
What will it take to run a 2-hour marathon? - neonkiwi
http://rw.runnersworld.com/sub-2/
======
outside1234
Better 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.

~~~
mabbo
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?

~~~
outside1234
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...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Doper-Next-Door-Performance-
Enhancing/dp/1582437157)

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.

~~~
Balgair
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.

~~~
a8da6b0c91d
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.

~~~
x0x0
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](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmPI_kX3oDE)

[1]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF4zL_BdePc](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF4zL_BdePc)

[2]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2kJ6-mmjik](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2kJ6-mmjik)

------
espinchi
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_

~~~
TwoBit
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.

~~~
revelation
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).

------
neonkiwi
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.

~~~
incision
_> '...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.

~~~
kazinator
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.

------
KobaQ
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.

~~~
andor
_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.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic_exercise](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic_exercise)

~~~
KobaQ
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 :-) ...)

------
Someone1234
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?

~~~
ryanwhitney
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.

~~~
Someone1234
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.

------
tokenadult
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.

~~~
revelation
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...](http://www.runnersworld.com/elite-runners/from-poverty-to-podium)).
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.

~~~
infinitone
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.

~~~
nl
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...](http://www.amazon.com/Running-Kenyans-Discovering-Secrets-
Fastest/dp/0345528808#)

~~~
a8da6b0c91d
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.

~~~
nl
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](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Boit)

[2] [http://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-
blog/2013/apr/29...](http://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-
blog/2013/apr/29/cycling-films-kenya-rwanda)

~~~
rjsw
A "Kenyan" has won the Tour de France.

~~~
nl
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.

------
rrrrob
Surprised no-one linked to sportsscientists.com:
[http://sportsscientists.com/2010/08/the-sub-2-hour-
marathon-...](http://sportsscientists.com/2010/08/the-sub-2-hour-marathon-who-
and-when/)

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.

------
rcavezza
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/](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.

~~~
x0x0
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.

[1]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-e4bOLAuXg](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-e4bOLAuXg)

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badwater_Ultramarathon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badwater_Ultramarathon)

~~~
signa11
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.

------
ck2
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.

------
arcticfox
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...](http://allendowney.blogspot.com/2014/09/two-hour-marathon-in-2041.html)

------
trhway
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.

------
progress
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?

------
raverbashing
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.

~~~
sheltgor
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.

~~~
sp332
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.

------
diimdeep

      ... 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)  
    

Well, they hit the first one.

------
enchufadoo
I really like the Javascript Graphics used in this page to show statistics,
anyone knows the library name if any?

~~~
shijie
Taking a quick look at the source, it looks like they're using Timeline Lite
from Greensock
[http://greensock.com/timelinelite](http://greensock.com/timelinelite)

~~~
enchufadoo
Thank you.

------
dorfsmay
> 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.

~~~
irv
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.

------
chrismcb
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

------
yarone
Is there software that makes it easy to put together a presentation / design
like this? (e.g. wysiwyg / point-and-click)

~~~
jmulho
Yes, but it will improve your presentations in much the same way that
screeching car tire and ricocheting bullet sounds improve PowerPoint
presentations.

~~~
x0x0
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.

~~~
jmulho
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!

------
andy_ppp
Great article; it got me wondering how much the oxygen weighs that an elite
runner would use in the course of a marathon...

~~~
yzzxy
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

------
thomasfl
The new journalism is scroll effects and animated charts.

------
polskibus
The track should be downhill?

------
leighmcculloch
2 hours of running.

------
plorkyeran
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.

~~~
jordanpg
Maybe it's time to update this for the _second_ decade of the 21st century:
[http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell](http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell)

~~~
MBlume
See also: [http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/](http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/)

------
anon4
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?

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

~~~
vog
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.

~~~
Thrymr
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...](http://www.runnersworld.com/about-runners-
world/international-sites)

~~~
sheepdestroyer
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)?

------
pgpcolby
2 hours

~~~
vblord
lol. I was totally going to say that!

------
JustSomeNobody
Can we get the name of the person who designed that page so that we can
blackball him?

------
Htsthbjig
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.

~~~
x0x0
The article is in an american magazine targeting an american audience.

------
bayesianhorse
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.

------
qwerta
Data would suggest that 2-hour marathon record was already broken, but not
recorded.

~~~
abuehrle
Can you please elaborate? Genuinely curious.

~~~
qwerta
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.

~~~
neonkiwi
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.

------
roneesh
No need to read the article, we know exactly what it will take: someone to run
13.1mph for two hours.

------
neves
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.

~~~
alkonaut
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?

------
Uhhrrr
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?

~~~
amaks
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).

