Now two-hour mark beckons

16 January 2017 - 10:44 By Prof Ross Tucker
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GOING FOR BROKE: Dennis Kimetto is tipped as one of the athletes likely to shave off the two minutes 58 seconds to break two hours in the marathon.
GOING FOR BROKE: Dennis Kimetto is tipped as one of the athletes likely to shave off the two minutes 58 seconds to break two hours in the marathon.
Image: BORIS STREUBEL/GETTY IMAGES

At the start of 1953, the "race" to break the four-minute mile barrier was reaching its peak. The world record had stood at 4:01.4 since 1945 and so, for eight years, the prospect of 3:59 was imminent.

Also at the time, another physiological barrier loomed - Mount Everest. So in addition to there being a race to break the four-minute mile, there was a race to see which of these two "impossibilities" would be achieved first.

It would be Edmund Hillary and Tensing Norgay, representing "Team Everest" who won that race, reaching the summit on May 29 1953. Just under a year would pass before "Team four-minute mile" followed, with Roger Bannister on May 6 1954.

It remains the most significant athletics barrier ever broken.

Why this history lesson today? Because in 2017, we are entering fever pitch in the race to break another significant athletic barrier - that of the two-hour marathon.

The physiologist in me emphasises a word of caution here - it's only "peak" because marketing tells us so. In reality, a true sub-two hour marathon is a lot further away than some would have you believe. The world record currently stands at 2:02:57 - held by Kenya's Dennis Kimetto - and at that level, take my word for it, 2:58 is an enormous amount to cleave off. The last 2:58 took 18 years!

Nevertheless, the barrier is now "in sight", even if a telescope is required. The hype began in 2014, when a group of sports scientists launched a "Sub-2 Project", saying that "applying a dedicated scientific approach" including, among other things, "intelligent training" methods, could help the record fall by 2019.

I found the premise objectionable, mostly because I hate it when sports science writes cheques it can't cash. Over-promising helps nobody, and the idea of science as this knight on a white horse to help Kenyans and Ethiopians run faster with "science" and "intelligence" also seemed a little arrogant to me.

Then, last month, Nike announced its "Breaking Two" plan to take it on this year. Why wait for 2019? Or 2035? Three athletes, including Kenya's Eliud Kipchoge, the best in the world right now, will run in a specially arranged race sometime between now and June (there's good reason to think May is the month, again).

Is it possible? The likelihood depends on how far you're willing to bend the "rules". Without going into huge physiological detail, elite marathoners are constrained by three factors. First is the size of their "engine", which a physiologist talks of as maximal oxygen consumption - how much oxygen can they move through their lungs, heart and into their muscles?

Second is their efficiency. We call this economy, and it's no different to how you measure that your car gets 100km for every 6.2l of petrol, except we measure it in litres of oxygen. Third is the ability of that runner to sustain a high percentage of maximum speed for a long period. This is the key one, because if that runner pushes a little harder, getting closer to maximum, then all kinds of physiological changes happen that force them to slow down.

Elite athlete physiology is a magnificently finely tuned system. That's why the 2:58 reduction won't happen at the click of a finger.

If the two-hour marathon is to fall, it would take a large improvement in one, two or all three of the above "constraints", and that requires more than just evolution. It calls for revolution.

Nike may well succeed but they'd need to change the entire context of running physiology. One way would be to run it downhill. Or they could use drugs!

But there's reason to think that the likeliest is a shoe that changes the relationship between those three factors. A shoe with springs, for instance, would allow a runner to go the same speed using less energy. Ergo, they could go faster before a potential limit is reached.

Indeed, I suspect this shoe already exists, and will be used by another great marathon runner, Kenenisa Bekele, in a marathon in Dubai this Friday. So keep an eye out for a potential world record there, and a hint of what may be to come.

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