Assume for a moment that the new efficiency-improved Nike shoes make a difference of, on average, 3”/mile for elite marathoners (or 1:18.6 for the full distance). If you look back and apply a (-78”) conversion to all marathons run prior to Berlin 2018, the all-time top lists look a lot better, in a sense. Only 5 of the top 10 male performers set their marks in the past 3 years, as opposed to 7 in actuality. On the women’s side, it makes for 6 instead of 8.
1. Dennis Kimetto 2:01:39
1. Eliud Kipchoge 2:01:39
3. Kenenisa Bekele 2:01:41
4. Emmanuel Mutai 2:01:55
4. Wilson Kipsang 2:01:55
6. Patrick Makau 2:02:20
7. Guye Adola 2:02:28
8. Stanley Biwott 2:02:33
9. Haile Gebrsellassie 2:02:41
10. Mosinet Geremew 2:02:42
1. Brigid Kosgei 2:14:04
2. Paula Radcliffe 2:14:07
3. Mary Keitany 2:15:43
4. Tirunesh Dibaba 2:16:38
5. Ruth Chepng’etich 2:17:08
6. Vivian Cheruiyot 2:17:13
7. Catherine Ndereba 2:17:29
8. Tiki Gelana 2:17:40
9. Worknesh Degefa 2:17:41
10. Mizuki Noguchi 2:17:54
And the men’s WR progression since Carlos Lopes in ‘85 (2:07:12).
Lopes 2:05:54
Dinsamo 2:05:32
Da Costa 2:04:47
Khannouchi 2:04:24
Khannouchi 2:04:20
Tergat 2:03:37
Gebrsellassie 2:03:08
Gebrsellassie 2:02:41
Makau 2:02:20
Kipsang 2:02:05
Kimetto 2:01:39
Kipchoge 2:01:39
Adjusting Top-Lists To Account For The Shoes
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If you do this in the opposite direction you also see that taking so much time off just for the shoes is giving nike way too much credit. If we adjust by so much then suddenly Kipchoge is the only runner under 2:05 in 2018 and only kipchoge/Bekele go under 2:04 in 2019, Dubai had a sudden drop in quality despite consistently good weather, average top 50, 100, etc times are the worst in a decade, and so on.
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Rf wrote:
If you do this in the opposite direction you also see that taking so much time off just for the shoes is giving nike way too much credit. If we adjust by so much then suddenly Kipchoge is the only runner under 2:05 in 2018 and only kipchoge/Bekele go under 2:04 in 2019, Dubai had a sudden drop in quality despite consistently good weather, average top 50, 100, etc times are the worst in a decade, and so on.
I don’t know if your examples hold up, though.
Sub-2:04 Sub-2:05 Sub-2:07
19* 2. 8. 19
19. 8. 11. 48
18. 1. 14. 46
17. 3. 4. 34
16. 4. 7. 30
15. 0. 2. 26
14. 2. 8. 31
13. 3. 9. 29
12. 0. 11. 43
11. 2. 3. 25
10 0. 3. 19.
*adjusted + 78”
Considering we still have 2.5 months to go, I think we’ll wind up with a more “normal” 2019 if we apply the hypothetical +78” conversion. It’s unfair to check the conversion against a top-50 or top-100 list unless we assume all of those athletes made their efforts in the new fancy shoes. As for Dubai dropping in quality, there has been one Dubai Marathon since Berlin ‘18 and two men went firmly under the previous CR while wearing the new shoes and if we added 78”, I don’t think 2:04:52 and 2:04:58 would represent a radical drop in quality.
You’re almost certainly right that the shoes are but one of multiple factors, and 78” may be too generous—but they make an appreciable difference, I’m sure. -
I was under the impression that the vaporfly have been publicly available since July 2017, so all of 2018 would be effected by their availability, making the adjusted stats for that year look especially bad.
And I guess that's fair about not being able to adjust top 50/100 times, although a lot of people here at least seem to be complaining that most pros use the new shoes or some equivalent. But outside the top 10 times each year the vaporfly's don't seem to have had a huge effect. Sure, the average top 100 time in 2018/19 were both about .4% faster than the average from 2011-2017, but a few years, 2012 in particular, had just as much depth.
I also guess Dubai didn't see as big of a drop as I thought, but 2015 is still the only recent year with a winning time worse than 2:04:54, and 2015 was the was overall the slowest year for marathoning in the last decade. I also thought Geremew was wearing the vaporfly in Dubai 2018, so that would make his adjusted time of 2:05:18 seem pretty mediocre. -
This thread made Thread of the Week on the podcast. We've got it set to listen to the relevant portion at the link below
(or you can listen to the full podcast there or on your favorite pod platform).
https://overcast.fm/+Ia5QI7iY/25:35 -
Mule Wasihun ran 2:03:16 at London this year in Adidas, despite being an essential nobody and only Ryan Hall-esque PRs of 28:23 and 59:34. Are you really claiming that Kipchoge and Bekele at their best are only 15-20 seconds better than this guy in his shoes?
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Thanks, Nike shill.
Sign Wasihun yet? -
I eat Nike shills for dinner wrote:
Thanks, Nike shill.
Sign Wasihun yet?
I'm an anomaly with Nike. I despise them as a company, but I vastly prefer their shoes (Pegasus, Streak, Vaporfly) to anything made by other shoe companies, so I use them and just feel a little bad about supporting Nike while wearing them. -
Also, wait, where is Mule on that original list? He runs for Adidas, so unless he was wearing Vaporflys with the swoosh covered up like that other Adidas dude, he should be the top few on your adjusted category.
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Mule Wasihun wrote:
Also, wait, where is Mule on that original list? He runs for Adidas, so unless he was wearing Vaporflys with the swoosh covered up like that other Adidas dude, he should be the top few on your adjusted category.
He was wearing the same Nike shoes as the other top finishers:
https://www.alamy.com/london-uk-28-april-2019-mule-wasihun-of-ethiopia-runners-at-finishing-line-of-virgin-london-marathon-credit-johnny-armsteadalamy-live-news-image244686851.html
(Google “Mule Wasihun London” if you need more evidence...)
So that would make 2:04:34 using my conversion in the reverse direction, which is 3 seconds faster than he ran to PR in Amsterdam last year.
Thanks for the shoutout on the podcast, LetsRun. -
Thank-you for taking time out to make the list! No shade being thrown at you here, but I'm more interested to see what the times would be adding 1:18 to the Next% times since the times previously run in Non-next% shoes were not "aided" and stack them up against how good the performances with the Next% shoes are against these guys.
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ncrecuvuer wrote:
Thank-you for taking time out to make the list! No shade being thrown at you here, but I'm more interested to see what the times would be adding 1:18 to the Next% times since the times previously run in Non-next% shoes were not "aided" and stack them up against how good the performances with the Next% shoes are against these guys.
Easy enough.
1. Kimetto 2:02:57 Berlin ‘14
1. Kipchoge 2:02:57* Berlin ‘18
3. Bekele 2:02:59* Berlin ‘19
4. E. Mutai 2:03:13 Berlin ‘14
5. Kipsang 2:03:13 Berlin ‘16
6. Makau 2:03:38 Berlin ‘11
7. Adola 2:03:46 Berlin ‘17
8. Biwott 2:03:51 London ‘16
9. Gebrsellassie 2:03:59 Berlin ‘08
10. Geremew 2:04:00 Dubai ‘18
Other Next% sub-2:04s:
Legese 2:04:06 Berlin ‘19
Geremew 2:04:13 London ‘19
Wasihun 2:04:34 London ‘19
Molla 2:04:52 Dubai ‘19
Lemma 2:04:54 Berlin ‘19
Negasa 2:04:58 Dubai ‘19
Note, I’m not sure if Adola in Berlin ‘17 was running with carbon plates in his shoes, and that Geremew in Dubai ‘18 probably was and could be omitted. If you added 1:18 to that crazy Dubai race—“the fastest marathon ever”—the top 6 finishers record 2:05:18 to 2:05:33.
