Way harder. Neil Armstrong just sat in a chair for a few days.
That's like comparing a guy on a bus to Lance Armstrong.
Way harder. Neil Armstrong just sat in a chair for a few days.
That's like comparing a guy on a bus to Lance Armstrong.
Note: the comments came from a Q&A he did with the media today. Here is the full audio of the teleconference thanks to a link from Alberto Stretti.
https://event.sharefile.com/share/view/s68b0901142a42bba
http://www.albertostretti.org/2019/08/eliud-kipchoge-breaking-two-hour.html
There are 8 billion or so on the planet, not 3 billion.
But whatever, go for it Kipchoge, I support you.
Here’s my two cents now that my recent ban has been lifted.
Anything that generates news and publicity for our sport in a positive way is good, isn’t it? Outside of the Olympics and Boston and NYC, news coverage is scant for several reasons but that’s for a different thread.
Same as the moon landing? Not even close.
However, ask the average Joe on the street that’s never ran in his life who broke the 4 minute mile barrier and he’ll likely know. Ask him who the second guy to do it and he won’t have a clue nor know who Webb the AR is.
Ask him who the first president of the US was and he’ll know. The 10th? He won’t know.
So there is something to be said for historic ‘firsts’ and the publicity gained by Kipchoge’s success (if he does it) will be very positive. For us runners we know it’s not certified but still awesome. For Average Joe, he couldn’t care less about the pacing and ratification ineligibility.
”I know he is the one person in camp who if he woke at 6am for training, and nobody else woke up, he would still go out and complete the session.” his physio Peter Nduhiu
What kind of slackers does kipchoge train with where going for a training session at 6:00am alone is noteworthy?
It probably is the marathon equivalent of the moon landing or at least somewhere in that ball park.
It's just a throw away line to promote the event anyway. Does it really matter?
moon landing more bigly wrote:
The first will always be the first (see Bannister), but the moon landing was a team effort. It's all him out there trying to go under 2:00.
Nope the pacers are huge. Just the fact that he can have drinks brought to him instead of having to slow down to pick them up from a table is huge. Also the fact that it's not a race with big money involved is huge -- he doesn't have to worry about defeating competitors, just the clock. The course and weather are very important. And yes the Nike next % shoes can't hurt either.
Remove all the above and Kipchoge's chances of breaking 2 diminish significantly.
“My main focus is to show that no man is limited and the main way I can do that is by breaking two hours,” he says..
This statement "no man is limited" and that he is showing that breaking 2 is possible and many more can do it after that he frequently uses is triggering me all the time.
Yes, when Bannister broke the 4 min mile after decades of people failing it got broken again 1 month later and then frequently. But the total number of humans that ever broke a 4 min mile is still extremely low. But that was a standard race.
Kipchoge wants to say that he is removing the mental barrier of "sub 2 isn't possible" but forgets that he is doing it with 100 world-class pacemakers and millions of funding and support (they removed the entire street and put on a new super fast asphalt that it optimized for his Nike shoes) and how many other elite marathoners will have the same conditions for it?
If he truly wanted to show breaking 2 is no big deal and that more can follow in his footsteps he should do it on a legit course and not in his own little project that many people don't care nearly as much as breaking 2 in a real marathon.
doctorj wrote:
Back in '69 the ENTIRE world was anxiously waiting...especially the Soviets.
Not likely. They already had the first satellite, the first cosmonaut, the first woman cosmonaut, the first lunar probe, first lunar satellite, first pictures of the far side, and first pics of the lunar surface. They were too busy with a concurrent robotic sample collection mission to be worried about Apollo 11. That mission crashed but the next one succeeded.
All the US achieved that the Soviets didn't was the human part. And national pride in that is pretty ironic when now the US can't even launch a cosmonaut into low Earth orbit, but has to PAY to ride up on a Soyuz. And yes, I said cosmonaut, it's time for the US to quit acting so butthurt about being second that they make up their own word to be the first of.
Yes you can compare the two in case they didnt went to the moon but it was done in a movie studio like somebody still claim.
There are other great event that are more important and harder that sub 2hour.
The first comes out of my mind is the 1978 Reinoldh Messner first Everest summit without supplemental oxigen .
It's certainly comparable to the first man on the moon.
I expect Kipchoge to utter a few memorable words as he crossed the finishing line in 1:59 that will go down in history.
Such as :
'that was one small step for a Kenyan on EPO, one giant leap for mankind'
I worked on the Breaking 2 project and for the sport, I can say it was a moon shot. Nike threw everything at it except the kitchen sink. It was the culmination of years of scientific research and they had experts in every relevant field working on the project.
Breakin2 was done in 1984:
Breaking Two he wore special 4% shoes. Now he’s not even wearing the Next% as he’s wearing these funky new shoes.
Could this upgrade from the 4% allow him to shave 26 seconds?
thoughts and prayers wrote:
It's just a throw away line to promote the event anyway. Does it really matter?
Must be your first day at LetsRun. Our favorite activities include extreme cynicism, destroying athletes we love, and splitting the thinnest of hairs!
D.Katz wrote:
I worked on the Breaking 2 project and for the sport, I can say it was a moon shot. Nike threw everything at it except the kitchen sink. It was the culmination of years of scientific research and they had experts in every relevant field working on the project.
They couldn't risk throwing away the sink. They need somewhere to flush the drugs in an emergency when the FBI bust into the headquarters.
Radisson wrote:
It's certainly comparable to the first man on the moon.
I expect Kipchoge to utter a few memorable words as he crossed the finishing line in 1:59 that will go down in history.
Such as :
'that was one small step for a Kenyan on EPO, one giant leap for mankind'
Hi Coevett!
The moon landing involved a good 200 German rocket engineers.
No need for that at a 1:59 attempt.
History buff wrote:
The moon landing involved a good 200 German rocket engineers.
No need for that at a 1:59 attempt.
To be fair there were probably over 200 rocket scientist involved in inventing EPO or whatever equivalent is on the market these days.
BSB wrote:
moon landing more bigly wrote:
The first will always be the first (see Bannister), but the moon landing was a team effort. It's all him out there trying to go under 2:00.
So you think all the about 30 pacers jumping in and out in the 2 hour attempt will not be like a team?
Nope. It's his legs running the entire way, 26.2 miles in as perfect conditions as can be made.
As long as he doesn't have a motor in his shoes or is on any kind of illegal performance enhancing drugs, it's him RUNNING the whole way. Sure the guys help by pacing him and pushing the air away, but you could run any marathon anywhere in the world and pace/draft off people the entire way...it's just making the conditions easier but you are still running the whole way.