Wait what? I'm supposed to believe Eliud Kipchoge ran 2:08 marathon pace for 40k at altitude in training?

The dude covered 26.2 miles in 2:00:26!!!! I don't care of he had paces, optimal weather, wind shield, fluids, etc. He still covered it in 2 hours flat. 2:08 pace should feel very easy for him honestly!!!

smd wrote:

YEAH BUDDY wrote:

That explains a lot

Except it's not a fact check. It's informed and interesting but speculative number crunching. Fact checking would be asking Kipchoge or his coach to confirm what the filmmaker said.

Agreed - I think Rojo meant to refer to his exercise as a sense check.

As others have written, this is well within the capabilities of a 2:00-2:03 guy such as Kipchoge and often athletes born / training at altitude do not improve their times at sea level as dramatically as an athlete not born / training at altitude.

At that level, 10s per mile is a hell of a difference.

Maybe he would be capable of running 40k by himself at altitude at 2:08 pace, but I doubt he did.

He would be untapered too. It seems like it would be a 100% effort for him, which wouldn't be the greatest training.

Over the past 10 years how many americans have said they have prepped for running a marathon by doing an 18-21 mile run at 2:10 pace and then during the race finished in like 2:14+? The marathon is really all about those last 6 miles for elite guys. Doing MP training runs for 90-100 mins or so seems to be something a lot of them do

The only interesting part here is the question about altitude and how it effects Kipchoge. 5 mins off seems pretty reasonable. And of course we have no way of knowing if the 40k is closer to 39k. You would assume that he has a GPS watch for training runs like this but they could also have driven a car one day to measure a route and called it 40k. Several years back I went and redid a bunch of my old high school runs. The thing coach was calling 5.7 was came out closer to 5.5 and the 9.0 was really 9.1. Does it matter? nope

"Altitude" near the equator is different than altitude at higher latitudes. Look it up.

Difficult, but possible for someone who is perhaps a 2:02 marathoner. I recall a conversation with KK's manager/wife a couple weeks before he set the world record and she said he ran 2 19.5-milers at a 2:05 marathon pace 2 days in a row. I believed her because she was looking in his log book when she mentioned it. I think this conversation was at what use to be called the Philadelphia Distance Run. KK trained like a beast, athletes who attempted to train with him ended up injured or were smart enough to walk away. Normal people are always amazed at what abnormal people can do.

The NCAA conversion would take about 2 minutes and 50 seconds off so say 2:08:30 is what the article was implying, we're talking about 2:06:40. If Alberto said Galen did 20 miles (32k) at 4:52 pace (2:07:30) pace it shouldn't be that hard to believe the World's greatest marathoner can pull this off.

Btw: the conversion I did was a multiplication factor based on the 5k conversion, but in all honestly it should be weighted more generally as the distance goes up. Still, I could see Kipchoge going 40k for up to 2:05 pace without completely trashing his legs for the buildup.

Think about it. wrote:

This is what im thinking too. While 2:00:25 can be thrown out the window . . .

I don't understand why people discount this phenomenal achievement so readily.

Yes, he ran it on a nearly pancake flat course, but most of today's major marathons are run on nearly pancake flat courses.

Yes, he had a V-shaped phalanx of pacers leading him the whole way, but that's also true of all the major marathons now.

He covered the full distance under his own power, and he did it on a loop course, so he obviously did not have the benefit of a tailwind.

What Kipchoge did was simply staggering and should not be discounted in any way. I think he could come close to that time under ideal conditions in a major marathon too.

All the best Kenyan use the same course for the fastest 40 km before the race.

The course start at an elevation of 2020m, there are 20 km hilly finishing at 2195m, then they turn coming back.

This means the second half is globally downhill, and normally becomes faster than the first half of one minute - one and half minute.

I consider the difference per km, compared with the same effort at sea level on tarmac, of about 6 seconds : 3 seconds for the altitude (no more, for athletes born and living at the same altitude, or higher), and 3 seconds for the lack of grip (they run on rough roads, with training shoes, and normally the difference between one km on tarmac and one km on rough road is about 3 secs).

The best times ever in that course are :

Wilson Kipsang 2:03:32, 5 weeks before the WR in Berlin (2:03:23)

Abel Kirui 2:04:57 before London 2012 (when he had helycobacter)

Abel Kirui 2:05:57 before Chicago 2016 (he won)

Moses Mosop 2:07:15 in 2011 before Boston, when he ran 2:03:06: Till that time, nobody had run under 2:10, but after his training many athletes started to run 40 km very much faster than before.

Geoffrey Kirui ran 2:07:30 before winning Boston this year.

About the ladies, we have Mary Keitany in 2:18:36 before winning London in 2012 (2:18:37), Rita Jeptoo in 2:19:32 before winning Boston 2014, Florence Kiplagat 2:20:13 before winning Chicago last year.

We can say that, at 98% of effort, athletes can run about the same time they can have in competition.

This means that, from 40 to 30 days before the race, all the best runners in the world can run 40 km at 96-98% of max Marathon pace :

The time of Wilson (2:03:32), if we consider the difference of 6 seconds per km, can be like 1:59:30 - 2 hours at sea level, and this means a full Marathon between 2:06:20 and 2:07. If we compare this with the final performance of 2:03:23, we can see a difference of about 3 minutes, that in percentage is between 2.5 and 3% of the Marathon Speed.

This is the most important training before a Marathon, and the main reason of the difference in the performances between African and American runners in Marathon, when they have the same value in shorter distances.

A well trained Kenyan with 28:00 PB in 10 km can run 2:07, a "well trained" American with 28:00 is happy to run 2:11, because his long run NEVER is at the level of the final goal (both as speed and distance).

Renato Canova wrote:

This means that, from 40 to 30 days before the race, all the best runners in the world can run 40 km at 96-98% of max Marathon pace :

[...]

This is the most important training before a Marathon, and the main reason of the difference in the performances between African and American runners in Marathon, when they have the same value in shorter distances.

please correct me if i am wrong:

if more really well trained marathon runners would be willing to accept a 40k run close to race effort 40-30 days prior race day, the results would be better in general.

Thanks for sorting fact from opinion

Renato Canova wrote:

ifference in the performances between African and American runners in Marathon, when they have the same value in shorter distances.

A well trained Kenyan with 28:00 PB in 10 km can run 2:07, a "well trained" American with 28:00 is happy to run 2:11, because his long run NEVER is at the level of the final goal (both as speed and distance).

Maybe the American don't do such long runs because they just can't recover properly without the secret ingredient in their supper.

Canova, thank you so much. As always you provide the best insight into elite's training.

So, do you think Eliud has a real shot at sub 2:02 based off this brutal workout? (assuming it's 2:08:59 pace, he still ran that course in a staggering 2:02:17!)

The secret ingredient in the supper is to believe that is possible to train hard in the right direction. Marathon is 42 km long, you can't prepare the distance thinking that 3 times 3 miles at Marathon pace is something specific (total distance, including 1 mile of recovery, 11 miles, not long enough for a HM too).

And, if you want to run the full distance at 3' per km pace (4'49" per mile), you can't run the long distances (which are already too short) at 5'30" per mile (that doesn't have any connection with the pace of the race).

The reason is very simple : you can't look at a final goal if you don't have the physiological possibility to reach it.

If you like to stay in some apartment with 10 rooms, with the cost of one million dollars, but you have only 100,000 dollars, the solution is easy : YOU CAN'T, and need to chose an apartment with 2 rooms only.

It's not exactly to say WE CAN : we have instead to say IF WE HAVE TALENT ENOUGH, AND WE HAVE TRAINING ENOUGH AS VOLUME AND INTENSITY, WE CAN.

Too many times athletes and coaches are not able to know, and analyze, the first part of this statement.

⤴So by "tarmac" you differentiate it from road, this maybe a translation subtlety, I call a tarmac a concrete airport runway 🛫, are you meaning those dusty red farm tracks we normally see runners training on in Kenya?

âž¡so are you saying in short is that a 40km time trial for Kenyans at home is remarkably accurate predictor if sea level marathon time? But this test as you say is a remarkably new phenomenon, why? Did Mosop stun other Kenyans by running it so fast?

Should this be surprising? Doesn't Yuki Kawauchi run a 2h 10 marathon something like every weekend or so while holding down a full time job?

George213 wrote:

Canova, thank you so much. As always you provide the best insight into elite's training.

So, do you think Eliud has a real shot at sub 2:02 based off this brutal workout? (assuming it's 2:08:59 pace, he still ran that course in a staggering 2:02:17!)

People keep assuming this 40K was recent. It makes more sense that it was before the sub-two attempt. That's when the filmmaker was with Kipchoge, not recently. The filmmaker is talking about it now because he's being interviewed as publicity for the National Geographic airing of the sub-2 movie.

For me, and we use this word in Kenya, tarmac is the equivalent of asphalt.

The kenyan road where athletes normally run are rough road, sometimes full of stones and with many bottoms, and it's Dangerous to run using racing shoes, because are to thin and, if the athlete put his foot on a stone, maybe he can have some injury.

The 40 km (if they use this distance for 4 times, for example, the last time is the fastest) can be a good predictor, of course when the athletes run at a level of effort submaximal. But the reason is not to predict their performance ; is to prepare the ability to use the right mix of glicogen and fatty acids at Marathon pace. We can't arrive to this ability only running at 80% of the speed of the race, because the fuel we use is mainly fatty acid, and we cant arrive to this ability only running inside 1 hr 20' maximum at Marathon Pace, because the tank is already almost empty, and before finishing the full Marathon we don't have more fuel.

The fast long run is the real difference between the modern system and the system of many years ago. All the other things are only the cherry on the cake.

I think you are missing his point. He is not talking about being able to do the training. He is referring to the recovery. To run 42km at MP 30 days before the actual marathon race can be brutal, and is basically running 2 marathons in a month. How can one recover from that, and still be in peak form for the marathon race without possibly taking some type of PED? That is what he is stating.

The Kenyans are basically running 2 marathon races in a month. That is a lot of muscular stress in a short amount of time. That's why people were finding what Kipchoge did so hard to believe, including me.