Official 1st Ever Abu Dhabi Marathon Discussion Thread

Are we sure the race was 42.2? To me, it makes no sense that the guys went from 62:30 to 61:34 in the 2nd half. So we are supposed to believe they ran a 61:34 2nd half in warmish/humid conditions in the sun out without rabbits? It makes zero sense that the 2nd half would be faster.

Did the women have screwy splits as well between 30 and 40K? IF so, I thinkt he course is off.

rojo wrote:

Are we sure the race was 42.2? To me, it makes no sense that the guys went from 62:30 to 61:34 in the 2nd half. So we are supposed to believe they ran a 61:34 2nd half in warmish/humid conditions in the sun out without rabbits? It makes zero sense that the 2nd half would be faster.

Did the women have screwy splits as well between 30 and 40K? IF so, I thinkt he course is off.

You can check em here, click on runners name:

3rd place, the guy with the black shorts one size too small, went from dying and running like he had a pole up his asss (sorry Jamin, no pun intended) to blasting away from Biwott and Rono.

I had already called the coroner for him but he came roaring back to life.

Women splits look normal, same with other men

(Other than first place women, which says she crossed half at 1:04, but crossed 20 at 1:06)

Bamboo pole wrote:

he came roaring back to life.

Might have been the pole that did it.

rojo wrote:

Are we sure the race was 42.2? To me, it makes no sense that the guys went from 62:30 to 61:34 in the 2nd half. So we are supposed to believe they ran a 61:34 2nd half in warmish/humid conditions in the sun out without rabbits? It makes zero sense that the 2nd half would be faster.

Did the women have screwy splits as well between 30 and 40K? IF so, I thinkt he course is off.

Well the ANNOUNCED PLAN for Kiptum was go through the half in 1:02 and run a NEGATIVE SPLIT and run under 2:04.00, he missed and lost the race as well, seems insane, but this runner ran the 10k-20k in his Half Marathon (World Record 58:18) in 27:16, so those 2 are rare talents.

People who are confused why they just didn't 'run faster' in the home stretch to bag another $100K don't remember that physiological limitations are at play, even if your brain is willing it. I haven't seen African runners look so horrible before after crossing the line. Usually they can hide it better than that. That was a maximum effort.

Free_the_thigh wrote:

Women splits look normal, same with other men

(Other than first place women, which says she crossed half at 1:04, but crossed 20 at 1:06)

No they dont' look normal. The race was mismeasured. I'm about to publish an article stating as such.

1) Negative splitting a marathon with temps in the70s and a dewpoint in the 60s is hard as hell. Yet we're supposed to believe the winner who had a 2:06 pb coming into tonight went 62:35 and then 61:29 to run 2:04:04?

2) And in the midst of that second half he ran a 13:55 5k between 30 and 35k (that's 1:57:27 pace)? No.

And the women's winner similarl ran a laughable 30 to 35k split of 15:55 (that's 2:14:19 pace)

There is no way people are going to run a huge negative split in low 70 degree temps with a dew point over 60. And you want me to believe a 2:06 guy before today went 62:35-61:29 with a

Plenty of contacts here Rojo if you want to put it to them, can you also confirm or otherwise any time bonus payments too while you're there, I wouldn't mind running it next year.

http://www.adnocabudhabimarathon.com/organiser-contact/

Just be careful how you word it as you might get Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces offside.

Do it nicely and you might get an all expenses paid trip next year.

Yeah better be careful.

Allah Ahkbar or whatever that stupid saying is.

Rocking the casbah. wrote:

Just be careful how you word it as you might get Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces offside.

Do it nicely and you might get an all expenses paid trip next year.

Only MBS scares me.

We've written to pieces. One where LRC wonders if it was short and one where I personally say it was short.

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2018/12/inaugural-abu-dhabi-marathon-course-short-think/

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2018/12/marius-kipserem-upsets-half-marathon-wr-holder-abraham-kiptum-inaugural-abu-dhabi-marathon-course-short/

And here are the top 10 results.

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2018/12/results-2018-abu-dhabi-marathon-results/

So the article's up

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2018/12/marius-kipserem-upsets-half-marathon-wr-holder-abraham-kiptum-inaugural-abu-dhabi-marathon-course-short/

Hard to argue with the data being shown and I wouldn't like to be in the shoes of the guy who signed off on the distance...or who placed the cones between the 30 and 35k splits. I didn't see the race (middle of the night in Europe and no replays on YT so far) so I'm not sure if there were cones but at the SF marathon a few years ago an idiot placed 100+ meters of cones AFTER the turnaround point instead of BEFORE as it was supposed to be so the course was long 200+ meters. Could be the other way round here.

Looking forward to a replay of the last 10k !

oh and it shouldn't bee too hard to find some tracks on Strava soon to get a sense of the possible distance discrepancy.

rojo wrote:

Are we sure the race was 42.2? To me, it makes no sense that the guys went from 62:30 to 61:34 in the 2nd half. So we are supposed to believe they ran a 61:34 2nd half in warmish/humid conditions in the sun .

Stop it Rojo. You just aren't understanding this weather thingy, and I don't think you are capable of ever understanding it.

70° with a dew point of 62° is just fine. The race started at 6am. Sunrise was 6:55am. They were not running under the hot Sun by any means. The Sun barely made it over the horizon. The Sun's altitude was never a factor in this race.

Have you ever actually run a marathon in 70° weather? I have. It feels fantastic. The only problem is the altitude of the Sun. A 6am start, an hour before Sunrise is great. A 10:30 am start sucks, but only sucks because the altitude of the Sun creates ambient pavement level temps much higher than 70° making it difficult to cool down. But you don't have that issue in a race lie today.

Only meant “normal” in the sense that I did not see any other negative splits on the finishers I quickly surveyed.

I didn’t look at those 5k splits though, that seems far more suspicious to me than the mere fact of a negative split alone does.

deathinparadise wrote:

oh and it shouldn't bee too hard to find some tracks on Strava soon to get a sense of the possible distance discrepancy.

Found 3 guys so far :

FR935 : 41.98

Apple Watch 2 : 42.97

FR235 : 42.14

No conclusions at this point but based on the most accurate of the 3, the FR935, and assuming the guy started and stopped in the right spot, it does look short indeed.

deathinparadise wrote:

deathinparadise wrote:

oh and it shouldn't bee too hard to find some tracks on Strava soon to get a sense of the possible distance discrepancy.

Found 3 guys so far :

FR935 : 41.98

Apple Watch 2 : 42.97

FR235 : 42.14

No conclusions at this point but based on the most accurate of the 3, the FR935, and assuming the guy started and stopped in the right spot, it does look short indeed.

Interesting. Does anyone remember the turn between 30 and 35k? I thought I remembered watching a 180 degree turn in the live broadcast. This guy who ran the race shows he did a 180 turn (northeast corner of the race).

But the course map shows more of a loop, not a hairpin turn: