This article was painful to read. I had to scroll then wait as the page slowly faded in. I gave up after a couple of pages. Too painful
What will it take to run a 2-hour marathon?
131–140 of 168 posts
Re: What will it take to run a 2-hour marathon?
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
Basically what drugs allow you to do is recover faster and better - which allows you to train far harder than your clean competition and build all of these superhuman stats you enumerated. A famous cycling reporter took drugs for a month to see just want the effect was and apparently it was like being superman. He would go out and ride 100 miles (something that normally leaves you in couch mode the next day) and be r…
Hmm, I wonder what the long term effects of these drugs are. Medicinal and therapeutic use may be very promising for average people just trying to stay in shape. If the long term effects aren't too terrible, say like that of coffee, then greater acceptance may be possible. Also, as toward the 2 hour marathon, drugs that are psychoactive may be of as great a benefit as the physical ones. Not just caffeine and other pl…
1 - coffee is not a placebo, caffeine is one of few ergogenic aids that's been often proven to have real benefits via double blind trials.
2 - if you legalize drugs then you require drugs (of anybody who wants to be competitive). Literally all professional cyclists use all the drugs they're allowed, and some they are not. On terms of caffeine this takes the form of a megadose towards the end of a race delivered via a "finishing bottle", which is a melange of caffeine, sugar, and painkillers.
Re: What will it take to run a 2-hour marathon?
#133This is an interesting analysis of available data for runners and record-breakers, outlining what will have to happen to break the two-hour mark for marathon times. Dennis Kimetto set the marathon record this year at 2:02:57. Cue complaints about scrolling behavior of this site, but the content itself is worth reading.
Huh. works great for me in Safari on OS X - and normally I'm the first to complain about poor site behavior (particularly animated gifs which Safari is terrible with).
Re: What will it take to run a 2-hour marathon?
#134Berlin, Dubai, Rotterdam, Frankfurt, Chicago, and London. In 4 of those cities they have no idea what a degree Fahrenheit is. It is a good idea to be able to choose between different units. Most of the world does not use imperial units is something that lots of people forget.
You sure don't think much of the intelligence of the average German, Dutch, or... Emir..ati... person.
Re: What will it take to run a 2-hour marathon?
#135Surprised no-one linked to sportsscientists.com: http://sportsscientists.com/2010/08/the-sub-2-hour-marathon-...
A line of thought that's particularly interesting there is that a 2h marathon has implications for 10000m and half marathon speeds, which make it seem quite a bit further off.
Re: What will it take to run a 2-hour marathon?
#136Better drugs than they are currently on. Nobody wants to admit it, but that is the real reason for the change in inflection of the line. See cycling.
Not really. EPO testing is now possible; it wasn't in the 1990s. That's why we saw dramatic increases in performance on the track in the 1990s.
The real reason is more financial: see the graph of prize money referenced in the article, and also take a look at the current state of track 10,000m racing. More top talent is attracted to the marathon, away from the longer track races, than before.
Re: What will it take to run a 2-hour marathon?
#137Does anyone have a mirror of this article on a readable page? Or a site I can run it through so it is viewable for humans?
Turn off Javascript for the page. Everything loads instantly, no more animation. The amount of work that went into making this pretty-good layout unreadable is insane.
Not sure if I'm particularly lucky with my PC, but everything is smooth and nice and I really enjoyed the effects on this page, and I appreciate their effort to use more modern technique than a plain static article.
Re: What will it take to run a 2-hour marathon?
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
So.... Yes, it seems likely that drugs have been a factor in the increased speed of distance runners. Sadly, the testing procedures for athletics are notably worse that for cycling (especially in the offseason). However running does have one critical difference compared to cycling that gives a small glimmer of possibility that some runners might be clean and competitive with dirty runner. In running, "running economy…
Sorry to burst your bubble, but the reason Kenyans dominate at long distance running is that their national ADA (anti doping agency) doesn't enforce the rules. It's starting to come apart at the seams though: http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/doping-probe-spurs-kenyas-...
Is it bad form to quote myself? it seems likely that drugs have been a factor in the increased speed of distance runners. Sadly, the testing procedures for athletics are notably worse that for cycling
But there is more to Kenyan domination than just doping. For example, there are plenty of countries with a history of distance running which are known to have weak anti-doping policies, and yet they aren't competitive anymore.
Re: What will it take to run a 2-hour marathon?
#139Better drugs than they are currently on. Nobody wants to admit it, but that is the real reason for the change in inflection of the line. See cycling.
Not really. EPO testing is now possible; it wasn't in the 1990s. That's why we saw dramatic increases in performance on the track in the 1990s. The real reason is more financial: see the graph of prize money referenced in the article, and also take a look at the current state of track 10,000m racing. More top talent is attracted to the marathon, away from the longer track races, than before.
It's true that record breaking has switch mostly from the track to the Marathon - probably because of financial reasons. But speeds haven't really slowed down (like they have in cycling).
Cycling has a biological passport which (at worst) limits how much a doper can improve their blood chemistry. Athletics doesn't have that, and doing point checks isn't as effective as looking at changes.
Re: What will it take to run a 2-hour marathon?
#140The track should be downhill?