor in marathon. (which makes sense if you ever watch marathoners at mile 23; you can tell who is going to win by their form >99% of the time)

Geeky McNerdmore wrote:

Dope Hardstrong wrote:

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?

So you're going to beat my times in 2021?

Kipchoge has speed endurance. We have known this since 2003.

My 400m pace was not 51 seconds, or even close.

What do your times have to do with my times?

Why was your 400 pace not 51? Genetics don't matter after all.

Honestly, I looked at the insights, and I said "Well, duh, I've known that all along."

Gratitude for the preemptive congratulations aside, there were two other things that jumped out to me as interesting:

1. The measurement of the Phase II VO2 time constant and its relation to marathon performance. None of the canonical measures (VO2peak, Economy, LT, LTP) were correlated to the athlete's marathon best, but the time constant was.

Essentially, it's an indication of the time for the muscles to reach a metabolic steady state, with a shorter time constant reflecting a greater ability to lock into and adopt that metabolic demand. They posit that this may be related to oxidative capacity of the muscles (it's also strongly related to critical speed), but it's pretty interesting that marathon performance here was most strongly tied to the O2 behavior in the standing-to-running transition, and that this measure was more predictive than our canonical measures.

2. The outdoor data gives us a data for a napkin calculation for the cost of air resistance. We have two speeds, so if Total Cost = Cost_non-aerodynamic + k*v^2 (from Tam et al. 2012), we can quickly solve for drag coefficient using the values given for one of the subjects at 18.7 km/hr (194 ml/kg/km) and 21.4 (204 ml/kg/km): k = (204-194)/(21.4^2-18.7^2) = 0.092 ml/kg/km*hr^2 (and indicating a Cost_non-aerodynamic = 162 ml/kg/km)

As an example applied to regular running, that would indicate that that athlete going from 8:00/mi (12 km/hr) to 6:00/mi (16 km/hr) would cause the energy cost to increase by ~10.3 ml/kg/km, or 5.9%. Said another way, at 6:00 pace, he's 5.9% less efficient than 8:00 pace.

This is cool because it adds to a very sparse set of data that we have on aerodynamic forces in running. While it's known that there are drag forces (Kipp et al. (2019) is a nice modeling exercise on this as well -- other interesting note: here, there was no indoor increase in energy cost across speeds observed, which they also modeled to explain the rise in energetic cost across speeds, so that could also go into the "drag" calculation), we don't have many studies that have actually collected energetic measurements at different speeds to get at it, and very cool here to have the data on some highly refined machines outside.

'Beat down' and 'fatigue' may mean two different things.

'Fatigue' as defined in physiology is simply the inability of the muscle to contract. In that sense, in light of the study, fatigue would be a manifestation of not having the capacity to sustain an oxygen uptake rate of ~4.0L/min (which is the reported value in the athletes running at 21km/h in the paper).

Those East Africans always look bouncy. Because they are not fatigued. It's crazy, and no one knows exactly why (even if they claim they know, they don't actually know).

jiggymeister wrote:

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.

Maybe or maybe Kipchoge is just mentally weak over the half marathon and if he was as tough as Tadesse, he would be running 57 mins. Personally I don't think mental toughness matters much at the highest level. You don't get there without being tough.

As far as water, how many sub 2:06s has he run after learning that you should drink during marathons?:) And not to pick on Tadesse too much other people have the same issues. Ritzenheim runs a 60min half and peaks at a 2:08 marathon instead of the 2:06 that you might have expected.

xcskier66 wrote:

Having a bouncy, reactive quality stride at mile 23 seems to be the most important predictor in marathon. (which makes sense if you ever watch marathoners at mile 23; you can tell who is going to win by their form >99% of the time)

But why does one guy have a bouncy stride and the other doesn't? is it because one has a vo2 orLT that is 1% higher so they aren't as stressed? Is it because their economy is slightly better so they have enough glycogen stores to run 27 miles while the other guys run out 25? Is it cause they can run light enough so that their legs aren't beaten up (see the downhill boston course where some people can run the down hills and set big PRs and others struggle and think it is a hard course)?

Burnsy wrote:

2. The outdoor data gives us a data for a napkin calculation for the cost of air resistance. We have two speeds, so if Total Cost = Cost_non-aerodynamic + k*v^2 (from Tam et al. 2012), we can quickly solve for drag coefficient using the values given for one of the subjects at 18.7 km/hr (194 ml/kg/km) and 21.4 (204 ml/kg/km): k = (204-194)/(21.4^2-18.7^2) = 0.092 ml/kg/km*hr^2 (and indicating a Cost_non-aerodynamic = 162 ml/kg/km)

As an example applied to regular running, that would indicate that that athlete going from 8:00/mi (12 km/hr) to 6:00/mi (16 km/hr) would cause the oxygen cost to increase by ~10.3 ml/kg/km, or 5.9%. Said another way, at 6:00 pace, he's 5.9% less efficient than 8:00 pace.

Sorry, I meant to extend this example: ...then going from 6:00/mi pace (16 km/hr) to 4:50/mi (20 km/hr) would cause the oxygen cost to increase by 13.2 ml/kg/km, or 7.1%. So, from 8:00 to 6:00 pace, he becomes 5.9% less efficient, but from 6:00 pace down to 4:50 pace (same increase in speed), he becomes 7.1% less efficient.

Now think about that at 24-26 km/hr (elite 1500m speeds). If speed kills, drag kills^2!

Situation Critical!

Kipchoge's critical speed is so critical that it requires pharmaceutical and mechanical intervention.

YMMV wrote:

Situation Critical!

Kipchoge's critical speed is so critical that it requires pharmaceutical and mechanical intervention.

Stupid post, man.

That was the funniest thing about Tadese not knowing about fueling. Imagine how many efforts he wasted and the physical and mental damage of bonking so hard.

Alex (forgot my password) Hutchinson wrote:

(3) The thing that Rojo mentioned and everyone's jumping all over (critical speed, AKA how fast you can run for an hour, is the best predictor of marathon pace) is a misunderstanding of what they found. You don't measure critical speed by racing for an hour. There are several fairly simple ways you can measure or estimate it, including (as they did in this study) with a sub-maximal lactate test that takes less than 20 minutes and is only hard for the last couple of minutes. This is the approach Jones used to predict (with striking accuracy) all of Paula Radcliffe's marathon times, so it's not new. But once again, it appeared to be pretty accurate for this cohort, which is interesting.

It sort of works out to the same thing. If your method is good at predicting HM times, it doesn't matter if you get your critical speed by running for an hour or by doing a test. There are practical advantages to doing a test instead of a race but the general point is the way they are finding the fastest guy is by having them run fast so you basically end with a measurement of oxygen consumption and oxygen costs.

Things that would be interesting is knowing what Kipchoge's numbers were (i.e. that vo2peak might be 72. His might have be 80. And to some extent we only care about his:)) rather than the averages. Most of those 16 guys weren't really contenders to run sub 2:00. And knowing how his numbers changed over a career would be fascinating Maybe he had say an 80 when he was an 18 year old running 12:50 and now it is like 76 as a marathoner. And obviously we don't know how much training plays a role. If these guys did 5k training for a year would changes in these numbers would occur?

Again again compare his numbers to Tadesse and tell us what in the numbers suggest one guy is going to run like 10s/mile faster over the marathon despite similar HM times would be interesting.

me_me_me wrote:

That was the funniest thing about Tadese not knowing about fueling. Imagine how many efforts he wasted and the physical and mental damage of bonking so hard.

I can't remotely understand how this is possible. Seriously a coach or training partner never mentioned it? After the first marathoner he didn't think to ask why every other guy around him was drinking? But one of my take aways is that professional running isn't any where near the level of professionalism as team sports...

All these studies have to be seen at the contrary. It's not that we start from the physiological analysis for training some athlete, but with training we change the further physiological analysis. The VO2 max of Kipchoge was probably higher in 2003, when became World Champion of 5000m, than when he ran the marathon under 2 hours.

We can take 5 different athletes, with the same VO2 max, and able to run 3000m at the same level (practically, a competition of 3000m can give the speed athletes can use at their VO2 max).

Why some of them can become a marathon runner, other have to stop their best distance at HM, others around 10000m, and somebody else never can run at the same level longer than 5000m ?

The real question is : which is the main quality a marathon runner has to have, in order to make marathon his best event ?

Among the official distances in athletics, we can say that the limiting factor, in competitions lasting no longer than one hour, is the POWER of the engine. If we want to train an athlete running on track (the longest distance is 10000m), we need to look at a continue increase of the ability to LAST for longer time at a speed that ALREADY the athlete was able to run in a shorter distance. This means we have to EXTEND the duration of a speed that we are already able to maintain for a well defined time.

Athletes running 3000m in 8 minutes, coming from shorter events and with a high VO2 max, with little training can run, maybe 3'40" in 1500m, and only 14'15" in 5000m. In 2 years time, maintaining their PB in 1500m, but working for EXTENDING the speed of 2'40" per km (their value on track for VO2, forget the lab...), can move to 7'55" > 7'50" in 3000m, and to 13'45" > 13'25" in 5000m.

But we don't prepare Marathon in two years, when we are young. So, in the next two years (4 years from when the plan started), we use the same strategy, putting as basic speed to develop the PB of 5000m. In the next two years, the PB of 13'25" doesn't change, but the athlete starts running 10000m (27'45" > 27'30") and HM (61' > 60').

Now, we start to look at Marathon with some good base in distances connected with the Marathon.

But, if we till that moment had the goal to EXTEND the aerobic power and to raise the Lactic Threshold, without the limit of how much fuel the athlete could have in the tank (fuel consistent in glycogen only), and we had to look to make the engine more powerful, FROM NOW WE HAVE TO LOOK AT CREATING A FUEL WITH MORE FATTY ACIDS, because the tank of glycogen (the petrol "super") at the speed of HM is totally empty.

From that point, the goal is TO REDUCE THE CONSUMPTION OF FUEL AT MARATHON PACE, something that doesn't have anything to do with VO2 max.

This is one of the big problems of physiology :

a) They study the FINAL PERFORMANCE of an athlete, looking at the current parameters he has when is in shape

b) But the final performance is the product of the natural talent, per years of training, that goes to modify the talent in a well identified direction.

At the end, training comes BEFORE physiology, that is a DEDUCTIVE / EXPERIMENTAL science, and can only study the physiological phenomen when this already happens, can't SUPPOSE what can happen if.....

The case of Zersenay Tadese can illustrate very well this situation : after his 58'23" in HM, some scientists, analysing his running technique with a lot of parameters, thought he could be the best option for running the full marathon in 2:02, because nobody in the world had so low cost of running. The training of Zersenay with his coach Jeronimo Bravo never looked at full marathon, and without the right preparation he never was able running faster than 2:12, normally dropping out around 27 km. Some year ago, his manager asked me to follow him, and I had a full winter of training, specific for marathon, with Zersenay (online, because I never met him in training). He was very precise giving me the feedback of his training, did everything very well, and I supposed could be ready for running, at least, 2:08 in Boston 2015. But also with specific training, he dropped out after 27 km.

His limiting factors were not VO2 max, or the lack of specific training, or a bad economy (he was the best in the world under this side), but the MIND and the consumption of glycogen too high, also at marathon pace, because he needed to have a very long period of TRANSACTION from the training used for long time, finalized to run fast inside one hour, with the most part of workouts in lactic area, and a new training with the aim to REDUCE THE CONSUMPTION OF FUEL AT MARATHON PACE.

The problem with physiologists is that NEVER they are able to investigate the ROAD that best athletes use, lasting several years, for moving from their basic talent to the final performance. In other words, they are not useful to the coaches for giving informations regarding the choices and the development of training, because they start from the top (the athlete in top shape) and not from the base.

Random Shmo wrote:

'

Those East Africans always look bouncy. Because they are not fatigued. .

No, it's because that's how many of them run. Others don't even start out fresh with a bouncy stride.