Official London marathon thread

wejo wrote:

It's a marathon, not a sprint and I think everyone learned that today.

OK, let's not exaggerate things.

It was 20 seconds ahead of PR pace for Makau and Kipsang. No sprinting.

That was started by Mutai and finished by Kebede, so K's mile was faster.

the average male runner wrote:

they just put up the last mile as 5:24? WTF?

2:06:03

Kebede won! What tactical genius, so impressing this win here, rolling the field up! They went much to hard for first half, haha!

Some of these guys are splitting 61:30/66 or 67.

Just a bit less stupid than the rest if the top tier...hardly a tactical genius.

10th place: "From Morocco, now competing for Spain."

I can't think of a more doped bio.

Biwott 0-5K 14:23, 35-40K 17:16, 40-42,2K 8:36 ouch

I wonder if a certain very successful racer from the US with very modest time credentials might have done very well here if he had not been injured (and had selected London over Boston).

the average male runner wrote:

Some of these guys are splitting 61:30/66 or 67.

Ouch.

Nice to see some respect coming back to the distance (maybe).

All of this talk by the young Kenyans saying they see it just like a half. WRONG.

Why is nobody talking about the flooding in Kenya affecting training? Surely that wasn't helpful.

the average male runner wrote:

they just put up the last mile as 5:24? WTF?

That probably was actually measuring Mutai cross the 25 mile and Kebede the 26th so in actuality Mutai ran even slower than that but Kebede would have been faster.

The first half destroyed these guys.

rupp-certified saladbar wrote:

10th place: "From Morocco, now competing for Spain."

I can't think of a more doped bio.

LOL. Sorry, don't agree but this made me laugh.

with a slightly slower first half, I have calculated that Kebede/Mutai could have gone 2:05 low.

Good too see that testing works.

We won't be seeing more 2:03s the next decade.

52.43 wrote:

Kebede won! What tactical genius, so impressing this win here, rolling the field up! They went much to hard for first half, haha!

It was the way it was run that cost them the record. Most of the miles were ~4:45-4:50 at the beginning, with the time being made up in those low 4:30 miles, so it wasn't like a 61:34 consistent pace, it was very very erratic and only fast because of those insane splits. Those 4 or 5 super miles absolutely destroyed the field, wow the blowup was worse than the London '07 when they went through in 61:30. But great race either way, who could have expected Kebede to come back and win?

Makau raising his hands twice, then finishes over 2:14.

MEB! MEB! MEB!

The commentators are giving credit to Makau for finishing even though he could have taken a DNF and spared himself the recovery once he knew his race was over.

Chris Sowimpsky and DNF Galen could learn from this.

Some strange performances ...Makau ?? an story ...excuse ?/

Mutai slowed to 15:54 35-40K and 7:46 for last 2.2K

What a terrible blowup for Makau. Disappointing race in general. Too bad they didn't go out in 62:00 instead. Why has no-one gone under 2:04:40 at London despite such high quality fields? Is it just not as fast of a course as I'm led to believe?