Sage on Kipchoge’s Ultra potential

Just keep Kipchoge away from the vaccines and veganism.

Seriously. Sage come clean yet and acknowledge the vax caused his UTMB failure?

Summary of video?

This is like wondering about Aaron Judge's post-retirement career on the pro softball curcuit.

the GOAT isn't going to devalue himself by joining also-rans in ultras. This is just ultra runners trying to associate themselves with elite runners.

Can someone photoshop a trucker hat and hiking poles onto Kipchoge? I want to see what the ultra version of him might be.

Who is Sage?

Who are you?

A lot of relatively poorly thought out speculation which uses facts but does very little to try and understand and analyze the facts to really come with a interesting insights for if Kipchoge would be strong on a 100km race or UTMB

So basically just thought it would be a good video considering the timing to get some hits but didn't really think about his own topic

I mean it is speculation so no one expects an answer but I did expect some more insightful answers

So summary of the summary: He feels Kipchoge will do amazing over 100km and in UTMB ...

As someone who has sometimes found Sage's videos interesting this was pretty thin on anything interesting ..

Off the top of my head I could have thought of about 20 strong variables and actual comparisons he could have used to maybe make it more insightful.

A Canadian hurdler.

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I pretty much agree with sage. On the roads between 50-100 km, he could crush it. But beyond that or on the trails I don't think he would be dominant. He's 37 now or something like that, so the time is running out on running a ultra in his prime. But if he doesn't stop training and he starts to decline athletically he'll probably still be able to drop 2:06-2:08 marathons in his mid to late 40s, so a comrade win isn't out of question for me. Now for trail and trail ultras, I don't think he'd ever attempt them or win them.

Too bad we can talk about this but can't talk about the self-proclaimed professor of youtube (or shoetube).

Kipchoge is a mental giant. I think he could dominate ultras if he felt so inclined. However, I can't imagine him actually doing so. I think he'll find bigger fish to fry in a non-running sphere once he's done with marathons.

Eliud would be so much fitter than his competition alot of "inexperience" people talk about wouldn't really matter.

He is 14 minutes (12%) faster than superstar Big Jim Walmsley in the thon. Yeah some stuff is different in ultras, but thats alot of fitness to fall back on.

Also Eliud trains everyday on hilly, rough, roads at over 8000 ft. The argument he would struggle to adapt to trails/climbing is severly overestimated.

I’ll admit I have no clue if Kipchoge does the type of technical climbing and descending that is typical of the big trail races. However, assuming he doesn’t, his superior fitness in road running probably wouldn’t overcompensate for his inexperience with the technical aspects of trail running and lack of strength/endurance in the different muscular groups needed for steep climbing and controlled descending.

He would no doubt be awesome at trail racing, but I wouldn’t bet on him winning or even reaching the podium until he started specifically training for the trails.

Marathons and road races are exponentially more competitive and popular than ultras. Kipchoge is currently running against the best of the best in the world and dominating. So many in the ultra community are great at PR and hyping their performances. However, when you break it down almost nothing compares to what Kipchoge is doing right now. (I'm also not talking about a lot of the stuff Jornet does. Some of that stuff just seems reckless and insane to me.)

Many in the ultra community argue that Kipchoge is physiologically best suited for road marathons, often citing one-off washed up elite road runners to prove their point. "Such and such finished 10th at OTQ, but got dominated when they tried to run an ultra ten years later" etc.

Sure, ultras, especially off road ultras, require a specific skill set that's different than road marathons. Nevertheless, running is running is running. I suspect that with proper training Kipchoge would crush road ultras, and could dominate the trails as well. Maybe not tomorrow, but after a strong training block or two.

*None of this is to dismiss how difficult and demanding ultra running is.

It's a bit unfair to compare Kipchoge's marathon time to Walmsley because

1) It was Walmsley's first attempt
2) That course was hilly and windy
3) It was a race and not a Time Trial which generally leads to slower times

There is obviously a huge gap between Kipchoge and Walmsley but when people talk about Walmsley as if 2:15 is his real marathon PB it's a bit unfair.

He's probably closer to around 2:10ish I would assume in terms of potential

No doubt he would completely obliterate the road 50k, 50 mile and 100k records. Don’t know about road 100 mile. That’s a different beast. No clue how he’d do at UTMB or trail races.

Hard to say how he would do. I think everyone would agree there is obviously a big correlation between marathon times and ultra performance. But the questions around food intake and how he handles that would be there. He probably almost never runs for more than 2 hours, so he has very little need for substantial fueling currently and anyone that has ever done an ultra will tell you that your stomach often goes bad before your legs. But if he can figure that out then i am sure he would do very well in ultras and likely win all of the flat ones. The more mountainous races would be up for debate i think. The fastest road marathoners in those events do not always win. You could even look at CJ Albertson's R2R2R as some evidence that you cannot simply be a good road marathoner and immediately be a great trail runner.