New Marathon World Record

[Scott Zincone]

The Bionic Man is my avatar.  But with our current economy I am not sure he is still worth Six Million Dollars.

[Sasha Pachev]

Wanjiru would have run 2:02:30 - 2:03:00 in Berlin in a even paced competitive situation. My prediction - once Bekele moves up to the marathon he will run around 2:01:45 on a Berlin/Dubai type of course. After that the world record progression will stall for a while. If it is to continue, the new world record will be set by either a Bekele/Geb type  26:10 10 K runner, or a Wanjiru/Hall/KK runner that can do 26:30. However, sub-2 hour marathon would take either a Wanjiru/Hall/KK with 26:10, or otherwise a sub-26:00 10 K. I think it is possible, and can even be done by a white guy, but we need to be more gentle with our genetic pool to allow the genes to properly express themselves. In other words, until something seriously changes on the cultural level we will not see a sub-2:00 marathon.

[Sean Sundwall]

I'm probably more with Dale and Paul on this. I think it's 20 or so years away. It's not just any four minutes. It's a tougher four minutes than it was from 2:08 to 2:04 because there is a bottom out there and the closer you get to it, the harder those minutes and seconds get.

[Kim Lee]

Here's another perspective from an active.com article:

http://www.active.com/running/Articles/The-Great-Gebrselassie-Breaks-2_04_-Is-Sub-2_00-on-the-Horizon_.htm?act=EMC-Active&Vehicle=Running&Date=10_01_08&Edition=1&Sections=Articles&Creative=The-Great-Gebrselassie-Breaks-2_04_-Is-Sub-2_00-on-the-Horizon_&TextName=Read_The_Full_Article_On_Active&ArtText=Txt&Placement=1&Day=Thu

Key quote from the article:

"Now that 2:04 has been broken, the record has been chopped halfway to 2:00, from 2:08. Will it be another 23 years until 1:59 is reached? Or will the next four minutes take longer to erase?

No one can say for sure, of course, but the idea is not as crazy is it once seemed.  Gebrselassie's countryman Kenenisa Bekele is the current world record holder for 10 kilometers, and has been selected by many as a prospective marathon record holder—perhaps even the man with the pedigree to approach two hours.

His 26:17 for 10K works out to 4:14 per mile for the 6.2 miles. In order to run a 1:59 marathon he would have to average 4:34 per mile. That's 20 seconds per mile slower for a little more than four times the distance. Does that sound doable?

Tanui himself has gone on record as saying he thinks sub-two is possible, based, he says, upon how he felt after running 59 minutes for a half marathon. It's easy to say that after you stop halfway! You can look at the numbers any way you like, but in the end anything will be nothing more than an educated guess."

[Tom]

Actually that was me that posted that last post....didn't noticed I was logged in as Kim.