Kilian Jornet to Target 2:10 Marathon at London

Good thread. Without a foundation of running fast on the track and roads to lean on, I suspect sub 2:20 would be an impressive time for Jornet. Jonathan Wyatt of NZ comes to mind. He was a world champion mountain runner, still holds Mt. Wash record, and was an Olympic marathoner with a 2:12 PR I believe. But he never ventured into ultra stuff as far as I know. Jornet is an absolute world class endurance athlete but would be stunned if he trained himself into a world class marathoner.

J-dub wrote:

Good thread. Without a foundation of running fast on the track and roads to lean on, I suspect sub 2:20 would be an impressive time for Jornet. Jonathan Wyatt of NZ comes to mind. He was a world champion mountain runner, still holds Mt. Wash record, and was an Olympic marathoner with a 2:12 PR I believe. But he never ventured into ultra stuff as far as I know. Jornet is an absolute world class endurance athlete but would be stunned if he trained himself into a world class marathoner.

"....absolute world class" blah blah blah.

Euro showman, hyping himself in fringe "sports" which have no drug testing and, as Everest BS shows, have no standards.

Of course it's easy to claim "elite" with that matrix! Invent your own feat, claim record, compare yourself to elite runners!

DopedToTheGills wrote:

as Everest BS shows, have no standards.

What is interesting is that the accuser's "proof" is nowhere to be found yet the Strava data Killian posted in May 2017 is still there for everybody to see. What is most interesting is that there is a short section where there is GPS on both descents. If Killian was trying to hide anything, why would he post that data and then just leave it up for over 7 months?

Are you also calling Max King an elite doper too since he regularly competed against Kilian this year?

great post.

just to add an important aspect: the 1:30 hm with 5500 feet of elevation gain is very, very impressive, but all calculators/translations/grade-adjustments are speculative. some world class mountain runners like helmut schießl never came close to the times expected on flat courses. never.

others do, like the legend jonathan wyatt. it will be interesting to see if kilian jornet could run a marathon in 2:13, a half in 1:02:37, 10000m in 27:56 and 5000m in 13:30 and a real mountain marathon like the jungfrau-marathon (42.195km, +1829m, -305m) in 2:49.

Killian training for the London marathon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTJH9tTFghU

Just to be clear, we're arguing about how fast Killian Journet could do something he has never shown the slightest interest in doing. Is that right?

Is this like the "how fast could Usain Bolt run a mile?" threads?

Third place finisher was Annie Bersagel - a 2:28:29 marathoner. She ran 1:44:15 as compared to 1:30:52 of Jornet. If she is somewhere near her marathon PR shape, that would indicate that he is easily capable of a much faster marathon then 2:20.

As for Strava grade-adjusted pace, from my personal experience it overestimates. If I go for a short moderate run at my marathon pace effort, then according to Strava the random up-hill kilometer splits are at my 5k pace, sometimes even mile pace which is nonsense. Strava caters to runners' egos and makes their runs appear more impressive. Partly it is because of inherent GPS abberations. If you have a close look at the strava record of his run -

https://www.strava.com/activities/1029689364

- you can see it often seemingly goes a few meters off the road into the abbys or through the rocks which adds elevation to his run and further increases the grade-adjusted pace.

Kilian is not running the 2018 London marathon.

Speck U Layshun wrote:

Just to be clear, we're arguing about how fast Killian Journet could do something he has never shown the slightest interest in doing. Is that right?

Is this like the "how fast could Usain Bolt run a mile?" threads?

No.

This is another attempt to make KJ, Max King, and Cannady appear to be actual elite runners because they like to hype their fringe sport as something other than fringe.

Ultra sports hype in a nutshell:

Power hiking or mountain jogging for 20 hours, then have fanbois with absolutely no clue of athletics compare these feats to Bekele or Kipchoge.

Go drink some more fish oil and then maybe let's actually see if any of these guys could even compete with the elite women at London!

No particular axe to grind but two British examples from fell running that sprung to mind for comparison purposes are Keith Anderson (2:17 marathon) and Kenny Stuart (2:11 marathon)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Anderson_(runner)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenny_Stuart

Paraphrased below:

Unknown female 2:28:29 marathoner is easily capable of a much faster marathon then 2:20... because they ran a good mountain race.

Just no...

Pee wee Herman wrote:

BL3737 wrote:

I have no doubt Kilian could knock out a 2:15 with at least 4 week road tuning. Oh and I’m a semi-pro (MD to half) so I have credibility and know what I’m talking about.

You spelled hobby jogger wrong.

Hahaha!

I'd be more interested to see what Walmsley could do for a marathon. He seems more built for the roads.

Jornet only made it to the summit a second time because he used that PerformElite supplement, anyway. He couldn't do it without cheating.

MeHereYouWhere?! wrote:

puhleasse! wrote:

No way he's a 2:10 marathoner. 2:40 at best.

Are you a Moran?

Dude ran a 1:30 half...with 5700 feet of uphill to the finish...2 weeks after climbing Everest..and you think a 2:40 is the best he could do?!?!?!

You could at least learn to spell the word "moron" prior to using it. At any rate, climbing Everest and running a 2:10 are two very different things. Old women, old men and the crippled have climbed Everest. They don't climb back down and run 2:10. The only thing those two thing 2:10 marathoners and mountaineers have in common is a really high Vo2 max . 2:40 seems generous, but you never know, that 800 guy ran 3 flat.

JournetCouldntBeatSemenyaOrHasay wrote:

Ultra sports hype in a nutshell:

Power hiking or mountain jogging for 20 hours, then have fanbois with absolutely no clue of athletics compare these feats to Bekele or Kipchoge.

!

I would be more interested in seeing some of these elite 204 marathoners you ladybois like so much run Hardrock AND utmb in the same year. That would be FAR more interesting than Killian or Walmsley run a flat paced marathon.

Hahahahahahahaha....... wrote:

JournetCouldntBeatSemenyaOrHasay wrote:

Ultra sports hype in a nutshell:

Power hiking or mountain jogging for 20 hours, then have fanbois with absolutely no clue of athletics compare these feats to Bekele or Kipchoge.

!

I would be more interested in seeing some of these elite 204 marathoners you ladybois like so much run Hardrock AND utmb in the same year. That would be FAR more interesting than Killian or Walmsley run a flat paced marathon.

Not really. There is no mystery here. If an elite 2:04 marathoner trained for hard rock and/or utmb they would win. Killian and Wamsley are not elite marathon runners and them racing an elite marathon would be pointless. Everyone knows who the better runners are and it is the guys who can run a 2:04 marathon. It’s not a debate. I hope it’s only trolls who try to create some drama on this where none exists.

By way of perspective, I ran D1 but now I only run on trails because I love running in the mountains/woods. Even though I don’t do any track/road races anymore (or any races really) I still enjoy watching it more than I would enjoy watching a trail race. But - for me now the combined love of running and being on trails will always be better than running on the road. Now the irony is that I often struggle with the idea that trying to run fast in the mountains can take away from experiencing the mountains. But I like running fast. The point being that accepting that elite road runners are faster runners doesn’t diminish trail running for me and it shouldn’t for anyone else.

doNotTrustStrava wrote:

Third place finisher was Annie Bersagel - a 2:28:29 marathoner. She ran 1:44:15 as compared to 1:30:52 of Jornet. If she is somewhere near her marathon PR shape, that would indicate that he is easily capable of a much faster marathon then 2:20.

Annie Bersagel's own husband, a Norwegian mountain runner and cyclist, has run 1:29: 23 on that course, quite a bit faster than Jornet's time, and I'm not aware that he has ever run a sub-2:20 marathon. And Bersagel's time was well off the women's course record of 1:39:54, by a Norwegian who had run marathons in the low 2:30s at her peak over a decade earlier, but was almost certainly nowhere near marathon PR shape when she set the course record. I don't believe that Jornet's time indicates that "he is easily capable of a much faster marathon then [sic] 2:20."

Forget “grade adjusted” efforts. My 58:27 at MT. WA is “worth” a 62-min half? No...I could only go 64:32 in a half...but I am a much better climber than a flat track road runner (it’s all relative). Now, I could maybe go 66-65 in a half. I know where I stand nationally as a post collegiate on the roads... I’m not delausinal enough to say I’m “elite” at anything. If I can qualify for my 3rd Olympic Trials in the marathon I’d say I’m “nataional class “ though (as is any guy that gets top 20 in marathon majors...which I’ve done at Boston and Chicago) For sure a sub 2:10 marathoner could destroy a lot of ultras. The more flat and smooth/runnable the race, the higher correlation with success based on road marathon time. But in the steep mountains over 100 miles things change. 2:30+ marathoner Francois killed us at UTMB...and the most consistent American guy at UTMB has been Tim Tollefson (“only” a 14:36 5km/ 2:18 +marathoner). Speed isn’t everything, but it certainly helps (as does high Vo2max) as it is all dependent on variable Running ecoconmy and not messing up nutrition/hydration, overheating/hypothermia ...the longer the duration of the race, the more variables involved tha can go exponentially wrong. On the flip side, a great mountain runner could have a very hard transition to flat road marathon Running...especially at the sub 5-Min mile Pace/ low 3-min km velocity