Sub 2 Hour Marathon definitely impossible?

Tergat was also running with I think it was blisters or torn blisters ... something on the bottom of his foot that made each step of running excruciatingly painful.

I'm not going to doubt what he says, only because no one has ever run the distance as fast as he has. I just wanted to point out the flaw in his argument about not being able to walk after it was all said and done.

I remember reading an article where he said his calves cramped up so badly that he was in pain and had trouble walking for a week after the race. In that article he said he didnt think it was possible for anyone to go much faster.

Now if you think about how fit tergat is and how quickly his legs probably recover from hard running, that is a serious statement.

I heard Lindgren was on pace to break 2 hours several times and various freak accidents happened which prevented him from accomplishing this amazing goal.

ps: I don't believe most of the stories about lindgren.

Sub 2:04 will be a huge, if not impossible barrier itself.

I do think we may see a 2:03 something, but we will all be old and gray by then.

Ron Hill thought 2:03 was the ultimate, if you want another knowledgable perspective.

Since Tergat is the fastest marathoner who ever lived, his statements should be taken very seriously. But Tergat's statements only apply to Tergat. If Tergat can't possibly break 2:00, I doubt anyone else can. Yet.

What's a 2:00 hour equivilant? 57 minute Half?

Geb just barely broke 58.

The first ever sub 2:10 (2:09:36) was run almost 39 years ago. Considering the improvements in training & how much mroe competitive running is now & it's only down to 2:04:55, it does seem impossible. Now since Sep 98 the record has been lowered 70 more seconds. 2:04 flat will be a very tough obstacle & I'd say in 40 years the record could be under 2:03.

It takes a relay team of men to break 2 hours now. It won't be broken in my great-great grandchild's lifetime unless the surface is rubberized like a track.

The better question is when will we see the first non-paced women's sub-2:15?

I realize its on a completely different level, but people also once said that the sub 4 minute mile was impossible.

Also, I believe that I saw one of the "predict lance's time" thread, and it gave the Daniels's prediction, NY Marathon race director prediction, V02 max prediction, etc. If I remember right, the V02 max prediction for Lance was sub 2...and I'm sure it is for Tergat too. Doesn't that suggest that it is possible for the human body to go that fast?

I don't see how he could say it is impossible. Genetic freaks are born everyday were they excel beyond what others can do at all sports. As some point there will be someone more talented and as hard working as the current guys and the record will be broken. There has to be an absolute fastest time possible, but I don't think we are there yet.

I think a sub 2:00 is definitely possible.

pablo wrote:

I realize its on a completely different level, but people also once said that the sub 4 minute mile was impossible.

I know you said its another level but I just have to say, even though it wasn't too long ago that this was a common belief, the amount that man knew about his own physiological limits was miniscule compared to what we know today.

If medical professionals and experts were to say today that something was athletically impossible it would hold a lot more weight. It is certainly possible though, that down the road we may look back and say that the experts of today didn't know jack compared to what we'll know in the future.

And believe me when I say that I would love to see the record continue to go down. Its just that it seems to be getting harder and harder.

But sub 2:00 is waaaaaaaay faster (11s/mi) than even the current and very impressive record that Tergat holds. As someone already pointed out, we've dropped about the same amount in the past 40 years as would still be required (about 5 minutes) to go under 2. Those forty years saw huge changes for the better in training and genetics with the complete inclusion of the Africans, amongst other things. Add that with the fact that going from 2:10 to 2:05 is surely a hell of a lot easier than 2:05 to 2:00, and I'd have to agree with Paul that it is not possible.

The only way we could revolutionize the sport more than it has been with these changes is to create some truly scary drugs. In that case, I do believe we could develop something to turn the best of the best into sub 2:00 machines, but even then it would take a full out effort to develop the most potent stuff possible.

I deeply, deeply respect Tergat's opinions about running. So I have to take seriously his comments.

Do you have a link to the full report of his comments on this? I'd like to see the complete context of his statements.

I think Tergat's WR is breakable and might be superceded sometime soon if the right marathoner is primed and ready on the right course with the right weather and the right pacing. Obviously, Geb is the one who most likely could break Tergat's WR, but it is fascinating when you realize that Sammy Korir hung with Tergat all the way to the end of Berlin 2003. What other lesser names are out there among the elites who could suddenly burst on the scene with a new WR.

If Kenenisa Bekele steps up to the marathon, it will be amazing to see what he could run in the right conditions.

I find it very interesting that Belayneh Dinsamo's WR (2:06:50 in Rotterdam '88) stood unbroken for ten years. But now ever since it was broken by Ronaldo da Costa at Berlin '98, 39 times has Dinsamo's mark been exceeded in the marathon. In other words, 39 times in the last 8 years someone has broken what was a WR that stood for 10 years. I'm not exactly sure how that can happen (better training? higher expectations? doping?... hopefully not). But I wonder if a similar thing will happen when Tergat's WR is eventually broken. If it does, how close will the elite get to 2:00?

mhammer wrote:

Tergat says its impossible so there you have it, from one of the greatest if not the greatest distance athlete of all time.

Do you think in the next 20 or 30 years, somebody will break two hours for a marathon?

PT: Take it from me; it's impossible. I remember I ran 61 (minutes) the last part (half) of Berlin. I could hardly walk after that. So to run 60/60 is impossible. Sixty-one is what we are running, all of us. To combine the two half-marathons together is hard. It would be a pipedream.

Comments?

As Paul Tergat in a coma would know more about running than I ever will, this is vastly presumptuous, but...

The first 10,000 meters under Tergat's world record pace was by Viljo Heino in 1944 (29:35.4). The first 10,000 meters under 2 hour marathon pace was by Pyotr Bolotnikov in 1960 (28:26.34). Given that, perhaps by 2019?

Look at it this way:

Paula Radcliffe: half marathon PB 65:40 (slight drop in elevation but not totally flat either), marathon PB 2:15:25

therefore she goes through the half about 2mins slower and maintains this pace for the full marathon.

The men would therefore require about 58:00 for the half to be in with a shout if they had Radcliffe's endurance. The current WR is 58:55 by Geb. Another minute doesn't seem out of the qustion given a few people have run low 59s (geb, tadesse, wanjiru).

But in this case the current WR should be around the 2:02:00 mark. Is the men's marathon WR weaker than the womens? There is no reason why men should not be able to achieve the same differential. I think that a real marathon specialist (with little slowing down as distance increases) who happens run close to 26:00 for 10k and sub 58:00 for half could really achieve the HOLY GRAIL of distance running. Could kenny B be that man, or someone in the near future?

So you are convinced Tergat's record will be broken if someone comes along and breaks it? That is deep...

On June 15, 1963 Leonard Edelen of the USA ran 2:14:28 to break the old WR record which had been set by Toru Terasawa in a time of 2:15:15 five months earlier.

I'm guessing that after that race Edelen thought that no one would ever break 2:10. After all, to break 2:10 a runner would need to run 10 seconds a mile faster than Edlen just had, surely an impossible task. Yet within four years the record had been taken below 2:10 by Derek Clayton.

And what do you think Edelen and his contemporaries would have thought of a sub-2:05 marathon? Completely ridiculous probably. And yet here we are in 2006 and the WR is below 2:05 which is 21 seconds a mile faster than Edlen ran.

And while I agree that it will likely take longer than three, or even forty-two years, the Marathon WR will go under two hours.

Derek Clayton ran 2:08.34 in 1969.

So in the last 37 years, the Marathon World Best

for men, has improved by only 3 minutes and 39 seconds.

Check my math, but I think this is a % improvement of

approx. 2.8 %.

I would be willing to bet that in the next 37 years,

taking us to 2043, the World Best will not have

improved at the same rate as during the past 37 years.

Assuming the Sport can get ahead of the Cheaters...

A 2:02 Marathon would be approx. a 2.3 % improvement

on the current Record.

I don't see it happening...

One other thing about the marathon vs other WR's- an elite could take a shot at the mile WR once a week if they wanted, the 5k and 10k maybe 10 times a year. The marathon gives only two real chances a year and you have to factor in variables like course, weather, temperature, hydration, pacing, etc. It is much more than just getting your body in world record form.

Geb has probably been in world record form in every marathon he ran in the past two years, yet he still has "only" managed to get with a minute of Tergat's mark due to these variables.