Why not more sub-1:00 halfs??

I mean, come on, it's 13.1 miles less, seems like you should be able to drop a bunch of time from that chunk.

runz0rz wrote:

It seems to me that since there have been quite a few top runners under 2:10 in the marathon that there should be more people making it under 1:00 for the half-marathon. It just doesn't seem up-to-par with the other records.

I assume you're joking. Going sub 60:00 for a half is way harder to do than going sub 2:10.

All sub 60:00 runners can go sub 2:10 but not all sub 2:10 runners can go sub 60:00.

Actually, I wasn't joking. Maybe I don't quite understand, but it still seems like HALF of a marathon should be a lot faster than a marathon, but if you doubled the WR half, it would only be a matter of a few minutes away from the marathon WR.

runz0rz wrote:

Actually, I wasn't joking. Maybe I don't quite understand, but it still seems like HALF of a marathon should be a lot faster than a marathon, but if you doubled the WR half, it would only be a matter of a few minutes away from the marathon WR.

It IS a lot faster than the marathon. Why can't you get it?

When you are at the elite level, you can maintain a higher % of your top speed for a longer period of time.

For non-elites, the general rule of thumb is to double your marathon time and add 10 minutes. This obviously does not apply to elite level runners.

if the WR in the 100m is sub 10 seconds, how come the mile WR isn't around 2 minutes and 40 seconds....

duhh

The real reason is that the big money is in the marathon. The 5k-10k runners who can run < 60 easily, take instead the big track money in Europe. As the half marathon becomes more lucrative you'll see more < 60' times.

A 60' time is probably worth 2:07

excellent observation my dear joffroi

runz0rz wrote:

It seems to me that since there have been quite a few top runners under 2:10 in the marathon that there should be more people making it under 1:00 for the half-marathon. It just doesn't seem up-to-par with the other records.

The rough equivalent to a 59:59 half is about 2:06:40 for the marathon.

Granted, there are a few people who have run under 60 for the half who have not run under 2:08 for the marathon, such as Ryan Hall, and there are people who have run super fast marathons, such as Toshinari Takaoka (2:06:16 and 4 times under 2:08) who have not run under 60 for the half.

The half-marathon depends on both VO2max and lactate threshold.

The full-marathon depends more on just lactate threshold and fat-metabolism and carbohydrate/glycogen sparing.

but takaoka has the japanese records in the 5k about 1313 and the 10k 2734 so that does indicate excellent speed, he may have just been training through the half marathons where he has yet to break 1 hour, the japanese seem to gear everything to the marathon as they have more sub 208 marathoners than anyone besides kenya (which has 46 guys under 208), japan has 10 ethiopia and spain have 7 marrocco is next with 4.