Eliud Kipchoge Breaks Two-Hour Marathon Barrier • Hacker News Board

Re: Eliud Kipchoge Breaks Two-Hour Marathon Barrier

#61

Post by YeGoblynQueenne » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 12:15 PM UTC

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #57

So Kipchoge had rotating teams of pacemakers running _before_ him, throughout the race. Each team was able to outrun Kipchoge for a short amount of time, but of course Kipchoge himself had to keep the same pace throughout the race. This reminded me of an episode from Terry Pratchett's Small Gods . This is mostly from memory, but he describes an invasion of the country Ephebe where the invasion force comes from the si…

Aye, found the passage from Small Gods:

Hierarchy, Vorbis said later. The Ephebians didn't think in terms of hierarchies.

No army could cross the desert. But maybe a small army could get a quarter of the way, and leave a cache of water. And do that several times. And another small army could use part of that cache to go further, maybe reach halfway, and leave a cache. And another small army . . .

It had taken months. A third of the men had died, of heat and dehydration and wild animals and worse things, the worse things that the desert held . . .

Re: Eliud Kipchoge Breaks Two-Hour Marathon Barrier

#62

Post by wccrawford » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 12:15 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #40

Someone wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drafting_(aerodynamics)#Runnin... : ”Drafting behind another runner can conserve energy, although the effect is less than in cycling due to the fact that speeds are lower.” There also is a psychological effect. It is easier to keep a constant pace if there’s somebody in front of you that does it, too.

So use an AR headset to put a virtual person in front of you keeping a constant pace?

That would be amazing for many sports, I think. Gamers are used to ghosts in races showing them what others have done. Doing this for real-life sports could really change how people train.

Personally, I find this a very inspirational idea.

Re: Eliud Kipchoge Breaks Two-Hour Marathon Barrier

#63

Post by jgtrosh » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 12:17 PM UTC

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #57

So Kipchoge had rotating teams of pacemakers running _before_ him, throughout the race. Each team was able to outrun Kipchoge for a short amount of time, but of course Kipchoge himself had to keep the same pace throughout the race. This reminded me of an episode from Terry Pratchett's Small Gods . This is mostly from memory, but he describes an invasion of the country Ephebe where the invasion force comes from the si…

Maybe some kind of opportunistic prefetching if you have regular deadlines and can expect a regular complex problem deadline. But maybe concurrent threads would be easier, so this could make sense only in a super limited embedded environment.

Re: Eliud Kipchoge Breaks Two-Hour Marathon Barrier

#64

Post by mantap » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 12:18 PM UTC

yk wrote: post #36

That is, while impressive, pretty meaningless. The thing is, that sports are defined by their rules and to the best of my understanding the long distance running rules are written to prevent teamwork. (Unlike cycling, which is explicitly a team sport.) Basically, the two hour mark is important in the specific circumstances of Olympic marathon, and was broken in a different sport. To broaden the discussion a bit, it s…

I think you must not have watched the broadcast because they made pains to point out that 1) it wasn't valid conditions for a world record and why, 2) it wasn't a race, 3) they were doing it so that when he and others run their next marathon under race conditions they have the psychological benefit of knowing that the human body is capable of it. And if you saw him bouncing around like a bunny rabbit after finishing, you'd believe too.

Re: Eliud Kipchoge Breaks Two-Hour Marathon Barrier

#65

Post by m12k » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 12:18 PM UTC

benmarks wrote: post #2

Given that "[i]t will not be recognised as the official marathon world record because it was not in open competition and he used a team of rotating pacemakers," Mr. Kipchoge's attitude represents the best of sport: "Now I've done it, I am expecting more people to do it after me... This shows the positivity of sport. I want to make it a clean and interesting sport. Together when we run, we can make it a beautiful worl…

Reminds me of that adage: "There is nothing noble in being superior to some other man. The true nobility is in being superior to your former self."

Re: Eliud Kipchoge Breaks Two-Hour Marathon Barrier

#66

Post by rimliu » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 12:19 PM UTC

dm3730 wrote: post #3

Factor of 4 difference between Eliud and the average human male. Factor of 4!

It would be difference between Eliud running and average male walking.

I would not dare event to try running a marathon, but I've done 100km walks 3 times already, and numerous shorter distances. Never walked extactly the marathon distance, but it should take me ~6:00 hours. However, I am definitely among the faster walkers (at the last 100km event they told me I was the first to finish, but it was not a competition, so who knows).

Re: Eliud Kipchoge Breaks Two-Hour Marathon Barrier

#67

Post by arctangent » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 12:22 PM UTC

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #57

So Kipchoge had rotating teams of pacemakers running _before_ him, throughout the race. Each team was able to outrun Kipchoge for a short amount of time, but of course Kipchoge himself had to keep the same pace throughout the race. This reminded me of an episode from Terry Pratchett's Small Gods . This is mostly from memory, but he describes an invasion of the country Ephebe where the invasion force comes from the si…

I don't know for sure but I strongly suspect that Pratchett was heavily influenced by Operation Black Buck: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Black_Buck

In particular, this diagram from that page makes the process clear: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Black_Buck#/media/Fi...

Hopefully the name of the original mission is enough to help you find a link to some relevant mathematics :-)

Re: Eliud Kipchoge Breaks Two-Hour Marathon Barrier

#68

Post by OldHand2018 » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 12:26 PM UTC

mantap wrote: post #64

yk wrote: post #36

That is, while impressive, pretty meaningless. The thing is, that sports are defined by their rules and to the best of my understanding the long distance running rules are written to prevent teamwork. (Unlike cycling, which is explicitly a team sport.) Basically, the two hour mark is important in the specific circumstances of Olympic marathon, and was broken in a different sport. To broaden the discussion a bit, it s…

I think you must not have watched the broadcast because they made pains to point out that 1) it wasn't valid conditions for a world record and why, 2) it wasn't a race, 3) they were doing it so that when he and others run their next marathon under race conditions they have the psychological benefit of knowing that the human body is capable of it. And if you saw him bouncing around like a bunny rabbit after finishing,…

> when he and others run their next marathon under race conditions they have the psychological benefit of knowing that the human body is capable of it.

One of the world major marathons is tomorrow in Chicago. Similar elevation to Wien and ideal temperatures are predicted, though breezy.

Let's see if anything happens.

Re: Eliud Kipchoge Breaks Two-Hour Marathon Barrier

#69

Post by rco8786 » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 12:26 PM UTC

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #57

So Kipchoge had rotating teams of pacemakers running _before_ him, throughout the race. Each team was able to outrun Kipchoge for a short amount of time, but of course Kipchoge himself had to keep the same pace throughout the race. This reminded me of an episode from Terry Pratchett's Small Gods . This is mostly from memory, but he describes an invasion of the country Ephebe where the invasion force comes from the si…

Sounds like dynamic programming

Re: Eliud Kipchoge Breaks Two-Hour Marathon Barrier

#70

Post by airstrike » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 12:28 PM UTC

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #57

So Kipchoge had rotating teams of pacemakers running _before_ him, throughout the race. Each team was able to outrun Kipchoge for a short amount of time, but of course Kipchoge himself had to keep the same pace throughout the race. This reminded me of an episode from Terry Pratchett's Small Gods . This is mostly from memory, but he describes an invasion of the country Ephebe where the invasion force comes from the si…

First thing that comes to mind is using an HP-12c calculator and only having 4 stacks available. You can go further than a regular calculator, but only a little bit at a time so you keep chipping away at a long equation and eventually your stack collapses down into the final answer across the desert ;-)