Last Saturday saw what I believe to be a magnificent achievement, Eliud Kipchoge breaking the 2 hour barrier for the marathon! Yet reading various magazine reports and Twitter posts it would seem that not everyone feels the same way.
This currant debate / obsession with the sub 2hour marathon started in 2014. When 27 time world record holder Haile Gabreslassie spoke at a sports conference held at Northumbria University to launch the sub 2hour project. This was a project led by Professor Yannis Pitsiladis to carry out research into nutrition, injury prevention and technology to make sub 2 hours achievable.
Soon after Nike got involved with their Breaking2 project which came close in 2017 (2.00.25) and now we have the recent successful attempt sponsored by Ineos.
'Purists' have been describing the achievement as 'not real athletics' and even as a pantomime. What you have to remember is though, that this was a challenge to see if a person could actually run 26.2 miles in under 2 hours and not an attempt to break an official athletics record. So the use of multiple pacemakers, access to fuelling, enhanced running shoes etc is fully justified.
I believe that by successfully running under 2 hours through this method it will herald the first sub 2 hour in a bona fide race earlier than would have otherwise been the case.
As for the contention with regards to innovations such as the shoes that were worn. Surely, have these types of innovation not always been the case? Yes, these shoes are much improved over, say the Nike Tailwinds that I wore when running my pb for the marathon 32 years ago (a meagre 2.25.55). But in turn, these were much improved from the 'plimsolls' that had been worn by earlier generations of marathon runners.
Talking of plimsolls, I am reminded of a book about former multiple world marathon record holder Jim Peters called Plimsolls on, Eyeballs out, by Rob Hadgraft which is a good read if you have the time.
So now that we know it is possible to run 26.2 miles in under 2 hours, I look forward to seeing the day that a marathon race in won in a sub 2 hour time
This currant debate / obsession with the sub 2hour marathon started in 2014. When 27 time world record holder Haile Gabreslassie spoke at a sports conference held at Northumbria University to launch the sub 2hour project. This was a project led by Professor Yannis Pitsiladis to carry out research into nutrition, injury prevention and technology to make sub 2 hours achievable.
Soon after Nike got involved with their Breaking2 project which came close in 2017 (2.00.25) and now we have the recent successful attempt sponsored by Ineos.
I believe that by successfully running under 2 hours through this method it will herald the first sub 2 hour in a bona fide race earlier than would have otherwise been the case.
As for the contention with regards to innovations such as the shoes that were worn. Surely, have these types of innovation not always been the case? Yes, these shoes are much improved over, say the Nike Tailwinds that I wore when running my pb for the marathon 32 years ago (a meagre 2.25.55). But in turn, these were much improved from the 'plimsolls' that had been worn by earlier generations of marathon runners.
Talking of plimsolls, I am reminded of a book about former multiple world marathon record holder Jim Peters called Plimsolls on, Eyeballs out, by Rob Hadgraft which is a good read if you have the time.
So now that we know it is possible to run 26.2 miles in under 2 hours, I look forward to seeing the day that a marathon race in won in a sub 2 hour time
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