the womens record just went in Chicago

Try running at 13.1mph, it feels like your almost sprinting !!!

It’s the same as my off road ride yesterday. Can’t get my head around running at that pace.

2. Aero drag at this speed is nowhere near as significant as at cycling speeds

Perhaps not as significant as the peloton at 40km/ h plus, but it’s still significant.

While I agree that the run was inspiring I fear it will be tainted by the connections with Nike’s Oregon Project.

While I agree that the run was inspiring I fear it will be tainted by the connections with Nike’s Oregon Project.

Oh, I dunno, there were 30 beefcakes running about in Japan earlier on, partaking in a sport that has by far the highest amount of drug use, going by the anti doping agencies, but we always focus on athletics or cycling…..

Why the emotions from people who do park runs? Comments from friends who do this like ‘I was in pieces’, ‘so emotional’ etc…they dont know the athlete or have any connection with him, amazing achievement yes, but baffled by the outpouring

Comments from friends who do this like ‘I was in pieces’, ‘so emotional’

All aboard the hype-train 🤣🤣🤣

Postulating here somewhat but given that the 10 fastest parkruns last weekend in the entire country were all somewhat behind 2m50 pace, I’d imagine your average parkrunner would have a decent idea of exactly how bonkers that pace is over 5k, let alone over 8 times that distance.

My best ever 1km was apparently 4m24 according to strava :-s

I tried to run at his pace round our local track over the weekend. I did 300m and was on my hands and knees, and I’m not a bad runner.

I’d have been there up to just shy of 3k. Only another 39k to go…..

I wonder if they ‘gamed the system’

We used TUEs to get marginal gains, says former Team Sky and British Cycling coach Shane Sutton

I thought it was staggering that out of all the parkruns (15 million or so) ever only 5 were faster than his target pace

@StuF – there’s been over 51 million park runs. Not that it makes much difference to just how quick he really is.

Cheers @whitestone – 🙂 couldn’t quite remember the number off the top of my head – knew it was a lot

(From a leading sports scientist in The Economist today)

These shoes were made for torquing

One of the biggest factors in Mr Kipchoge’s 1:59:40 display, however, is fully legal in official races. In Vienna he wore Nike’s latest advance in running-shoe technology: the Vaporfly Next. Its predecessor, the Vaporfly 4%, got its name from the shoemaker’s claim that it improves running efficiency by that margin, a staggering advance that has been corroborated by independent research. The Vaporfly Next has yet to be subjected to the same level of testing, but it is reasonable to assume that it does even more. The 4% model employs a stiff carbon-fibre plate to reduce wasted energy and features a unique design that counteracts some of the ankle injury risk the plate creates. The Next is the first running shoe to use multiple carbon fibre plates among a host of other bells and whistles.

According to Mr Tucker, the 4% advantage conferred by first-generation Vaporflys means that in less advanced footwear, Mr Kipchoge’s 1:59:40 performance would have been good for 2:02:52—an outstanding day at the office, even for an elite marathoner, but far short of the magic number. Not every runner responds to Vaporflys to the same degree, so it is possible they did not help Mr Kipchoge so much. But on the other hand, the Vaporfly Next may have offered an even greater edge than the earlier model.

Vaporflys have been on the feet of elite marathoners since 2016, a short span of time in which the event’s record books have been completely rewritten. Two weeks before the Ineos Challenge Kenesisa Bekele, a 37-year-old from Ethiopia, won the Berlin Marathon with a time only two seconds behind Mr Kipchoge’s official record. And on October 13th, a day after Mr Kipchoge toppled the two-hour mark, Brigid Kosgei, a 25-year-old Kenyan who also wears Nike’s shoes, set a new women’s world record at the Chicago Marathon. Ms Kosgei crushed Paula Radcliffe’s 16-year-old mark of 2:15:25 with a new best of 2:14:04.

Only four men have ever run a regulation marathon in less than 2:02:57, and all of them did so with the assistance of Vaporflys. This group of advantageously shod super-runners have defied the usual pattern, in which new records are established in increasingly tiny increments. The effect of the new technology is unprecedented in distance running, and brings to mind Speedo’s LZR full-body swimming suits, which substantially reduced friction compared to previous standard gear. They were worn by 94% of winners at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and so many swimming records fell that the suits were quickly banned

https://www.economist.com/game-theory/2019/10/13/eliud-kipchoges-historic-sub-two-hour-marathon-will-carry-an-asterisk

Impressive undoubtedly. It’s a furious pace..

But, I’ll be far more impressed the day someone does it under actual race conditions..

He didn’t use VapourFly Next%, though his support runners did. He used a prototype rumoured to be next years model called AlphaFly. They are meant to be even faster with more carbon…and potentially illegal for IAAF events.

@surfer, I’d be done at about the 3km mark too!

Impressive stuff for sure. What are the bets that Brigid Kosgei gets popped for EPO etc in the not too distant future…or am I being cynical?