"Feels like temp: 109F" for WC Women's marathon start

They are already using a short loop of 7km

There is a reason no big name athletes are running the marathon there. A hot marathon is like 70 or 80. This sounds like a death march.

joedirt wrote:

There is a reason no big name athletes are running the marathon there. A hot marathon is like 70 or 80. This sounds like a death march.

Maybe for the women's race, but a lot of big names are showing up on the men's side.

The weather site I saw had temps at 91 at the start, real feel 102, dew point 80! They should just crawl for the first 5 loops or so and then take off. Should be intriguing however they decide to approach it.

“I want as many people to finish as possible in good shape,” said Coe, who was re-elected unopposed as International Association of Athletics Federations president on Wednesday in Doha.

Dumb. How about “I want ALL people...”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/athletics/2019/09/25/fears-safety-world-championships-marathon-runnersin-qatar-heat/

That dewpoint is insane. My kids ran in the JO region X meet in AZ this year and it was 105 out, but at least the dewpoint was 40 or below, so you could sweat and still moderate your body temperature for a mile or two. I couldn't imagine 26.2 miles in even harsher conditions. With a 91 degree air temp, no radiative heat transfer and an 80 degree dewpoint, even with sprayers you would have a hard time regulating body heat for 2-3 hours without fatal complications. The average human skin temperature is 91 degrees without exercising so you are leaving yourself pretty much no room for conductive or convective heat transfer, only a small amount for evaporative heat transfer (an eleven degree delta T, which aint much). This is not enough to cool off the amount of heat generated by competitive distance running. It will only be a matter of time before people's internal temperature exceeds 104 and people start dropping unless they spray them with ice water.

joedirt wrote:

There is a reason no big name athletes are running the marathon there. A hot marathon is like 70 or 80. This sounds like a death march.

You don't consider Ruth Chepngetich, Edna Kiplagat, Lonah Salpeter, Ruti Aga, Roza Derege big names?

douglas burke wrote:

joedirt wrote:

There is a reason no big name athletes are running the marathon there. A hot marathon is like 70 or 80. This sounds like a death march.

You don't consider Ruth Chepngetich, Edna Kiplagat, Lonah Salpeter, Ruti Aga, Roza Derege big names?

Will Des Linden run this too? She was able to win Boston in freezing weather, she should try her hand in this heat! Maybe an American can win again with this severe weather!

Martymart wrote:

douglas burke wrote:

You don't consider Ruth Chepngetich, Edna Kiplagat, Lonah Salpeter, Ruti Aga, Roza Derege big names?

Will Des Linden run this too? She was able to win Boston in freezing weather, she should try her hand in this heat! Maybe an American can win again with this severe weather!

Linden is not running, here is the Start List.

douglas burke wrote:

joedirt wrote:

There is a reason no big name athletes are running the marathon there. A hot marathon is like 70 or 80. This sounds like a death march.

You don't consider Ruth Chepngetich, Edna Kiplagat, Lonah Salpeter, Ruti Aga, Roza Derege big names?

They are indeed big names. We'll see who actually start though. Many may decide at the last minute to cash in at another big fall marathon.

Running at night in 35degC is very different to running in direct sunlight in 35degC. It'll be hot, no doubt, but that accumulated heat from constantly being fired by the sun in a day time race won't be there.

And if any runners haven't bothered to try to acclimatise and get into trouble, then more fool them.

I agree that the winning time is likely to be 2:44 or slower. The predicted dewpoint is 81F, temp 90F, heat index 109F. And I've always felt that the heat index formula is understated for extremely humid conditions. In my experience, that dewpoint is worth 45 seconds to 1 minute per mile when compared to ideal conditions. So, in ideal conditions if this would be a 2:18 race, it could easily be 2:44 or slower.

The only thing these women have in their favor is that most of them are absolutely tiny human beings, so their surface area to mass ratio is high, giving them superior radiative cooling to what the average runner experiences.

humidifryer wrote:

I agree that the winning time is likely to be 2:44 or slower. The predicted dewpoint is 81F, temp 90F, heat index 109F. And I've always felt that the heat index formula is understated for extremely humid conditions. In my experience, that dewpoint is worth 45 seconds to 1 minute per mile when compared to ideal conditions. So, in ideal conditions if this would be a 2:18 race, it could easily be 2:44 or slower.

The only thing these women have in their favor is that most of them are absolutely tiny human beings, so their surface area to mass ratio is high, giving them superior radiative cooling to what the average runner experiences.

I don't think this would ever be run in 2:18 even in ideal conditions. You're overestimating the desire of the faster runners in the race to run fast. Maybe 4-5 runners in the field could actually run 2:18 in Berlin-type conditions but this is tactical. Even in ideal conditions I wouldn't expect a winning time faster than 2:25 (the championship record is ~2:21 from a race in Finland...).

What I'm most interested to see is how slow they start out. 7 min miles? Very few of them will have experience running in anything close to these conditions. Even if they've done sauna training after the first hour of running the rest will be new territory. The race might end up being rather exciting. Some runners with slower PRs may try to break away and hold onto a suicidal pace (maybe some survive) which tactical racers trying to run a smart race hold back.

Then again it could be a 35K jog and then a 5K sprint, which would be less exciting. We'll see.

On the upside, the M100m goes tomorrow, the W100m on Saturday.

The weather looks grrrrreat for sprinting!

It all depends on acclimation. If a runner has been training at altitude with runs in the morning at 50 deg F, then they will be in big trouble at this race. If they have moved their training to a hot and humid coastal area, they will be able to get through it. My son plays soccer on a club team. They had practice and games in the afternoon when it was 100 deg+. No one had any problem with the heat because the kids had been out playing in the heat all summer, whether at camp or just messing around outside at home. Before Osaka and Daegu, a lot of distance runners spent time in Houston, TX or Florida to acclimate. That is the key.

Of course, the times will be crap. Women will not break 2:30 and men will be over 2:10. I would not at all be surprised to see winning times in the 2:15 range for men and 2:35 for women, maybe even slower.

This will be interesting. It’s going to come down to who can survive the insane heat the best, which means a total rando could win.

A total rando is going to win, and run a 2:24 or so, and this place will implode.

Sub 2:30 for the women and sub 2:10 for the men is my bold prediction. I think we're over-egging the impact.

Hard to tell if you're serious. If you are, perhaps you have not experienced dewpoints like this. Not many people have.

In Osaka 2007, the dewpoint was 72F with temp of 82F at the start of the men's marathon. Realize that the dewpoint in Doha is expected to be 81F and the temp 90F, so far far worse!

The winner in Osaka ran 2:15:59. One-third of the field DNF'ed. 2:20 was in the top 10.

Add 9 more degrees of dewpoint and 8 more degrees of temperatute, I expect you will add 10 seconds per mile at a minimum. It's going to be bad. It would be impressive if the top man breaks 2:20 and the top woman 2:35.

My predictions:

Men's winner: 2:23

Women's winner: 2:39