Jonathan Gault tries to make sense of Ruth Chepngetich's 2:09:56 and reveals she recently switched from Vaporfly to Alphafly

That is for sure worth 5 minutes.

I liked the article and thought he had one interesting intellectual point near the end.

For those of you who say, "It's obvious she must be doping." Ok, I get it but are you saying she just started doping for this race? SO she was clean before this race and then just did it for this race? What explains the huge jump for this race?

Yes that could be true but why would she risk it if she was already making hundreds of thousands a year and was already one of the very best runners on planet earth without doping.

Even if this athlete ultimately goes down for doping it's a win for Nike.

I have not read the article yet BUT remember that doping is only part of the equation and training obviously matters too. Also even if Ruth has been doping for years that does not necessarily mean that her doping techniques could not be fine tuned or even transformed depending upon new information or newly available dope.

Knew she wouldn’t be tested for months. So went full throttle.

Her contract will have a bonus for a world record. Why risk it? She was already doping before. This was just calculated additional very small risk because they knew she wouldn’t be tested. I’d also guess those “consulting” with her probably don’t care if she is caught or not. They will just move on to the next runner.

Training is obviously compounding. Doping allows more and faster training. Training results in improvements over time. Doping and training results in better results over time. It is not like taking a pill on race day and you get x time. This is a compounding system over years.

"For now, 2:09:56 is on the books. Believe it, embrace it, decry it, ignore it. The choice is yours. We all have to live with it." - Jonathan Gault

Wait, what??

We all "have to" live with a world record? Odd turn of phrase.

How about we all get to?

Your bias is showing.

It seems like you glossed over the fueling change. Did the change lead to her consuming significantly more carbohydrates? Was she underfueling previously? That could be a reasonable explanation for her blowing up the last few times she's tried for a WR (beyond simply going too hard).

On the other hand, simply switching brands but taking essentially the same carbs is meaningless.

Ruth has already run 4:57 pace in a few halfs and some marathons in vaporflys before she would blowup somewhere after 20 miles, I still have to lookup the splits in old races.

So it's not a question of if she can do the pace, it's how long she can hold it for and that's what super-shoes excel at, reducing the energy needed at a given pace.

Remember the alphafly was built specifically to get Eliud under 2 hours when he missed it with the vaporfly, Nike wasn't take any further chances and used every technical trick they could.

But we already know that different runners respond differently to the vaporfly vs alphafly and some respond massively to alphafly and some poorly because of differences in form.

Here is one study among a few.

Each line on this graph represents a different person responding to each different shoe

Alphafly is all the way on the right (and that's only v2) after vaporfly

Look at that one well trained runner only using 50 vo2 in regular shoes, 49 in vaporfly but a whopping drop to only 47 in alphaonly, that is a massive savings in energy.

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also draft savings are extremely significant

Kelvin Kiptum sure as heck didn't have a draft his second half and Eliud couldn't have done the 2 hour "demo" without a draft level that would be illegal in a race. So the "it's only 7% difference" cries are a silly comparison. Not the same thing.

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Agreed that this advantage of hers compared to the top guys hasn't gotten enough attention. Coverage of both of Kipchoge's sub-2:00 attempts included really detailed info on the advantages of having pacers the whole way. But then some of the same people have just decided not to talk about it here.

It's not one factor alone, that's for sure.

A woman running 2:09:56 needs

Pacing - This mark should be compared to Kipchoge's 1:59:40. That performance by a 34-year-old Kipchoge (most believe him to be actually 36 at the time) would undoubtedly been bettered by Kiptum (and in general an outlier at their absolute prime) under the same conditions. So possibly a male could run 1:58-something with pacing the whole way. An 11-minute gap seems about right.

Shoes - I think we're finding out that the improvements have kept coming since 2022-3. Adidas' EVO and Nike's Alphafly 3, and competitor brands too appear to be adding a 1-2% boost after some stagnation (by Nike/Adidas) or just catching up (everyone else) from 2019-2022. There's now a bit of a gap between potential from athletes who resisted or didn't have access to the best supershoes (Ruth apparently, Sisson, Tola, Lemma, John Korir) and what they can achieve . That's why suddenly it seems to me there's a lot of 1-3 minute PBs all over the place from athletes who were somewhere in the 2:03-2:05/2:15-2:18 range who are more seasoned but made the switch to a faster shoe. It's frustrating to see some athletes resistant to just wearing the fastest shoes according to the science, period.

Doping - Can't rule this one out of course, and it could be adding a couple minutes to the first 2 above

So if you're keeping track at home, there HAS to be a rewriting of the record books IMO. The American women should be topping out at more like 2:15-16. That means running more courageously, not resisting the shoes and a top talent in their prime attacking it. Monson has 2:15 capability, I have really no doubts about it. Sisson I think 2:16 definitely, but she has to wear faster shoes and listen to her fitness not arbitrary time barriers.

For the men, I mean I think we know Connor should be running 2:06 at minimum and probably 2:05. It doesn't feel like he's mastered the marathon and is overly impatient. If he had an individual pacer after a less rocky buildup than we've typically seen, watch out. Someone like Klecker could run a huge time if his frame can handle it.

Sounds like you're scared s$%less by the Kenyan Parliament and are coming up with ways to backtrack without trying to appear too obvious.

Rapper Juvenile predicted it in 1998:

That's you with that balling sh#t ha
That's you that's taking them hits ha
That hoe don't know when to shut up her mouth ha
You gonna knock that hoe teeth out ha
You done switched to Vaporfly to Alphafly ha

One word.

Ego.

People get arrogant when they don't get caught and constantly need the dopamine drive for the next big thing they can get away with. If you look at criminals, this is exactly what they do.

It's becoming a risible if not downright pathetic spectacle to see even informed followers of the sport trying to do the equivalent of "sane-washing" athletics' daily advertising of its doping excesses, as though a switch of shoe brands can explain this away. The sport has become what pro wrestling long ago succumbed to. Doping is the modus operandi and with the incentives to continue it there's now no stopping it.

'Knew she wouldn't be tested for a few months' 🤣🤣🤣

Most stupid statement of this entire discussion.

But what is interesting is that many of have sort of assumed we know this for years and we don’t repeat it like a broken record.

I checked with the RF King on his views about Jonathan’s piece and he advised that many of the American women failed their races at Chicago so there is no indication of the weather or course conditions being exceptionally tail wind and favorable like in Boston 2011 with consistent fast times across the board for all nationalities. This Ruth had to be doping like hell.

on the other hand the RF King mentioned that given the amount of cellular RF antennas in a modern chicago city in 2024, there is clearly yet again no favorable physiological conditions for high performance marathoning to the extent of 2:09 and some say should be 2:08 already due to uneven pacing.

as for the psychology of why she wants to risk it all, RF King says it’s a superfluous non major concern. Athletes dope when they want to and for the most narcissistic reasons, so those reasons are bound to floor you because narcissism is very insensitive to your moral and ethical needs, in the exact words of the King of RF.

cheers

Good and fair article. You guys are giving free speech a good name. You don't abuse it.

One factor--or rather question--that I haven't seen anybody talking about (and it's possible that I've simply missed it) is Ruth C.'s workouts. Apart from fueling during the race and different shoes, is there anything in her buildup to this particular race that could help account for her breakthrough. I can't help but think of "Once a Runner"--the endless miles and the breakthrough, near-death interval workout that led to a huge breakthrough.

Is there any data, any anecdotal evidence, suggesting that Chepngetich altered her training in any significant way this time around? Can she point to a specific workout or two in the 2-4 weeks leading up to the race that would lead any reasonable person on this board to say, "Jeez, she's ready to throw down something special here"?