What will it take to run a 2-hour marathon?

Post by raverbashing » Fri, Oct 10, 2014, 9:25 PM UTC

ibmthrowaway218 wrote: post #54

mabbo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What will drugs give them though? As the article says, the perfect runner will be light, short, have long legs, insane VO2 max, good heat dissipation, low oxygen requirements. Apart from blood doping to increase VO2 max, what can one do to improve those other things?

I think one of the main areas of interest would be raising lactate threshold to delay OBLA. That's the main limit/inhibitor for endurance events. I'd expect the next generation of drugs will focus on things like improving monocarboxylate transporter throughput/efficiency.

Post by Florin_Andrei » Fri, Oct 10, 2014, 9:28 PM UTC

raverbashing wrote: post #24

Marathon and other endurance sports are interesting. It takes a toll on the body. It catabolizes it. Compare a marathon runner with a 100m runner. Also, as expected, temperature plays a big factor in it, which makes me wonder why so many people "love when it's a nice day" (read: sunny and hot) to exercise.

Post by x0x0 » Fri, Oct 10, 2014, 9:30 PM UTC

espinchi wrote: post #4

Here's the hypothetical scenario that the report describes in the end. I've found reading the analysis after this story makes it an even better read: 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…

   To boost their strength is not the sole reason athletes turn to steroids, 
   Yesalis adds. "They have been taken for at least 45 years by endurance 
   athletes to recover from workouts rapidly. With steroids, a marathon runner 
   can run longer, a swimmer can do more laps and a cyclist can spend more time 
   pedaling." In sports where endurance is everything, the ability to last 
   longer during workouts and competitions confers a definite advantage.
   
   Read more at: http://phys.org/news71508517.html#jCp

   Doping with EPO or blood transfusions is one way of boosting an already-high 
   VO2 max—and it’s possible that cheating may have contributed to the drop in 
   the marathon record, and could even be the “secret” that allows runners to 
   approach sub-two in the future. But Radcliffe’s numbers offer a reminder 
   that such tactics aren’t necessary to achieve boundary-breaking 
   performances: Her VO2 max was already exceptional when she was a teenager, 
   and it stayed at a relatively constant level throughout her career.

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 10, 2014, 9:31 PM UTC

Thrymr wrote: post #57

anon4 wrote: post #31

So much thought was put into the design and yet nobody bothered to add an option on whether you want to see units in standard or american measures. It's 2014, can't you people just detect I'm not american and put up normal Centigrade, km, kg, etc?

"What will it take to run a 7.2 kilosecond marathon?"

Post by thinkpad20 » Fri, Oct 10, 2014, 9:33 PM UTC

aardvark179 wrote: post #50

ArtB wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it should be part of HTML. A dimension or unit tag. It seems like a perfect continuation of semantic tags and the direction of XHTML 2 before the presentation-focused monstrosity that is HTML 5.

Units are harder than you might think. If I write 1 pint do I mean an imperial pint, a US liquid pint, or a US dry pint? The foot is equally tricky. This requires that the person writing the page gets it right, whereas with plain text we can rely on context to make a good guess at the unit that was meant.