Official NN Mission Marathon Discussion Thread - Will Kipchoge return to form or is he on the decline?

I though he looked quite comfortable, although I thought he could have gone faster and expected it slightly. However, part of this is due to who else was there and pacing agreements. The pacers were planned to run at 2:05:XX from the start. It was very unlikely that they'd go through 30km much quicker unless EK absolutely dropped them.

This means the plan was to accommodate the others in the front pack, because there were Tokyo spots at stake, and that Eliud knew a very slight increase over this would win. Which it did.

I think it's fair to say that even a 2:03:30 would have been convincing and put the fear in a lot of his peers, but there are constraints to some degree when organising pacers within a race as opposed to TT. Noone else there would have agreed to go out the first 21-30km at 2:03:00 pace and risk Olympic selection.

P.S. Jonathan Korir did pretty well

P.S.S. I remember London (2015?) where he clearly ran slightly within himself and didn't realise how close he was to the record - immediately upon seeing the finish time he laughed and said he could have beaten it. He does at times just do enough to win

Yeah, pre-Olympics at London 2016 he ran 2:03:05, the second fastest time ever at that point. While this wasn't as quick, I still think he's on schedule to be the gold medal favourite come the Olympics. After all he said that the race was "perfect" in the post race interview, and I trust that means he'll be ready to successfully defend his title.

Winston Smith wrote:

Commentators were discussing Steinruck's warm clothes, could she be heat training for Sapporo ?

She always runs in that many clothes. Look at other race pics. After some hypothermia experiences she just decided to dress what she feels comfortable in. Looks really odd to most but if it works for her.

I remember Kipchoge beating Hicham El Guerrouj and Kenenisa Bekele at the 2003 Worlds 5K. I'd be lying if I said I thought he'd run a 2:04 marathon 18 years later and look like he was out for a walk in the park.

Oh Please wrote:

Random question xyz wrote:

Just watched replay of finish. Wasn’t even working hard

Be that as it may, the slightly slower splits every 5k cause me a slight pause. Sure, if I had to bet on the Olympic marathon this year, I'd pick Kipchoge, but it does not seem pre-ordained anymore like it was in 2016.

Agreed. I figured that we wouldn't know a whole lot from this race, and I think that's kind of where we're at. He beat some guys that aren't top level competition, and his time was easily sufficient to beat them, but those splits aren't very impressive. No idea how close he was to working at 100% capacity. If he'd run 2:03:low and looked good, that'd be one thing, but he ran 2:04:30 with a positive split, dropping the competition only because they slowed down a lot more than he did. That's very far from proving that he's in shape to win an Olympic gold. If I had to pick someone for Olympic gold right now, I'd still go with Kipchoge, but I wouldn't be very surprised if he doesn't win.

runningchick wrote:

Winston Smith wrote:

Commentators were discussing Steinruck's warm clothes, could she be heat training for Sapporo ?

She always runs in that many clothes. Look at other race pics. After some hypothermia experiences she just decided to dress what she feels comfortable in. Looks really odd to most but if it works for her.

Thanks for the explanation, was curious as she wore thick looking gloves to the end. It can warm up a lot after an early start, this time of year.