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What Will It Take To Run a 2-Hour Marathon?
HughPickens.com writes Alex Hutchinson writes at Runner's World that runners have cut the distance to the sub-two marathon in half since 1998, but it will get progressively harder to trim the remaining seconds. Still, the physiologists tell us that it's not impossible, meaning it is possible. Hutchinson says it will take several things: a cold day in March or November; a straight, flat course that is mind-numbingly boring; pacemakers who will shepherd leaders around the course cutting the wind and setting the pace; and a runner with a frame of about 5'6", weight of about 120 pounds, and towering self-confidence.The road is so flat and straight, you can see them coming from a mile away. Six runners flow in arrowhead formation around the Canadian city of Saskatoon. The early November air is still and dry, the sky overcast, and the temperature hovers a bit above freezing, just as predicted. All in their early 20s, they've been training together for this moment for years; only in the last month did their coach select which three will go for the record. The remaining three form the front of the arrowhead, blocking the wind and enduring the mental effort of controlling the pace. Should one of them cross the finish line in two hours—or faster—all six will share equally in the $50 million jackpot promised by the heirs to the Hoka One One fortune. The pot of money is up for grabs, for any runner, anywhere in the world. The chase is on. So, will they make it? And what year is this? I'm saying the year is...2075—and they make it.
Alex Hutchinson writes at Runner's World that runners have cut the distance to the sub-two marathon in half since 1998, but it will get progressively harder to trim the remaining seconds.
Writing fail. Don't use the term "distance" to discuss intervals in time, especially when the topic specifically involves covering a specific distance as fast as possible. At first I thought they meant that the distance the runners have to race has been reduced in order to be able to run it in two hours.
Better known as 318230.
...at least 120 minutes.
I thought this was news for nerds.
My idea of exercise is reaching for the remote, and my idea of a marathon involves many movies.
Get this shit off my lawn.
Kenya or Ethiopia. Every human being to ever run less than 2:05 is from one of those countries.
The current record is 2:02.57 by a Kenyan, Dennis Kimetto.
if we'd drop all the drug-testing requirements. Performance enhancing drugs WORK.
"it's not impossible, meaning it is possible."
You don't say.
At most 120 minutes
And when they're done with the 2 hr marathon, maybe they can help these guys to design a better website.
"Bill Hicks: Remember Jim Fix, that health-nut who died while jogging? Used to write BOOKS about joggingwhat do you jot down about jogging? “Left foot, right foot, hemorrhage."
It's only "2075" if human performance follows a smooth curve.
What it will take in reality is two or three extreme performers in a group, each putting in a run equivalent to a Bob Beamon long jump. Actually, less. You're looking at about a five percent increase in performance versus the current world record.
There are certainly at least three people like that in the world right now - people with the right build, freakish VO2 max scores, and the sort of mental determination to stick with professional marathon running.
The problem is, they're probably not marathon runners - yet. Or possibly ever.
But sooner or later - and I'm betting sooner - it will happen. Probably closer to 2025 than 2075.
Performance enhancing drugs. Athletes at most levels of competition are at least training on them, so let's be honest, eh?
Also, whoever does finally break two hours is going to be an outlier on all of the charts, so looking at averages of statistical samples isn't going to help.
For example in my own case: I'm 49 and I ran 2:57 this year, which puts me in the top 2.5% overall and 1% for my age. For me to run my best I need a day temperature of around 60F so I'm way off that particular chart.
I also disagree with the idea that a flat course is necessarily the fastest. Of course you don't want mountains, but some small changes of gradient can allow changes in muscle usage leading to reduction of fatigue. I've run both Hamburg and Berlin several times; I find the slightly more undulating Hamburg to be noticably easier than Berlin.
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs," I said. "we have a protractor"
Have you been to Canada lately? It hasn't been a so-called "white" country for some time. Comparatively few of its inhabitants are of European descent these days.
Starting in the west, BC's population is about 65% Asian, 23% Amerindian, 3% African, 8% European, and about 1% other.
Moving east, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba have a very similar makeup. They're about 60% Amerindian, 20% European, 15% African, 4% Asian, and 1% other.
Ontario is the most diverse province. It's 27% Asian, 25% African, 22% Middle Eastern, 17% Amerindian, 7% European, and 2% other.
Quebec is the least diverse province. It's 33% European, 31% Amerindian, 30% African (mostly from French-speaking west Africa) and 6% other.
The Maritimes are more diverse than Quebec, but less so than Ontario. They're about 30% European, 28% African, 24% Middle Eastern, and 16% Amerindian, and 2% other.
In the territories, it's almost all Amerindian: 95% Amerindian, 5% European. But these absolute population here is small compared to the other provinces.
So I think it's totally plausible that there would be people from Canada with African origins who would be superb marathon runners. A large portion of Canada's population today has an African heritage.
and a downhill course
If you have someone running in front, cutting the wind, (called "drafting" in car and bicycle races) then you aren't really running a fair course. Might as well run it all downhill or with a wind at your back.
Actually that's just how you're thinking about it. Dan East is correct, time and distance are fundamentally different dimensions.
The summary implies that the front triangle of runners will be necessary to cut the wind generated from the athletes running through the air, and thus, that the air is still.
Wind at the runners' backs, on the other hand, obviates that issue entirely.
Also, just above freezing is probably too cold because it requires extra clothing (and thus weight) to protect the extremities. Ideal running weather is in the 50s F / 10s C.
The summary further posits that a flat, straight course is best without citing any evidence. Do we know that sustained, constant exertion is more efficient over a two hour period than exertion that has a cyclic component? Yes, a course that has gentle ups and downs will probably take more energy to run (as the runners need to lift themselves up each hill, and don't generally get that energy back), but is there empirical evidence that it will always be slower? Consider the extreme of a course that starts out at a higher elevation than it finishes, but is strictly linear in altitude between the start and finish lines. It will surely be faster than a straight, flat course without any change in elevation.
The limiting factor, it would seem to me, is that the ideal course to minimize speed has not been constructed.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
That isn't running.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
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You can tell me that your dog ran away,
then tell me that it took three days.
I've heard every joke,
I've heard every one you say.
You think there's not a lot goin' on
but look closer, baby, you're so wrong.
And that's why you can stay so long
when there's not a lot goin' on.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Please explain me what would be the point of that. If you want to break the arbitrary 2 hours limit in a Marathon, you should run the course between Marathon and Athens, with no water except what you can get from streams, and alone. That should be something, perhaps, specially if you drop dead in the end, proving you really had given your all.
If you are allowed to changing the route and having helpers, both in route and as water-offering minions, you can choose a route that slowly descends for most of the course (ideas?), or where winds are always favorable.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
The route of the marathon in my city completely encircles the block I live on, so from 1am tomorrow morning until 6pm tomorrow night I won't be able to get off my block. It sucks. At about 5am tomorrow, I will start to hear people lining up in front of my house with little cowbells that they use to cheer on the runners and then at about 6:00 am, the bad blues band (because Chicago marathon, get it) will start to warm up. It's like someone threw a party at your house at six in the morning and not only do you hate parties at 6am but they never asked your permission.
I don't get grumpy very often, but the annual marathon makes me grumpy. The only fun part is watching the paramarathoners go by first, on their high-tech racing wheelchairs, going like crazy and then the first few runners glide by, looking like they could run forever and then five hours later, the fatsos huffing and puffing and looking like they'd kill for a cigarette and a slice of pie.
Oh hell, let them have their party.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Doesn't seem any less "meaningful" than any other sports activities, e.g. baseball, car racing, or the Superbowl. Myself, I find it pretty damn impressive that anybody could run 42 kilometers at a speed that I couldn't sustain over 500 meters.
About 2 hours
(One of my prouder nerd moments was when I came up with the idea of a better, more humane mouse dynamometer and had a prototype built later that evening. Researchers now use my design, instead of forcing the modified mice to run to the point of exhaustion on an inclined treadmill with a motivational electrical shock grid at the back.)
Prior to Usain Bolt, the "experts" said that big/tall guys couldn't sprint. Bolt destroyed 100 years of such stupid speculations.
Now we have another set of stupid speculations about marathon running, almost certainly just as wrong.
Given the $$$ incentives, we'll see 2:00:00 broken prior to 2020, and by someone previously unknown.
But in the mean time, we'll see the world record broken perhaps another 25 times, because breaking the world record by 1 second pays just as well as breaking it by 10 seconds.
Google "Roland Matthes", who milked the system by breaking the world record by the minimal amount as many times as possible.
Replace 'run speed' with 'clock speed,' 'cold day' with 'watercooling system' or 'oil immersion cooling system' and what not, and all you're describing is how to severly overclock a certain type of machine without having it go unstable, or crashing.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
It was nice of you to completely ignore the argument for "mental toughness" AKA "I had my penis mutilated as a grown-ass man and would have lost everything had I shown any sign of discomfort during the process".
If you've never competed in serious athletics (where there are a thousand people younger, stronger, and hungry waiting for you to fail so they can take your job) breathing down your neck you might not understand just how important a skill swallowing pain is.
About two hours. Duh.
I wonder when the sequencing data for these guys will show up. You know they've done it....
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Seriously. I hate 'Message in a bottle' too.
Little Chocolate Donuts
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
"Bill Hicks: Remember Jim Fix, that health-nut who died while jogging? Used to write BOOKS about joggingwhat do you jot down about jogging? “Left foot, right foot, hemorrhage."
Remember Bill Hicks, that comedian who made fun of Jim Fix, the health-nut with a heart condition who died at the age of 52? Used to smoke, drink to excess, and make fun of people who took care of themselves? Died of cancer at the age of 32.
I don't know the same things you don't know.
I don't know... I just, don't know.
It's a great big place
full of nothin' but space,
and it's my happy place!
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seeking in a subway ride can cut down the time by a lot
Why, do you have research to indicate that mental toughness is such an important factor, and that amateur high school kids have more of it than professional runners ?
amateur high school kids who are raised in a culture which, from birth, will punish them for outwardly showing any sign of weakness or intolerance for pain.
Do you understand just how severe their passage-to-adulthood rituals are?
So, I take it you're in favor of doping because that's an individual, intrinsic activity.
Otherwise, where do you draw the line? Biology is inherently unfair. The Kenyans who keep setting these records have a genetic advantage (they are from a particular tribe), and males have such an advantage over females in many sports that natural females whose unaltered bodies hypersecrete testosterone are forced to undergo surgery/hormone therapy in order to become "female enough" to be allowed to compete. Yes, forcing dangerous medical interventions upon healthy individuals in the name of righteousness.
At some point, these idealists have become twisted, unethical Torquemadas, a parody of themselves wherein at least some of the dopers are on better moral ground than they are.
...significant differences in body mass index and bone structure between the Western pros and the Kenyan amateurs who had bested them. The studied Kenyans had less mass for their height, longer legs, shorter torsos, and more slender limbs. One of the researchers described the Kenyan physical differences as "bird-like," noting that these traits would make them more efficient runners, especially over long distances. http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/04/why-kenyans-make-such-great-runners-a-story-of-genes-and-cultures/256015/
Polar bears.
Now get running. Or else.
Have gnu, will travel.
Alan Turing ran 2;46:03 in 1948, nearly qualifying for the British Olympic team. While at Cambridge he used to run to Ely and back, and it is said that he once ran from Bletchley Park to a meeting in Whitehall - and back again after. (History doesn't record what the besuited civil servants made of the brilliant boffin sitting at table with them in his sweat-soaked running clothes).
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
anthropomorphic global warming.
Huh, they've anthropomorphized global warming? So... what's it look like? Red fur, raven wings? Maybe a rainbow tail? Dare I ask for Rule 34?
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
Fixx's father died of a heart attack at 43, so Jim lasted 9 years longer. He had a congenitally enlarged heart, and (according to Ken Cooper) made the critical mistake of failing to warm down gradually after a hard run in hot weather - indeed, tired as he must have been after a hard journey, going for the run was foolhardy.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
A really fast guy is Usain Bolt. For a marathon you need someone who can keep up a medium speed for 2 hours.
Well written, well presented, a joy to read on a tablet.
Fran
:):):)
1st 1st Poster of the new Millennium!
Spoken like a true dickless and brainless AC.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Bill died from cancer of the pancreas that spread to his liver, pancreatic cancer is strongly associated with smoking, true, but 80% of victims are above the age of 60, note: What Causes Pancreatic Cancer? Perhaps he just drew a bad set of cards, a bit of irony which would be very apropos.
His routine contrasting the fates of Fixx and Yul Brynner is, hands down, the funniest bit of stand up comedy I've ever heard.
you have clearly never run a marathon. yes, using rabbits is a somewhat controversial issue but it is non the less impressive.
a sub 2hr marathon is crazy fast. to make this happen will require every angle, every subtle increase you can possibly imagine.
run one, maybe two marathons and then you can talk about what is lame.
not to mention running is and has always been a numbers game.
read any running literature and you see runners are always running against the clock. Once a Runner (widely considered the best running book ever makes it very clear runners run against the clock).
if it is a piece of cake for you, run faster. until it is not a piece of cake.
a 5k lolly gaggy is a piece of cake, until you run it hard and its not.
always knew the norse are f. racist - they even managed to use science to confirm their world vision oh wait.....
About 2 hours
FTFWIKI
... Philippides, the one who acted as courier, is said to have used it first in our sense when he brought the news of victory from Marathon and addressed the magistrates in session when they were anxious how the battle had ended ; "Joy to you, we've won" he said, and there and then he died, breathing his last breath with the words "Joy to you". – Lucian translated by K.Kilburn.
so since it killed him, naturally, the first thing we do is try the same thing!
no wonder marathoners look like cancer survivors...
What are your thoughts on Santa?
Requiem for the American Dream
And a flat smooth surface.
...of news for nerds.
I think WADA have classified both alcohol and cannabis as performance enhancing drugs so if I can just drag myself off the couch I assume I'll have a huge advantage and it'll be no trouble at all.
In mathematics, distance is the generic term when dealing with how far two points are in an arbitrary metric space. Or isn't it?
The term you are looking for is 'interval' - at least that's what we call it in physics when dealing with 4-position which is technically what we are discussing. It also happens to be the correct english world for a "distance" in time.
It is actually quite simple, about 200 TVs, all in one room, playing a differing episode. The marathon last the duration of the longest episode. BAM!
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Give us your references for where you derived these statistics from, anonymous coward. I suspect you've just made these figures up as other posters with references provide very different figures, but we should be fair and let you offer your evidence.
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I was contrasting doping as an intrinsic activity (done with one's own body) as opposed to "people using bench-shirts and other individuals", which you called out as rendering a record "pointless" because they couldn't accomplish it themselves. Obviously, doping allows one to accomplish something with one's own body.
Biological advantages are incredibly pertinent when talking about world records. You can't just hand-wave them away by saying an Olympic shot-putter wouldn't do well in a marathon. Was the shot-putter a prospect for holding a world record in the marathon or in shot put? That is to say, your point would only be logically consistent if there was only one single world record for "sports". As in, one person was nominated champion of all athletics. Since that is not the case, biological advantages certainly come into play as they benefit particular individuals in particular sports.
My point is that there is always inherent unfairness in sports and it seems pointless to try to eliminate it. I even gave an example where the attempt to equalize the competitors has resulted in unethical positions being taken by sports authorities.
I also am going to call out your rejection of records for certain tactics in competition: it's arbitrary. I agree with you that it's lame to have people running in front of you to draft behind, but no one seems to think that having a higher intrinsic lactate threshold or longer legs is "unfair" or resulting in a "fabricated record". Hell, or "being male" as the world sporting associations have all tacitly admitted is such an advantage that being female needs to be a protected class. If we're going to allow that distinction as an "unfair advantage", then where do we draw the line?
Personally, I would suggest just recording all the objective data points and allow everyone to determine who was the world record holder based on their own criteria. Are you the world record holder in the non-amphetamine doping, non-bird-leg genetic haplogroup, male, 175–180 cm tall, under 35 age class for a marathon run on a course that ended more than 50% of the distance from the starting point on a day where it was between 15 and 20 C? Okay, what about amphetamine-using females in the 18–23 age group who ran on a circuit course with more than 400m elevation delta?
It's not like we can't handle that kind of data parsing these days via interactive apps.
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A slight downhill course
you should take into account people over there still walk and run barefoot, which is much healthier and trains much better the human body for running
Preferably from Africa.
Or Jamaica ;-)
Why not just do an all downhill course. That would make it much easier to do it under 2 hrs.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
To be eligible for the record the start and finish have to be within a certain distance of each other. Times set at Boston, for example, are not permitted
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs," I said. "we have a protractor"