What will it take to run a 2-hour marathon?
rw.runnersworld.comBetter 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.
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"[1] is a huge factor in performance, and is quite variable and can be improved with training[2]. In cycling there isn't really a similar factor (except for a cyclists weight): the ceiling of non-doped performance over a 40+ minute timeframe seems to top out at around 6.4 Watts/kg, and that can be projected directly onto a given climb to calculate the best possible time. Yes, tactical factors, weather and measurement errors make that seem more precise than it is in practice but the point is that there does seem to be a genuine ceiling on output.
In running that ceiling hasn't been found. Running economy is measured by putting runners in a closed-system and measuring speed vs energy usage. Elite runners generally are more efficient than non-elite, but no one really knows why.
However, it has been proven that running economy can be improved by training with runners who are faster than you[!].
Two points here: some runners might be clean and be beating dirty runners through better economy (which they might have obtained by training next to doped runners), and secondly it might be possible to find methods to improve economy dramatically.
(Road cyclist, sometimes runner, eternal optimist here)
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.
No, the reason they dominate marathon running is because prize money is huge (by their standards of living) and has exploded in the last 30 years. Americans and Europeans have gone BACKWARDS since the 80's, as the sport is longer popular.
Here is an actual informative documentary (unlike your article which reads like it's from TMZ):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGVSO1sg2Fk
Your article doesn't talk about any top Kenyan runners. The only Kenyans that have been caught doping in recent years (yes they do get tested) are third-tier Kenyans, usually without education, thinking (or being persuaded by doctors) that it will get them to the top level, which it never does.
I don't see any evidence that Kipsang, Kimetto, Mutai, or Makau ever used drugs, or anyone even claiming to be in the know that they used.
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?
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 ready to do all again the next day like he hadn't even touched the bike the day before.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Doper-Next-Door-Performance-Enhanc...
HGH and EPO are the drugs we have all heard about but I'm sure there are 8 we haven't heard about yet. Also this book gives you insight into the violence we are seeing outside of the gridlines in the NFL. Apparently all of these drugs running around in you makes you crazy in a lot of cases.
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 placebos, but getting into the right 'head space' is just as important to breaking such records. LSD was an integral part of one of baseball's no hitters, a terrific feat of athleticism. Many feats of the mind may be broken in Washington state due to the permissive pot laws.
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.
1- Yeah, sorry, crummy writing.
2- Ewwww....
Speaking to your question about "what the long term effects of these drugs are":
My wife put together a together a pretty interesting video about the "faustian bargain" which is IGF-1 (used as a proxy measure for growth hormone)... video is replete with examples of the effects of low IGF-1/GH or high IGF-1/GH both in animal models and humans.
One of the more interesting points in the video is the fact that people with polymorphisms that make their IGF-1 receptor experience some slight loss of function actually live longer (in general).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjSl4n_KdOY
The video also links to an article which has a bibliography if you're interested.
I viewed the video to a half and found enough difference with what I know that I cannot agree with her conclusions. It is more complicated than performance/longevity. Especially when we going to humans from animals.
For example, reaction speed correlates with longevity: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16079205 Reaction speed needs muscle power and neural signal power, both are supported by IGF-1.
Arm grip in midlife is stronger for centenarians: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21541735
Thus, while entertaining, the video of your wife is too quick to jump to conclusions.
Why I insist that humans are different.
Number of heart beats per life of regular animal is about 1 billion. Humans average 2 billions. We use different longevity modes than rest of animal kingdom, I think.
Here's a short film on Dock Ellis's no hitter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vUhSYLRw14
As I understand it the main problem with the androgen anabolic drugs is aromatization. The chemicals tend to wind up as estrogen. Professionals using the drugs pursue careful protocols to limit aromatization; amateurs not so much hence the shrunken dick and bitch tit rumors about 'roids. Contrary to the popular understanding of estrogen as "the female hormone," estrogen compounds are more usefully thought of as dangerous stress hormones. This is why xenoestrogens from plastics and so forth are so problematic. Estrogen replacement therapy in aging women turned out to be a horrifically bad idea that resulted in high rates of cancer and heart attacks.
HGH is also essentially a stress hormone that for the most part you want to keep as low as possible. It can speed healing and recovery but is tied to cancer and aging in general. Lowering growth hormone in lab animals makes them live longer. I think HGH supplementation is maybe a popular myth that in practice isn't much used. This is what the Balko guy has explained post prison release. He says it's pretty much all about the androgens and HGH isn't very useful.
I don't know anything about EPO dangers. Presumably it leads to thrombosis, strokes, and heart attacks.
Professionals use drugs that attempt to counter aromatization, eg arimidex, in their stacks. There will still be side effects. Serious bodybuilders regularly have their nipple glands removed. Gyno surgery is incredibly common.
Bostin Loyd is actually honest and discusses gear -- see eg [0:2].
[0] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmPI_kX3oDE
Anabolic steroids stimulate production of eritrocitos. That's how they help recovery and endurance and also that's why they can lead to trombs.
NFL players aren't particularly violent outside of the gridlines:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/the-rate-of-domestic-viol...
...relative to the income level (top 1 percent) and poverty rate (0 percent) of NFL players, the domestic violence arrest rate is downright extraordinary.
You've really misrepresented the article.
I don't think I tried very hard to pin the article down.
I did make the comment from the comparison to the general population though.
edit: I have to say, I'm pretty ticked off you accused me of being dishonest. My one sentence blurb is a reasonable response to the context from the parent comment to mine, where the NFL players are claimed as a group that is more violent than normal. There is certainly room to point out that they have cohorts where they don't compare well, but it is not outrageous to answer an assertion about how they compare to people in general with an analysis of how they compare to people in general.
I have to admit that it is depressing to think that NFL players are really the normal and not the outlier.
That reporter was an idiot. His entire experiment was qualitative instead of quantitative. How did he know that his performance improved? Because he reported that he felt like he was going faster. Useless.
Are you seriously going to defend the proposition that the placebo effect is that large?
Science requires us to be more careful in our thinking than we are naturally inclined towards. It does not require us to pretend we have a lobotomy, nor does it require that we pretend that we must seriously entertain the hypothesis that large doses of steroids have no effect.
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.
Very interesting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactate_threshold
Quickly skimming the drug cocktails tour de france competitors take will answer your question.
But, as sibling answers say, decreased training recovery times is incredibly important. Steroids also protect your joints -- they are an anti-inflammatory. Runners' knees, ankles, and spines take a pounding.
Drugs like testosterone allow you to lose fat mass while retaining muscle mass. Drugs like clenbuterol help you shed weight and metabolize fat more quickly.
I don't think it's as bad as Tour de France, but it is likely. Doping and anti-doping is a rat race.
Do you think there is no doping control for elite marathoners (and other runners)?
The tests don't really work. All the athletes are on cycles of daily microdosing protocols that to date are undetectable. It works for EPO as well as androgens.
If you have any question whether an athlete, model, or actor is using drugs it is safe to assume the answer is yes.
Why actors?
Drugs will allow you, at smaller sizes, to get ripped with very little effort. Drugs will allow you, with extreme effort, to look like the rock. Many actors that get lean for roles could possibly be natty, though I'd say few have the work ethic. Nobody natty is as big as the rock. It's not possible.
Not to mention the idea of actors putting on 10-20 pounds of lean muscle in, say, 3-6 months between movies is laughable (but remotely possible) in their 20s. When you see guys doing it in their 40s you have to be actively lying to yourself to believe that possible.
Oh, and low doses of much of this stuff, under careful supervision of a doctor, makes you healthier. Your skin will be better, you'll look younger, you'll have (slightly) more muscle, etc. Aging clinics are greenwashing drugs: you pay $2k/mo and get scrips making everything nice and legal.
Actors routinely sport lean muscle mass that is unrealistic without 'roids.
Presumably millions of people think Christian Bale, Daniel Craig, and Chris Pratt, and many, many others have been natty in recent roles. Laughably false. Look at models and actors from the 50s and 60s and note their ages to have an idea what is realistic.
Oh, thanks, I hadn't thought of those. I was thinking `Why'd Woody Allen take drugs for acting?'
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.
I don't deny that doping still goes on, but people are forced to resort to less effective means than they used to. Take the example of Rashid Ramzi--it is likely that he was not the only doper, just a more aggressive one. Why was he caught when others were not?
> speeds haven't really slowed down
This isn't wholly true. Have you seen a 3:26.00 1500m, a 7:20 3000m, or a sub-12:40 5000m lately?
It's also untrue that athletics doesn't have a biological passport system. There are bans being handed out now for passport violations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natallia_Kareiva
We saw dramatic increases in performances on the track in the 90's because that's when the African training camps were formed. Instead of one Henry Rono suddenly there were 100. Though I wouldn't deny EPO use was rampant, times didn't slow down either once the EPO tests came out, so I think its effect was exaggerated.
Distance running isn't about power like cycling is.
Distance Cycling is far more about endurance than a 2+h marathon. EX: Tour de france ~90h over 21 days. http://www.letour.com/le-tour/2014/us/overall-route.html
You're comparing apples to oranges. Riding multi-day bicycle race is completely different from the running a single marathon event. Some people run marathons every day, for a year (http://edition.cnn.com/2011/SPORT/02/05/marathon.record.enge...). It's hard to argue that that would require no less endurance than Tour de France (or Vuelta).
Yes, apples to oranges, but if we use total energy requirement and duration of a competition as indicator, than a typical road cycling race requires much more endurance than a marathon.
This is a classic one-day race, > 5000 kcal, > 6 hours.
but it is about endurance. see EPO.
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 predicted.
All in their early 20s, they’ve been training together for this moment for years; only in the last month did their coach select which three will go for the record. The remaining three form the front of the arrowhead, blocking the wind and enduring the mental effort of controlling the pace. Should one of them cross the finish line in two hours—or faster—all six will share equally in the $50 million jackpot promised by the heirs to the Hoka One One fortune. The pot of money is up for grabs, for any runner, anywhere in the world. The chase is on.
So, will they make it? And what year is this? We’ve cut the distance to the sub-two marathon in half since 1998, but it will get progressively harder to trim the remaining seconds. Still, the physiologists tell us that it’s not impossible, meaning it is possible. I’m saying the year is...2075—and they make it
Why is it that drafting is allowed in world records? Why not just break the record by having a big draft train like in cycling? Cycling records don't count if drafting is involved, in fact.
Because the benefit is pretty small compared to what you can save in cycling. Now it's certainly there, which is why you want to save the extra 5% for the 2h mark, but it's not the 40% you get in cycling on the flat (drag grows faster than linear).
Marathon races are traditionally about winning, not about records, and times aren't really comparable across courses.
The Marathon record doesn't even require the course to be flat (there are limits on the elevation difference for it to be recognised as a record).
Drafting isn't massively effective in running. A Marathon in 2 hours is 21 km/h, and in cycling you wouldn't really bother drafting at that speed.
I wondered whether everyone you're racing with has to have started the same path at the same time as you. If so, my inherent sense of fair says it's okay. It's just admitting that it's effectively a team sport.
However, If the people who break the air in front of the record contender get to jump in part way through, I don't like it. Though I'm realizing now that if the track is any kind of loop, you could stretch this rule by intentionally letting the contender lap the pacers so they could reserve energy for every nth lap when they hop back in front of him.
The whole article is beyond stupid. It's impossible to seriously discuss athletic records in 2014 and not mention drugs. No discussion of steroids, blood doping, hgh, nothing. For context, the major marathons just increased their drug penalties [1]. The second they get serious about testing they'll discover they have the exact same problem as bicycle racing.
[1] http://www.bmw-berlin-marathon.com/en/news-and-media/news/20...
curun1r: steroids are useful for the exact same reason in the tour de france: decreased training recovery times, joint protection, etc. See eg nordic skiing [2]. You don't take the same doses as bodybuilders do because your goal isn't hypertrophy, but it still helps. Or see this quote [3]
Also -- and I missed this mention amidst the scrolling -- while the article mentions epo, it proceeds to discount epo, and avoids any other drugsTo 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
Steroids and other drugs help, as demonstrated by baseball, basketball, football, hockey, powerlifting, olympic lifting, bodybuilding, tour-de-france cycling, time-trial cycling, cross-country skiing, nordic skiing, judo, boxing, and mma. Every athletic endeavor that has been seriously tested has found record-breakers using steroids. The point isn't that having an off-the-scale vo2 max isn't required. That's table stakes. Steroids plus other drugs take that exceptional vo2 max and turn it inhuman.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.[2] http://www.steroids.info/2012/10/09/documentary-looks-at-ste...
The article did mention drugs, specifically EPO which is used to increase VO2 Max. Steroids would be less useful in a runner since they add muscle mass and dragging any excess weight around a 26.2 mile course is counterproductive. The article mentioned that EPO could be behind either the recent world record times or the eventual sub 2-minute time.
Corticosteroids are used to improve recovery time and to help reduce pain and inflammation. They are routinely abused by cyclists, who are also endurance athletes who seek to minimize body mass.
This 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.
Your comment caught my attention, because I don't have any problem with the display of the content. Then, I immediately realized: I do not have Javascript enabled from runnersworld, thanks to the NoScript Firefox extension.
I temporarily turned it on, and saw the annoyances.
The static view without JS is just fine: the graphs and their labels are all there; nothing moves when you scroll.
>'...the content itself is worth reading.'
It sure looks that way and I'm normally pretty tolerant of design flourishes, but I find this simply unbearable.
Still, I really wanted to read this, but neither Pocket, Readability nor Instapaper are able to pull more than a few paragraphs of usable text out of it.
The design isn't just bad or annoying it's hostile.
In addition to my observation that disabling JavaScript from runnersworld.com stops all the effects while evidently showing all the content nicely, I'd like to add that the page renders very nicely in the print view of the FireFox add-on known as "Print Edit". "Print Edit" lets you trim out superfluous junk from the document, and then print it or save a copy.
I thought the scrolling behavior was nice. Seeing a long article can be distracting if you're not interested in the topic and check its length. Having a single paragraph or element load as you scroll looks like an intentional design concept to prevent this.
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).
Unfortunately this article misses the third of the three components to improve endurance performance, which is lactate production rate (indicator for fat burning: the lower the more energy is produced by burning fat).
Two athletes with the same VO2max and efficiency can have vastly different performances in a marathon. The body's VO2max potential can be used by solely burning carbs, which supply is limited (about 2000 kcal) whereas fat supply is practically unlimited (1 kg has about 7000 kcal. As a marathon requires more energy than is available as stored carbs, the ability to burn fat is a major factor in marathon performance.
lactate production rate (indicator for fat burning
The body's VO2max potential can be used by solely burning carbs
Actually you mixed them both up. In aerobic (with oxygen) exercise, you mostly burn fat. In anaerobic exercise, you burn glucose and glycogen and produce lactic acid through lactic acid fermentation. The important metric for anaerobic performance is not acid production rate, but acid tolerance of the muscles, because high acid levels lead to fatigue.
To clarify my context: For a given effort, the body always uses anaerobic and aerobic systems. The higher the fraction of the energy from the anaerobic system, the higher the lactate production rate. The lower the lactate production rate, the more energy comes from burning fat.
Lactate can be further used to create ATP, but this process needs oxygen as well. Hence, a good VO2max helps to get rid of lactate, which was created in the anaerobic process. When measuring the lactate threshold by solely the lactate concentration, it's difficult to distinct between high production / high reduction and low production rates. Good VO2max can conceal weak fat burning abilities. Therefore often the lactate production rate by a given effort (typically maximum effort) is used as indicator for the fat burning capability.
(Hope that makes sense, English is not my native language :-) ...)
Does 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.
Thanks, that is a huge improvement. There is still a large amount of completely useless whitespace, I guess that is there to enable the obnoxious animation malarkey...
This site should be used in schools to teach future web developers what not to make.
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.
I especially like this paragraph from the story: "Kenyans and Ethiopians have dominated the marathon since 1999; in fact, of the 100 fastest marathoners in history, 59 are from Kenya and 31 are from neighboring Ethiopia. Is it genes or environment—nature or nurture—that is responsible for this overwhelming domination? The answer doesn’t actually matter when it comes to who will run the first sub-two marathon. The success of East African runners reveals key traits that the eventual record-setter will possess, wherever he happens to be born." Yes, no matter where the runner who first runs a sub-two-hour marathon is born, from whatever group of ancestors, and where the runner trains, the runner will have to have certain characteristics to run that fast for that long. The article then proceeds to detail those characteristics.
I used to turn off a lot of Javascript on webpages, but I'm actually managing to read this article reasonably well despite the appalling usability it has with Javascript turned on. The article is definitely worth a read, despite the annoying default screen presentation.
A lot of the success of Kenyans and Ethiopians is probably down to the economics of running (which is to say, it is an easily accessible sport to even the poor) and the feedback loop of other successful Kenyans. Kimetto, the recently crowned world marathon record holder, was a subsistence farmer just years ago (http://www.runnersworld.com/elite-runners/from-poverty-to-po...). There are simply no western school kids growing up thinking distance running is a viable career path for them (and given what we make the kids do for exercise in school, we couldn't spot a talent anyway).
Contrast this to other extreme endurance sports such as pro cycling, where there are basically no Kenyans, Ethiopians or Africans at all to be found. Theres a high cost to entry and it requires infrastructure to train.
You make it sound like the Africans are the only ones racing. There are plenty of Euro/Asian/American runners competing for it and probably had much better infrastructure and training counsel than their African counterparts. Yet still, the Africans dominate. By definition then, its definitely more than just 'economics' and certainly more to do genes/physique/etc.
Read "Running with the Kenyans"[1]. Euro/Asian/American runners might have nice tracks to train on, but they don't have things like training groups that include multiple Boston, NY and Berlin winners.
That book is pretty eye opening read. The running culture is like nothing else - guys who come 3rd in the world 10,000m championship are hardly worth mentioning, high school races have better fields than US or European championships etc etc.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Running-Kenyans-Discovering-Secrets-Fa...
I read into your post the idea that it's training culture and not genetics that gets so many east africans into distance running success. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Seems unlikely to me. 100m and 200m is thoroughly dominated by New World West Africans.
Mid distance 400m to 1600m is pretty well split up between Africans, Whites, and East Asians. Whites actually seem to do well at 800m.
I don't really know, but it seems there's a ton of racial genetics at play in sport.
You see in olympic/power lifting it's dominated by nordics/baltics and persians. Considering global popularity it defies ideas about training culture.
I'd never rule out the (huge) role genetics play. But the culture and environment have a role too.
You don't see many Kenyans dominating in cross country skiing or in road cycling which are both endurance sports where similar physical attributes are useful. Sports culture has a huge role.
OTOH, there have been projects to see how Kenyans do in those sports. The small Nike-supported cross country skiing project wasn't very successful[1], but the cycling project is showing some promise[2]. Genetics has a huge role.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Boit
[2] http://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2013/apr/29...
A "Kenyan" has won the Tour de France.
So true... and kind of weird I didn't think to mention that!
I wonder if that counts as genetics or environment.
For those unfamiliar, the 2013 Tour De France winner Chris Froome was born in Kenya to British parents. He races under a British license and does not appear to share many genetic similarities to top Kenyan marathon runners. He's fairly tall (184cm), with significantly different facial features and skin tone.
OTOH, he has a pretty amazing ability to produce constantly high levels of power on long (30 minute+) climbs.
Sprinting is THE sport of Jamaica.
Distance running is THE sport of East Africa.
As someone who trains somewhat competitively for marathons in a group, I can tell you that having people of similar ability to train with has a huge impact. As does having soft surfaces to run on and good weather.
Genetics may be in play, but it isn't the only thing in play.
No idea why you're being downvoted. Having high-altitude adaptations certainly helps:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_adaptation_in_hu...
Surprised 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.
I'm consistently surprised by what the human body is able to achieve. If you've never heard of ultra marathon runners, you should check out this episode of radiolab. This lady runs for days on end in ultramarathons. http://www.radiolab.org/story/122291-in-running/
It's intriguing that she suffered brain trauma and there's a part of her brain that doesn't function as expected. I expect there will be a marathon runner with a very specific brain trauma. The trauma will give him an unfair advantage to run a sub two hour marathon.
If you find ultras interesting, watch a documentary called _Running on the Sun_ (trailer [1]). It's about the badwater 135: a 135 mi course run in 120F weather through Death Valley with 13k cumulative feet of elevation gain [2]. The runners are insane. Current course records are just below 23 hours.
yeah badwater gets a lot of mention in the classic "born to run" book as well. i f you can spare a day or three, highly recommended.
I know we like nice round numbers like "2 hours" but anything remotely close to 2 hours is an insane, all-out pace as any runner knows.
I doubt most cities have people who could run a half marathon at that pace. The best half-marathons are still around 59 minutes, now you want to double that with no performance penalty.
It is going to take an incredibly genetically gifted person with a lifetime of training to do it. Basically the Usain Bolt of marathons.
What I like is that in the half-marathon, women are only 5 minutes behind men. I am more interested when the first woman will run a one hour half-marathon.
Looking at a different pivot to the question, Allen Downey gives a good theoretical reason for the decline in times and projects 2041 as the year for the 2-hr marathon. Also, his original projection was made in 2011, so there are three years of data to compare against, which is interesting. http://allendowney.blogspot.com/2014/09/two-hour-marathon-in...
with regard to Berlin, weather, etc... - my meager experience of recreational runner matches it exactly - the best environment to run has been near Baltic Sea during Fall, soft, cool, almost mist air which cools you off and is absorbed by lungs without strain. The article doesn't mention humidity - it shouldn't be too heavy, yet dry air wouldn't work that well with lungs.
What will it take for old people to stop writing in weird degree units so the rest of us don't have to convert it?
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.
*catabolism: the breakdown of complex molecules in living organisms to form simpler ones, together with the release of energy; destructive metabolism.
Incredible.
meta = ana + cata
Creation and destruction. Build up of tissue, and burning of energy stores.
I'm nowhere near the level where these people compete, and my thing is road biking, not running, but I did notice the best day for a ride up and down the hills is: low temperature, dense clouds, maybe even light intermittent rain (barring any traction issues in corners).
BTW, strength-based sports also take a toll on the body. Maybe even more than long distance running. You can keep doing long races well into advanced age, whereas weight lifting after 40 is a bit sketchy.
> whereas weight lifting after 40 is a bit sketchy.
At a competitive level, probably yes. As an exercise, very good for muscle mass, bone mass, cardio health, etc.
Always found that strange as well. I've always loved being a runner in Seattle because its generally cool, cloudy, and often light rain. To me that's the perfect weather for a run since it prevents you from overheating or dehydrating as quickly, and, in my experience, the sun tires you out much quicker. I've always been confused about the fact that you see by far the most people out running on a hot, sunny day. Every one of them seems to be sweating bullets.
A lot of people aren't out running to run as fast or as far as possible. They're just out to enjoy the weather.
A good rule of thumb is to assume that the temperature is going to feel 10 degrees (F) warmer when you're running or doing extended aerobic exercises outside.
Because sunny weather improves peoples mood, just look around you when it's raining and cold, people are glum and looking down a lot, while on a sunny day you see plenty of people smiling. Good mood means you feel better and perform better.
Second, your muscles are already somewhat warm, so you feel powerful right from the start instead of having to warm up for ages before you're ready for top performance.
Also, your training or just going for a run is not at the same intensity as running a marathon as a race. You run shorter distances or lower intensity, meaning the stable body temperature at marathon pace and distance is a cooling body at training pace at the same outside temperature.
People like to sweat and believe sweating is the key to a good workout. When it is hot, you sweat easily. Most people who love to exercise when it is sunny and hot aren't going out for 20 mile runs.
Anyone into running will tell you their favorite days are overcast, cool, and even a little drizzle doesn't hurt. Hell, my favorite time to run is the winter.
... data graphics were mainly devices for showing the obvious to the ignorant,
which led to two fruitless paths.
The graphics had to be alive, communicatively dynamic, overdecorated and
exaggerated (otherwise, the dullards would fall asleep)
The main task of graphical analysis was to detect and denounce deception
(because the dullards could not protect themselves)
I really like the Javascript Graphics used in this page to show statistics, anyone knows the library name if any?
Taking a quick look at the source, it looks like they're using Timeline Lite from Greensock http://greensock.com/timelinelite
Thank you.
> VO2 max (a measure of aerobic fitness)
Note that even though we used to be told that we could all increase our VO2 max through trainning, it turns out that only people with a specific set of genes can do so.
in the sense that there is a personal ceiling for you, yes.
but if you've never trained at elite level, then you can almost certainly improve it up to your (personal) ceiling.
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
Is there software that makes it easy to put together a presentation / design like this? (e.g. wysiwyg / point-and-click)
Yes, but it will improve your presentations in much the same way that screeching car tire and ricocheting bullet sounds improve PowerPoint presentations.
So everyone should use it is what you're saying? I'm a star fade man myself: use it every couple of slides to keep things interesting.
They've improved star fade, if that's possible... You keep scrolling down until you are certain that there is nothing left to see and then, suddenly... star fade!
This presentation made me leave the page before the first graph, because bits would only start to appear half cut-off at the top of my window as I scrolled down. I'm using the latest version of out-of-the-box Firefox on a desktop, not some gimpy "browser" on a tiny phone or IE6 or heaps of functionality-destroying add-ons.
i genuinely hope there isn't
Great article; it got me wondering how much the oxygen weighs that an elite runner would use in the course of a marathon...
For the Berlin track (Because it's level and close to sea level), and the average elite:
1.00 atm * 8.1L = n * 0.0821 * 331.8K
n = 0.30 mol, @ 32.00 g/mol = 9.5 grams 02
The new journalism is scroll effects and animated charts.
The track should be downhill?
2 hours of running.
This is an impressive amount of effort put into making the content unreadable. I sort of get what they're going for with the fade-in of content as you scroll down (although it's distracting as hell for actually reading rather than just looking at it), but what would possess someone to think that fading out text as I scroll down was a good idea? Crazily enough I like to be able to read more than two sentences without scrolling. I don't expect a site to use my monitor's full width, but I sure do expect it to use the full height.
Maybe it's time to update this for the second decade of the 21st century: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell
See also: http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/
If they could just implement it in a lightweight fashion, I might be able to put up with it. But glitzy UI seems to routinely overload nearly every machine I use, which makes it 10x worse. Thanks, you not only made the UI worse, but now it stutters, my fans spin up, and my browser (sometimes) freezes. Progress!
Digital Presentation by Daniel Fuehrer
There you go.
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?
That was maddening. I'm now testing autoConvert [1], a Chrome extension that promises to convert units automatically.
[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/autoconvert-auto-c...
"When French researchers analyzed the finishing times" They even went through the trouble of converting the original data...
And they translated the findings from French to English! The nerve of this American publication--writing for their own audience!
I think the tone of this comment is condescending and not constructive. The units displayed are "normal" to the majority-American audience of this American publication which makes most of its money from US advertisers [1].
Granted, they could appeal to a wider audience with this interactive presentation by supporting both SI and "American" (as you call them) units. But is it really an affront to not do that?
[1] http://rw.runnersworld.com/mediakit/international/RunnersWor...
America uses a measuring system that is not normal compared to almost the whole rest of the world, is maybe what is being meant.
That sounds like a great idea for a bookmarklet.
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.
I don't think that's a major issue. It should be straighforward to disambiguate: make separate units for imperial pint, liquid pint, dry pint, etc. If this is cumbersome, provide an option to set aliases for these in a meta tag, for example. If the writer of the document is sophisticated enough to be using these tags, they should be sophisticated enough to look up what the proper name is for the unit they're using.
> If I write 1 pint do I mean an imperial pint, a US liquid pint, or a US dry pint?
Since you are writing it you must know it and you can choose the correct tag or attribute for your html
I'm confused. Why is that a problem?
If I need to pay and the price is in 'Dollar' I assume the recipient can clearly indicate if it's a USD or a AUD that he wants to receive here. Francs and Swiss Francs shared the same name, but were different things (and had different abbreviations).
The same would be possible for the units you mentioned.
There's a nice one at http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Do-the-Math.aspx : "keeps your vehicle up to 44˚F/7˚C cooler"
A lot of wikis do that (wikipedia for one). Eg {{m|1500}} is 1500m or whatever the user wants to see it as/the website wants to display it as. I find it extremely useful.
As long as we're trying to devise a standard for presenting units, i suggest this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_System_of_Units
"What will it take to run a 7.2 kilosecond marathon?"
That's a straw man. Nobody argued against using minutes and hours.
This is not about blindly using plain SI units wherever possible. This is about writing for an international audience. Most people in the world don't use miles but kilometres in their everyday life. This especially important when reporting about an international event such as the marathon.
I'll admit that my comment was tongue-in-cheek and alludes to the fact that units are harder than they seem.
I suspect that Runner's World (an American magazine) knows their audience, and that they are mostly Americans (they do have some international sites [1], but I didn't see this article in a glance at the UK site).
Personally, I wish the US would just go with the metric system already, but that's another discussion.
[1] http://www.runnersworld.com/about-runners-world/internationa...
The thing is, they are talking about an international push by international athletes to break world records and the 2h limit. It takes data about events in many countries and while US recognise SI system still manage to convert everything to imperial units.
I am wondering if that's wise in such an international context, when not talking about a subject taking place only in US and affecting only US citizen.
I mean, even US citizens learn the International standard at school so why not constantly use to it when it's clearly appropriate (international sport, athletes and events places)?
Why are HN posts so pedantic? Bruce Lee has a great quote for this
I think that if you use the metric system you should develop a ten hour day - and a 100 minute hour - and a 100 second minute. Without that, Imperial units are best - right?
At least, you can easily divide an hour and a minute by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12 and 15. Which is a little more annoying with a pint (...but who would divide a pint anyway).
2 hours
lol. I was totally going to say that!
Can we get the name of the person who designed that page so that we can blackball him?
Berlin, 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.
The article is in an american magazine targeting an american audience.
You sure don't think much of the intelligence of the average German, Dutch, or... Emir..ati... person.
For some people? You need to be reborn with the right physiology and anatomy.
Seriously. Some people are not made to run 2 hour marathons, or acquired some insuries or problems which makes reaching this goal either futile or even counterproductive, depending on why you are setting this goal.
Data would suggest that 2-hour marathon record was already broken, but not recorded.
Can you please elaborate? Genuinely curious.
At the project rate of decline that their model suggests. The 2 hour mark should have been broken by now.
Which trend line are you talking about? The only applicable one I see/remember is the figure labeled 'Marathon World Record' at the beginning of the article and that trend won't break 2 hours until around 2025.
People have to train and city road is not best of surfaces. So it is very possible that somewhere someone already ran faster than 2 hours, just did not care to record it or announce it.
I'm not a runner, but I know many. Training for a marathon involves running fast, and it involves running far, but typically not at the same time. I don't know anyone who runs a marathon distance in order to train for a marathon, you save it for race day because it takes a lot out of you.
The article also talks about drafting and the role of 'pace bunnies' in setting a record. For those reasons, I don't think someone has gone out on a 42.2k run and broken the 2 hour mark.
I follow competitive running closely; this just isn't something that would happen. Running a marathon takes a huge toll on the body. Professionals typically only run two a year (although certain East Africans sometimes do one or two more), and they usually take an extended break after each one. Competitive runners never approach race effort in their training, especially at marathon distance — it's counterproductive to do that sort of damage to your body.
There's also a financial incentive to run your fast marathon in a race, especially for the runners from poor East African countries who are the only ones capable of running close to the world record. The prize money is typically several hundred thousand dollars if you include the bonuses for breaking the course record and the world record, finishing faster than certain time thresholds, etc.
I find it pretty hard to believe that someone would maintain the level of fitness required to run a sub-2 hour marathon (a level which no recorded human has ever achieved despite devoting their lives to the sport) and not even track it.
No need to read the article, we know exactly what it will take: someone to run 13.1mph for two hours.
Fantastic article, but the imperial measures are a PITA. Kills the flow of reading to stop at each paragraph to translate the Fahrenheit degrees, the inches, the feet and the miles to reasonable measures.
This. Runners world mag is available everywhere around the world. Their website certainly is too. How about spendig 30seconds less on the animation and add a toggle for rest-of-world units instead of imperial?
Geez - just run downhill. Problem solved.
EDIT: OK, now that I actually read the article, it turns out the Boston Marathon is ineligible for records for just this reason - it's overall downhill. With that attitude, why not just require galoshes while you're at it?
Actually running marathon distance downhill is very hard on quads, so for Boston people specifically train running downhill. In fact, for any marathon event, training course usually closely resembles the event (e.g. hills, downhill, level sections).
those courses are ineligible for records