Below is a transcript of an episode of The Marathon Podcast. It’s been lightly condensed and edited for clarity. You can watch a video version of the episode above, or via our YouTube channel (subscribe here), or on Spotify, which now supports video podcasts. You can listen to the episode in the embedded player below, or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
Michael Doyle (00:02.039)
Coming up next on the podcast, Alex, Katelyn, and I discuss prospects of a sub two hour marathon in 2025. I know what you’re thinking. Didn’t Eliud Kipchoge already run sub two in like 2019? Yes. That was a test event, highly controlled, and used a lot of strategies that are not allowed in a real marathon. So we look at
The history of sub two, science behind it, the research that’s been done, what we’ve learned from Kipchoge’s sub two hour run in 2019 in Vienna. What courses, what races could facilitate a sub two in the next year, as well as who could actually run sub two hours for the very first time in history. We give our predictions as to who we think it’s going to be, where it’s going to happen and when it’s going to
Oh, and if you’re in Boston, March 1st and 2nd, Alex, Katelyn and I are going to do a live podcast from the floor of the Boston Run Show. It’s basically like a running expo with all of the latest and upcoming shoes and gear, minus you having to run a race that we get. So swing by, you can get tickets. I’ll make sure I put it in the show notes where you can get the tickets. Our podcast is going to be live on the stage.
the Saturday, so March 1st swing by say hi, bring some swag to give out, which will be fun. And also keep an eye on our feeds on our site. We’re going to do live coverage of the Tokyo Marathon that weekend. And because Alex and Katelyn and I are all together, we’ll do a live instant reaction podcast, three of us together after we’ve watched and covered the Tokyo Marathon. So keep an eye on that as well. All right.
in the show.
Michael Doyle (02:07.0)
This is the Marathon Handbook podcast and I am joined this week by Jalen Hertz of the pod, Katelyn Tocci, our MVP. And of course, the Patrick, don’t call him Pat, Patrick Mahomes of this podcast,
Katelyn Tocci
Yes!
Katelyn Tocci (02:29.55)
Hi everybody.
Any other time, this would have been a compliment. Nah.
Repeat was not to be and I what I’m. So be the one time I tell the Roger Goodell, I’m Brady, but that would make me really good at something and also perhaps not so good at the thing I’m doing right now, which I’ll leave our listeners and viewers decide whether I’m Tom Brady levels of of commentary and announcing here.
It’s actually a pretty good segue because we’re going to talk about. I talk about goats, we’re going to cut up, the farm animals, we’re going to talk about.
Katelyn Tocci
Fainting goats!
Michael Doyle (03:15.63)
We’re going to talk. We’re going to get we’re going to talk, talk agriculture today. No, we’re going to talk about we’re definitely going to be talking about Eliud Kipchoge. We’re going to be talking about the late Calvin Kiptum. We’re going to be talking about running a sub two hour marathon specifically at a major marathon or a sanctioned marathon. As we know, the sub two hour barrier has been technically broken by Kipchoge back in 2019. And we’ll unpack that in detail.
But today we’re going to like nerd out. We’re going to get into detail about what it takes to run a sub two hour marathon, the science behind it, the history of the concept of the two hour marathon. It’s quite interesting. What we’ve learned from Kipchoge and Nike’s experiments with running the fastest marathon in history, 2017 and 2019 and how it can be applied today. Who might break the two hour barrier on a sanctioned course?
a little teaser there and whether or not it’s going to happen this year. OK, guys, let’s get into it. So. All this begins, let’s get into get into the let’s get into the image time machine. Let’s go back to 1990. Alex, are you alive? Are you with us in 1990?
No, no, my parents are getting married. I’m nowhere near alive.
I love it, we always have to talk age.
Alex Cyr (04:41.196)
This is 5 BC, five years before Cyr.
Well guys, was eight, so I wasn’t that old. Yeah, exactly. We were kids,
Yeah, I I was a 10 year old.
Yeah, we were crushing the, the elementary school cross country circuit in 1990. But at 1990, there was this exercise physiologist really interesting kind of polymath character in the world of endurance running research, a guy named Dr. Michael Joyner. You’ve ever read anything like really nerdy and sciencey about endurance sports, specifically the marathon. It may have.
come from some joiner research because this guy is sort of deep in the weeds with this stuff. 1990, he mused about this concept of what he called the perfect marathon. So he wrote a paper for the Journal of Applied Physiology that unpacked this idea of what’s the sort of the limits of human potential at the distance. He used a bunch of factors to calculate this.
Michael Doyle (05:48.92)
Three really specific factors. you know, if you’re a sports science junkie, if you’re somebody who’s really focused on improving as a distance runner, you’ve probably heard of these three concepts. One being running economy. It’s been talked about a lot, especially with the advent of the super shoes in the last few years. Second one, VO2 max. Third one, lactate threshold. Let’s pivot to coach Katelyn for a second here. I’m just going to put you on the spot here. I didn’t prep you for this.
Let’s break down these three parameters so that everyone kind of has an understanding of them because they’re the three markers in joiners formula that he used to figure out what the fastest marathon someone could ever run could be. Running economy. What the hell is
Running economy. just for the whole, no, no, it’s fine. But for everyone who’s listening, also, just a little side note, we have great articles on the site about all of these three things. So if you want to take a deep dive into all of them, can. Running economy is basically how efficient you are running. So you want to use the least amount of energy to run so you can run faster. So as Michael has said on previous podcasts, he says it’s like the gas mileage of your body. He’s mentioned that a few times when we’ve talked about running economy and that’s a really
nice way to put it so you get it. So how efficient are you when you’re running?
So Kipchoge, a Tesla, an EV, Michael, an old Gremlin. Alex doesn’t even know what a Gremlin is. That’s how old and crappy that car is.
Alex Cyr (07:19.807)
type of car. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
There you go. So we’re like a gas guzzling truck like I’m like a big truck.
You’re a Volvo. You’re a Volvo. Like thank you. Not as gas efficient and indestructible.
going be the V8 Camaro
Here for a good time and not a long time.
Michael Doyle (07:45.102)
podcast, Katelyn revealed she is a Camaro driver and possibly a 55 year old man. Okay, so VO two max second parameter. You want to take this one, Katelyn?
Okay, so VO2 max is basically the rate at which your body can consume oxygen and use it efficiently when you’re doing really intense exercise. Okay, so in the VO2 max range, actually talked about Alex is extremely high VO2 max last week. That’s right. So basically if we want to continue using it at with our car analogy that Michael has used for us, we would say how much gas your engine can take in.
to create combustion. So you want to be able to use this oxygen very efficiently and it’ll obviously make you run more efficiently. Is that good? Is that clear?
That’s exactly it. Yeah, the like the I think the upper like absolute peak value, just a random number, it’s 84. So like top top level elite athletes are sort of like in the 70s or early 80s at their max. And this is generally a test that’s done under over a very short duration, usually on a treadmill in a lab. It’s like a 10 minute like run to exhaustion type test to get that value. So
We’ll put a pin on that for now, but some of these factors are more valuable than others for marathon running specifically. We’re not talking about running your best 1500 meter on the track. And the last one being lactate threshold. Katelyn, you want to do another analogy for that one?
Katelyn Tocci (09:28.172)
Well, your threshold, lot of you will know your threshold pace when you’re doing tempo runs or threshold runs is basically the pace that you can hold all out for an hour. Right? So it’s something, it’s one of, it’s actually my favorite workout. So what your body wants to be able to do is it wants to have the ability to clear out lactate at faster paces. So when people say they’re getting that like burning sensation in their legs, it’s like that threshold that you don’t want to pass because then you get into that anaerobic zone.
and you cut out and you burn out. So it’s like working right on the edge of that to be able to hold fast paces for a really long time. And there’s a specific, Michael, do you have the data for the leaders for blood lactate?
That’s about four, four millimoles per liter of blood lactate is kind of like the upper level that elite athletes can handle. And obviously you want to surf at a lower number than that. If you’re running a marathon is a last time we checked, no one’s running a marathon in an hour. So, so these are the, these are the three physiological markers or factors.
That joiner looked at and he came up with a formula where he was basically like VO2 max times the percentage of your VO2 max at lactate threshold times your running economy. And that produced a number. And his finding was that with a athlete with all these like super optimal levels. So your maxed out VO2 max, your top level lactate threshold thresholder.
with a superlative running economy. Figured in 1990, he came up with the number of one hour, 57 minutes, 58 seconds as being the apex of marathon.
Alex Cyr (11:22.41)
And that sounded crazy at the time, right? Because the world record was standing at 206, almost 207. And so, like, Joyner was risking a little bit to throw times like that in the air. It’s kind of like if someone came up today and was like, yep, humans can definitely run under nine seconds for 100 meter, even though the fastest male time has been by Usain Bolt in 9.58. It sounded like a crazy claim back then.
That’s right. But there was this little thing called super shoes that yet to be invented. We’ll get to the super shoes in a bit. First, should mention that, you know, Joyner himself had a few issues with this study. One of these issues, which he revisits in a later paper he writes in 2011. So we’re getting a little bit more contemporary at this point. We’re moving forward to 2011 when Alex was
16. Yes, 16.
boy, six, like wait a second, he’s been lying to us.
What’s he doing on the pod right now? It’s a child. Yeah, 2011 study. So this is still way pre-Super shoes. He did some research on elite level Kenyan athletes, marathon runners. And he found that there was sort of an unsettling realization for him, I guess, was that. All these athletes didn’t really have very like.
Michael Doyle (12:57.152)
super duper high VO2 max or lactate threshold numbers, but they all had crazy running economy. Like through the roof running economy numbers, the VO2 max and the lactate threshold was mere Alex Cyr levels of greatness. So Alex, we could be talking to a future sub two hour marathon runner. You have no idea you’ve yet to unlock it. So.
Running economy. Yeah, yeah. It’s interesting. The three building blocks. We all tested ourselves in college too for VO2 Yeah. Yeah. And we all fell in different places. My strong suit was the VO2 max. I had a really good VO2 max, which meant that I was probably weak in the other areas. So yeah, it’s an equation. That’s it.
Ass.
Michael Doyle (13:43.63)
And one of the things that that Joyner realized in this study is he’s like, I don’t know if there is a human being out there in the world that has the all the genetic markers to create this perfect marathoner. This person may not exist. So that was an interesting asterix in 2011. Fast forward 2016 and 2017.
the advent of super shoes, which really, is kind of like, this is what really opened up the possibility for the sub two hour marathon specifically. The super shoes are so inextricably bound to the sub two hour quest because they were effectively created. Or what was called breaking two in 2017 in Monza, Italy, just outside of Milan. Little flex guys, I was there.
Quick quick quick quick quick side note for those watching on YouTube I’m flipping my screen here and the poster behind me is of Eliud Kipchoge finishing it if you look closer you can’t see from this picture Michael’s in the poster guys
I’m in the picture, like leaning over trying to take a picture of Ellie’s back. There you go. Me and 50 of my closest journalist friends got to see that one up close and personal. It was a fascinating event. It was a total calamity. was chaos. You could tell that Nike, all the Nike was like they put everything into it. don’t know. To this day, I’m not sure it’s ever been reported how much money even the ballpark of how much money they spent.
So famous.
Michael Doyle (15:20.504)
for breaking to to happen. They had to create the technology of the shoes, which a huge endeavor and. They love to refer to it as a moonshot because it did feel like that. It felt like putting somebody on the moon. And then they had to stage this crazy event, which was kept secret for a long time. I didn’t even know what I was going to when I agreed to go. I was just told, like, do you want to come for something really amazing? We’re doing it in Italy. We’re going to fly there like next week. OK.
and part of that chaos, I think created some laws to how they rolled out is Kichugi Kichugi’s attempt at running some two hours for the marathon, but he still did run two hours and 25 seconds. And that also introduced us to the Nike.
4 % the vapor fly 4 % it’s what it was all the time because now this is where running economy comes in again because it was a 4 % increase or decrease rather in your performance overall because it was helping your running economy by 4%. So that’s 2017. I guess we should talk jump right up to 2019.
2019.
So do you guys remember this event? Do remember where you were? Was this a where I got up? did you?
Katelyn Tocci (16:50.542)
Of course. Yeah, of course. I watched it. I think it was, well, I don’t know if we’re talking Eastern time or central time. It was in the middle of the night for us, wasn’t it? early in the morning? Because I remember waking up super early for it.
It was super early. I was in school, a master’s program, so don’t worry. think I was 24 at this point. Grade two. And I woke up before my classes to watch this. And I remember being just amazed, not only by the end time and result, which we finally saw, sub two, Kipchoge, sales under two hours. I was amazed by that. I was amazed by the level of organization around the event. But then
Second grade.
Alex Cyr (17:33.898)
Then I was amazed by how many of my classmates— I was in journalism school. This wasn’t a running or sports-related program. How many of my classmates knew about it already? That was a watershed moment.
Yeah. I mean, I remember seeing it on CNN right after it happened. I was, I was in Hawaii covering the Ironman world championships in Kona. It’s like, just like so devastated that I was there and not in Vienna covering this event, but test event in Vienna, a controlled circuit, just like in Monza less turns than Monza, just a big loop.
I it was also a bit cooler and there was also less humidity and no wind either than in the first try.
And he runs 159.40. So he unofficially breaks the two hour barrier for the first time in history. I think there was a lot to be learned from that. think a lot. And we’ll unpack this as we go along and we start talking about whether or not this is going to happen in the near future on a sanctioned course. But there are some elements that will never be able to be replicated on a legit race situation. But there are other learnings, shall we say.
I’m sure if that’s a word, but there are other elements of from the 159 challenge that have now been really widely applied and I think helped drive the overall number of in terms of performance down. Let’s take a quick break. And when we come back, let’s talk a little bit more about where we’re at now at 2019. Seen the one we’ve seen the two hour barrier unofficially fall.
Michael Doyle (19:22.392)
But where do we go from here in terms of lowering that number in a legitimate marathon? We’ll be right back. Before we get back to the podcast, I wanted to suggest you to sign up to our newsletter, which goes out now every single morning of the week, 5.05 Eastern time in your inbox. Got a new teammate, Brady Homer, who is writing a special newsletter on Fridays. He focuses on sports science and the latest in terms of
training, nutrition. It’s absolutely excellent. Brady, if you know him, if you follow him on X is a really smart guy and has really interesting points of view. Shares it all every single Friday. It’s a must read I’d say. Join 227,000 other runners who subscribe and I’ll put a link in the show notes so it’s easy for you to sign up. All right, back in the show.
Michael Doyle (20:25.9)
All right. We’re back. Let’s talk a little bit about what Eliud Kipchoge and to a certain degree, Nike and the world learned about breaking, learned about marathon running with breaking two and how they applied it to the 159 challenge. And then what we can kind of take from that today as well. So first things first, I think, I think the main overall thing
is that they with breaking two in 2017 and Kipchoge comes within 25 seconds of getting under the two hour barrier, which I think nobody anticipated. There’s a big jump at the time. There’s this realization, okay, that we can actually do this, which I think that just goes a really long way. Like it’s the confidence with putting together another version of the same project. What are some other factors that I think like some of the let’s call it like the bolt tightening, just the cleaning up.
the effort from one project to the next project.
shoes is what jumps out at me. Right? This is two years of shoe innovation in one of the greatest mounting innovative periods in the history of running. So breaking to introduce the Vaporfly by 2019, we have the AlphaFly, which is a not that much lighter, but more so more powerful super shoe. Like this is in the time when super shoes are getting bigger and more powerful. And the Alpha, the first AlphaFly was
basically designed for Kipchoge, which brings me to my second point. Breaking Two was like throwing three eggs at the wall and seeing what happens. You had Kipchoge, Lalisa Desisa of Ethiopia, Zersenae Tedese of Eritrea, and no one really knew who the star would be. In fact, some thought that it might be Tedese because he would test better in some labs in Running Economy. But 2019 was tailored for Kipchoge, from the shoes to the event itself. There was a difference in
Alex Cyr (22:28.622)
pacer’s too like we’re talking about really like you said bolts right the pacer’s were no longer in a what front-facing flying V but in a reverse V to limit wind drag coming from each side those are like two little things the Tesla there’s a bit more sophisticated laser pacing too right did that happen in also in 2017
There was, so I mean, with breaking two, was a lot of the like, it was really well thought out when you think, when you look at it in retrospect, they had the Tesla, like a fun little like historical factoid is it like, this was a big struggle right down to the line, like finding a car that could be set to an even pace at like a, you know, two 50 kilometer pace. don’t know what that’s 21, 21 kilometer, 21 point whatever kilometers an hour.
and be set at that and then not deviate from that. And the laser pacing line, so was like run on this line, this green line you see on the ground is the line you run on. You do not deviate from that for one step. Then obviously the big board giving you data as well as a motivator. They tweaked the pacers a bit. And also the pacers, some of those pacers were at Monza for the first iteration of it.
were brought back for the 2019 event in Vienna. So they had some experience with it as well. I think that was just like a more organized group at that point. It felt a little chaotic in Italy. And yeah, the shoes, I think now we’ve seen, I think we’ve now seen sort of like, I want to use Nike as the example. We’ve seen sort of three generations of Super shoe now. And I think that Alpha fly was a big step in retrospect. And it was like the second generation.
crystal, getting closer to the crystallization of technology at the time as well. And then also just like. Just lines on the track, like less turns, keeping it straight, keeping it structured and then.
Katelyn Tocci (24:33.71)
It was a bunch longer that second course. Yeah. I it from like the two point something kilometers to like nine kilometers. So I think that probably made a very big difference to have less turns, more straightaways. And as, as I mentioned before, as I recall, it was like a few degrees cooler, which I think that can make a really big difference, you going from 11 degrees Celsius to eight degrees Celsius is a really big difference. So that could have been a factor. And also the lower humidity that I mentioned, you know, all of these factors, I know that that’s uncontrollable.
And you guys are speaking more to what is more controllable, but it could have helped as well. The conditions could have also been a factor.
Another one is nutrition. In 2017, no one knew what Morton was. Apparently, another like little interesting reporting nugget in history is apparently Kipchoge, he had like another nutrition brand he was sponsored by and working with right up until Breaking Two. And then he discovered Maurten, it was introduced to him and he dumped the other brand. Like he broke up with them and went with Morton instead because like this is
This is different. so they, and they have bicycles on the course for both of these test events and handing him like little flasks of Maurten throughout the event, even like an even drip of it right up until like the 40 kilometer mark. They’re handing him these little hand flasks to suck away at just to get that like optimal amount of carbs in through the entire event, keep him fueled, which is something that we’d never seen before that.
It was like hit the bottle stations every however many kilometers in the marathon or miles in the marathon. And then typically the runners would kind of back off from taking nutrition in the last 10 K. I think there was some fear that your stomach would flip on you. And that thinking changed. then Kipchogei got two years to practice leading up to Vienna. Let’s jump forward. Okay. So 2019 happens. It’s like, wow. Okay. This is possible.
Katelyn Tocci (26:23.544)
Mm-hmm.
Michael Doyle (26:38.85)
Did you I kind of felt like at that point there was this sense that like, OK, well, now someone’s just going to run like Kachogi is going to run Berlin. He’s going to run her two hours in the marathon. just. Didn’t happen.
Mm-hmm.
I think we hit a sobering reality after the Inyo’s challenge. This was Kipchoge’s prime, I’ll say. think at this point we can say this was Kipchoge’s prime. And so to the world, he became the guy who would break two hours in a legitimate marathon if anyone would. And so the next few years just consisted of like big Kipchoge attempts. Like, Kipchoge’s going to be here. We’re going to try. Kipchoge’s doing Berlin. it might happen there. You’d pepper it with a Kenanisa Bikili challenge.
who also went 201 around that time, nothing could get anyone faster in a legitimate marathon than even 201 until a new young guy came.
Mm-hmm.
Michael Doyle (27:33.218)
Right. So we jump in, we jump ahead here. We skip COVID.
Now, now, must this sit down.
No, I mean, was some interesting things that happened during COVID and there was some opportunity for experimentation. I don’t know if you remember that like wacky race in the Netherlands on an on an airfield that Kipchoge did that his, his, his management company put together. Was that called? I forget what it was called.
It was a bust generally. Totally. He didn’t have the greatest of races. didn’t have much. Yeah. Yeah. But I do remember that.
But in, uh, I guess it’s our first introduction to Kelvin Kiptum is in the late fall, early winter of 2022 at the Valencia marathon in December, 2022. 21 year old kid from Kenya comes out of nowhere. No one knew who the heck he was. Like he had run like nothing of import.
Michael Doyle (28:34.2)
before this race. He had run a couple of half marathons, a couple of 10 Ks here and there, nothing on a grand stage. don’t even know. mean, actually this would be a really interesting bit of reporting to do is to go in and look at, talk to some people, do sort of like an oral history of this guy’s very brief, unfortunately, marathon running career. It’s like, did he get into Valencia? You know, I don’t think a guy of his caliber would have gotten into a marathon major at that point because he had not won anything.
shows up in Valencia and just buries the field, right? Hangs with all of the best runners in the race and then just ratchets up the pace in the second half and just pulverizes them, runs the fastest debut by far in history and kind of resets the clock on or resets what we imagine marathoning to be. And then he goes on to follow that up with London.
In spring of 2023, first marathon major sets the course record kicks everyone’s ass and notably becomes the first person in history to split a sub one hour half marathon in second half of the race. Only ever happened twice in history that someone has run under 60 minutes in the second half of the marathon. Tiptoom twice. And then of course we have
Chicago, October, 2023. He runs two hours, 35 seconds to set the world record. He’s 23 years old. It just feels like it was inevitable that in 2024, this guy was going to run under two hours.
Yeah, was becoming a, we were getting rid of the Kipchoge-Bekele rivalry thought that might send one of them under the 2R mark. And then it became obvious that it was going to be Kipchoge versus Kiptum. We’re talking about where this is going to happen. It’s a highly anticipated winter where we’re just starting to wonder if it’s going to be a spring race or a fall race. And then on Super Bowl night, as it happens last year in 2024,
Alex Cyr (30:46.69)
For me, the only thing I remember from that day was hearing that Kelvin Kiptum had unfortunately died in a car crash out in Kenya.
Yeah. February 11th, 2024 is just turned 24 years old. I wrote a piece for our site about it and we sent it out in the newsletter last night on the one year anniversary of his death. Just doing the research for that piece, just looking at it’s just this incredibly it’s a short career. It’s three marathons. His overall average for the three marathons is like 201.
Hmm
Michael Doyle (31:23.402)
overall. And I mean, it’s just the best three races anyone’s ever put up as a collection of performances. Right. And I’d forgotten this, but he had announced in January of last year that he was going to run the Rotterdam marathon and was very overt about what he was doing. He’s like, I’m to run the Rotterdam marathon and I’m running under two hours in Rotterdam. Everyone come and see it. We, are our news editor, Jesse, we had booked, we were like,
She was ready to go. were sending her there to cover the event. I was contemplating going as well. It felt like it was just going to be this big celebration of this step into a new era of marathon running with this new elusive, fascinating, mysterious, hyper talented character at the forefront of all of this that was going to drag all the rest of us into this new. Epoc of marathon running. And of course that was not to be.
So what can we take from Kiptum in terms of the legacy? What can we learn? What are the people that are tasked with coming in his wake trying to break this barrier that felt like it was his to break? Like what can we take away from Kiptum? Like we don’t know very much about, this is the crappy thing. We don’t actually know very much about.
His approach, we know some of his training. He posted some of his training. He was very transparent about some of his training, which was nuts. It was like insane high mileage, like over 300 kilometers a week, multiple workouts, huge long runs, like the stuff that I didn’t really quite understand how he was able to do it and sort of get through a whole training session without being horribly injured. But yeah, like what are the takeaways here? Because we never got like. Never got any.
You know, blood lactate values never got a VO2 max measurement that I know of. You know, Nike never got them in the lab like they did with Kipchoge. We don’t know. This guy could have been Joyner’s perfect marathoner. I have no idea. We will never know.
Katelyn Tocci (33:32.482)
Yeah, we just didn’t get enough time with him. I mean, think about it, only three marathons came out of nowhere. Like you said, we were all very surprised in awe of this superhuman who was coming in and just like changing the game. And to be honest, we’ll probably talk about this later, but we haven’t seen anything since. An entire year has gone by and we haven’t seen any prospect or anyone who has been even close to coming to the time that he ran for the world record.
To me, watching these runners, I mean, they’re all incredible and amazing, but there’s just no competition yet. So how is it that absolutely no one can even come close to him? So we know, okay, the high mileage, 300 kilometers a week, not getting injured. I mean, was he just the perfect human? it his, in his races, was it the aggressive, confident style that he had in the marathon running those super aggressive negative splits, just like taking off without.
the Pacers because they just couldn’t keep up with him anymore. And being able to run in that aggressive style without burning out is just another superpower.
Yeah, I think his contribution to the running world is one of hope because you’re right. The fact that it’s been more than a year since he’s last raised and we haven’t had anyone come close to breaking the two hour mark might get people to be afraid that we’ll never get there. But the fact that he was so young, he was just getting into it doesn’t like it doesn’t make me think that he would have capped off at 159 59. This guy could have run 158 for all I know.
Right? So the fact that someone comes after Kipchoge, who we’ve put on a massive pedestal, and rightfully so, Elliot Kipchoge is, we’re talking about goats, he’s a goat of our sport for all the wins that he’s had. But for someone to come after it demystifies the idea of Kipchoge is the only human man who can do this sub 2 thing. Like we have a literal kid coming from God knows where, doing it right there at the age of 23. And so…
Alex Cyr (35:36.459)
I think it’s one of hope, we need patience.
had so much more time and everyone should read Michael’s feature because Michael it was really nice and I when I was reading it I felt that hope that Alex is mentioning it was very somber it kind of left me with this somber feeling it felt kind of deflated about the fact that we had lost him but it was in a sweet like a nice way remembering his legacy and kind of being like okay we just need someone else to come around like him again and they’re going to
rejuvenate the hope that we had with Kiptum. But everyone should go to the site and read the article. It was very nice. So you get the whole story.
Well, we’ll, we’ll towards the end here, we’ll go through something else I’ve been putting together is a little package of all the athletes who could possibly run under two hours in the next couple of years. so we’ll, we’ll all hopefully we’ll have that out. Maybe by the time the podcast drops. And if it, if so, I’ll put it in the show notes. It’s been a long gestating project. It’s a lot of research, but there is some hope around the corner. I think there’s some really talented athletes. We won’t get too in the weeds on like Elidi, you know,
running prospects, but we’ll talk about it towards the end. But so there’s been no joiner ask perfect marathon or updated study to fold in the super shoes and some of the impact that nutrition, pacing, you know, blocking the wind, that sort of thing has, has done to affect marathon performances. the last joiners study was in 1990, 35 years ago. So
Michael Doyle (37:13.358)
But there was a new statistical study done first in 2019 after Kipchoge’s sub two hour and the test event in Vienna. So it inspired this guy named Simon Angus at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, a statistician to just take in, this is not a formula. He did not go down and he’s not an exercise physiologist. This is purely results data and looking for trends and putting it into a
basically graphing it out and seeing a predictable curve. In 2019, he surmised that there was a one in 10 chance of a two hour, sub two hour marathon between May, 2032. Oh, sorry. A one in 10 chance that it would be broken by May, 2032. That’s still a long time away.
And then a one in four chance that it would be broken by March, 2054. Yeah. So then we have Kiptum come along in October, 2023 smashes the world record, lowers the time. Factors that in modifies the math gets the results. They also include Kipchoge’s 2022 world record. And all of a sudden that moves everything along and
Suddenly we’re looking at a sub two hour marathon by a one in four chance. I I’m looking for the number.
March, March, 2027,
Michael Doyle (38:49.674)
That’s right. March, is in two years. Seven. Yeah, exactly. Which is right on the corner, which actually feels right. And then even the one in 10 likelihood was moved up to November 2018, which obviously is not already happened. So yeah, wouldn’t be betting on that. no. So March 2027, right. So we’re now in the window here of that. And he also just purely based on numbers. This is not, I don’t think it’s as accurate as what Jarner Jarner was doing with exercise physiology, but this study
2023 update indicates that perhaps the new limit of human endurance for the men’s marathon is 155.
That’s so fast.
Yeah. So let’s take a quick break. When we come back, we will unpack the anatomy of a sub two hour marathon. We will talk about what would need to be go into running a sub two hour marathon on a legit course, what that course might be and who the athlete might be that will finally break this barrier. be right back.
Michael Doyle (39:57.294)
Okay, before we get back into the podcast.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel. We post multiple videos a week now on the feed, including a video version of this very podcast. do every single episode on YouTube. It’s up at the exact same time as the audio version of the podcast. And then there’s a little delay, but it comes out as a video version on Spotify as well. Now, neat. We’re trying to sprinkle in some extra visual flair into the video episodes as well. And we also cut up clips.
You want to just kind of cut through and find a specific segment that you want to listen to or watch. You can find that on YouTube, also on our YouTube channel this week. Our colleague and teammate Thomas did this excellent deep dive on the history of the marathon distance. Why the heck it’s 26.2 miles of 42.195 kilometers. I know kilometers better than I know miles because of radiant.
Why it is that distance and why we’ve rounded up or down at every single other distance on the track and the roads, except that weird distance is stuck with the marathon and he goes deep on it. It’s quite entertaining. And he’s actually got some really interesting takes as to why can’t let go of 26.2 miles. Why not 26 flat? Why not 25? Why not 27? He answers that question or
really worthwhile video. We’ll put a link in the show notes to that video specifically. Make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel and you’ll get all of our fresh content on YouTube immediately, including Alex’s great shoe reviews, some workout videos. We’re to be doing a lot more workout stuff throughout 2025. Everything from, you know, how to break four hours or three hours in the marathon to how to warm up for a race.
Michael Doyle (42:00.268)
how to train for your first 5k. We’ll have you covered with all of that. So make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for all that and more. All right.
Michael Doyle (42:14.67)
anatomy of a sub two hour marathon on a sanctioned horse. All right, guys, let’s unpack this here. Let’s let’s create the cheat sheet for for all the elite marathon runners that know how to how to run way better than we do. First things first, physical training shifts. So I think the one thing that we definitely saw in the last, let’s say the last G is going on going on seven years here since breaking two with Kipchoge is some
big shifts in how training is done, the approach to how you prepare for a marathon, and also just being a lot more sort of like scientific about it as well, I’d say. like, what’s a, Alex, what’s a big standout shift that you’ve seen in the last, say, seven years of endurance sports training?
I mean, I’ve seen two. One of them that is probably less accessible for the majority of people is just a bump in mileage, which sounds crazy. But when you dig into Kelvin Kiptum’s training, was quite common for him to run 300 kilometer weeks. And that goes hand in hand with some other things we’re going to talk about, right? Better equipment, better nutrition allows for better recovery and more training. You know, that’s I would guess that even most elite runners can’t pull off 300 kilometers because it’s so extreme. The second one.
that’s a bit more accessible to everyone and not just marathoners, even less so marathoners, I would say, are these double threshold workouts that are most popular in the Mylar types, the 5K, the 10K types, but I’ve also heard of marathoners getting into that, which is the threshold workout in the morning. So like Katelyn said earlier, running at the pace that you can hold for an hour and then taking a four, five, six hour break throughout the day and then doing a second threshold workout to maximize those gains.
like a horrible way to spend a day. But I guess if you’re going to run under two hours for a marathon, you’re all in. That’s what you’re doing as much as I like running. would say another thing, Katelyn is, and this was something that was highly publicized when Kipchoge was at his peak, which is the training group. know, I think historically we, especially in East Africa, there’ve always been fairly large training groups, kind of like an open invitation for anyone in the area.
Michael Doyle (44:31.17)
This is when we run. can come and run. you can keep up with us, you’re in. And with Kipchoge in particular, it’s quite a bit of romanticism around that, right? Which is like, he trains with the global sports camp, his group, and he lives a Spartan lifestyle. He’s got a little cot. He shares a bedroom with a teammate. You know, he is no greater than anyone else in the group. They all work together. But I would say that if you’re going to achieve greatness at this level, a group is probably
a valuable construct, I would say.
Yeah, I think not only does it help with the training in general, but psychologically, you’ve got a group of people around you. I mean, I always know that I like my group runs when I run with the group that we have here on Tuesdays. I feel like when we’re doing those speed workouts, I am feeling challenged. just, I, okay, I’m going to keep up with this person. I feel, or if I feel this, sense of solidarity that
You know, we’re working together, we’re suffering together, we’re giving it our all together, and it kind of takes a little bit of the load actually off. Instead of stressing myself out, trying to do it on my own, I feel that camaraderie with the group, and I feel like that these psychological, that can help you with your mental game as well as your physical game. Group training’s the way to go.
Say the second aspect of the anatomy of the sub two is definitely nutrition. would say, you know, not to be just one advertisement for Morton. We’ve already mentioned them before, but just a little bit more of a considered approach to nutrition. And this is something that has been a great trickle down for all athletes of all levels that are trying to do a half marathon, a marathon is to consider nutrition and a lot more detail than I think people did 10 years ago for sure.
Michael Doyle (46:20.012)
And just like an overall focus of figuring out how many cards you need to intake and getting that number dialed in, right.
Exactly, get the carbs in.
I’d say the, another important factor is, is shoes. We’ve talked a little bit, Alex, about shoes already. our, our, news, news editor, Jesse actually reported yesterday that like Nike just filed a slew of patents for like, what seems like maybe the next, or even like two levels away for the super like that just we’ve
We’ve bandied about the term hyper shoe before, like this is just like.
Smart shoes.
Alex Cyr (47:01.868)
Smart shoes.
Mega?
the internet of things shoes, smart shoes, shoes that like have if I’ll put it in the show notes. It’s it’s a wild read. They applied for a bunch of patents of like basically like science fiction shoes, like a shoe you would imagine like robot Elliot Kipchoge wearing in the year 2050. Right. with fluid in them and the fluid can shift depending on
Just as you go.
Michael Doyle (47:35.95)
your running economy. So as an example, second half of a race, you start to get tired. You start getting sloppy. The fluid in them shifts forward and fills in your arch to prop your foot up more and create more like micro stability in certain points.
Yeah, what I thought was super interesting was the terrain. So for me, like as a trail runner, it said it would be able to adjust the shoe. So if you’re running on a trail run, then it would become a harder surface. And then if you’re running on the road, it would become a softer surface. It would just automatically adjust to the terrain. That seems so cool.
It’s like a car, right? It’s like a modern car versus a drive in a 70 sedan. You know, it’s just got like in each wheel is independently, like the computer is sort of telling each wheel to do each thing independently, all wheel drive, you know, it’s just creating this really super smooth, efficient ride. It kind of makes me think Alex, that like we kind of have been living in the dark ages with shoes and like maybe even the current crop of super shoes are kind of rudimentary when you think about it.
Yeah, like if you stick around the sport for long enough, you’re going to get really, really fast. I mean, I had this thought about how I feel like the shoe, I think with several year how shoe technology has advanced enough now to hold us off for five, 10 years. Like we’ve reached a critical point or almost a limit where things can’t get much better. Like we’ve seen with other types of gear, right? Like a hockey stick is a really good example. The hockey sticks up today.
Alex Cyr (49:11.82)
are not that much different from the hockey sticks of 10 years ago because we hit this point where how good can you make a hockey stick? And when I see these things, it’s like, I’m not sure if we’re even close to there with shoes, despite all the innovation that we’ve already seen.
Yeah, I think companies kind of maybe like they start to go on cruise control once they feel like they’ve hit a certain technological threshold, right? Where it’s like it’s delivering results. It’s really good. Why do we need to evolve this further? We haven’t hit a ceiling with it yet. And as far as these patents are concerned, there’s a an interesting new horizon that Nike might be taking us down. Also, in terms of just like the biofeedback, like all the sensors in the shoes and being able to like
a lot of data and then magic bullet AI AI will fix it. But really in this situation, algorithms that could react in real time, like, well, you know, like I was saying before about your running economy, that your running economy is starting to kind of fall off. So like, let’s adjust it. Let’s compensate for it in real time. Fascinating. Fascinating. And the last one, of course, being a psychological approach to marathon running has shifted.
A lot of talk after breaking two in 2017, because Kipchoge had a big like shit eating grin on his face in the last 10K of the race. And so there was a lot of intrigue over like what his, what he was doing there. And he indicated like, well, it’s, I’ve realized that like the power, kind of the power of positive thinking, but then there’s been some research that’s been done on us. We’ve talked about this in previous podcasts. Yeah. Smiling.
smiling.
Michael Doyle (50:51.48)
helps improve your performance helps mitigate some of the suffering that you’re physically feeling physically. And that’s interesting that there has been done. There’s been research done in the aftermath of these series of events that have unlocked our knowledge about how to approach this stuff. I can guarantee you in a race of 50,000 people at the New York city marathon or Chicago or wherever. There are a. Not an insignificant number of people.
that reminding themselves in the last 10k of a race thanks to Kipchoge to put a smile on their face to hopefully, hopefully pull themselves out from the gutter of what they’re running, right?
Yeah. Then there’s also just the psychological thing that happens when you see someone break a certain time. It starts to feel less unachievable. So it’s like the Bannister effect, right? When Roger Bannister was the first man to break the four-minute mile after years and years of training and trying, a few other athletes quickly went under the four-minute mile after. And that’s not just a psychological thing, but it can also be a change in training paces, right? If you believe that you can run under two hours,
Maybe you try your hand at more workouts at that type of pace and then it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. You end up being a sub-two-hour guy. So that also factors in.
All right, that’s the anatomy of the sub two hour marathon moving forward. Let’s take one last quick break. Then we’re to get into like, where is this going to happen? Who’s going to do it? And also on the women’s side of things, has it already kind of happened? We’ll be right back.
Michael Doyle (52:32.558)
Okay, guys, we’re spring or winter. We’re not spring yet. We’re winter 2025. But on a horizon, a couple of races in the spring. Is this going to happen in 2025? And if so, like which races could actually facilitate a sub two hour marathon? The list is smaller than you think. You think to yourself like, it just needs to be a flat, fast course. There’s a whole bunch of them out there in the world. Then you need to have, you know,
A few of the fastest runners in the world come and run it. Okay. It starts to thin things down a little bit. You need to have the money to entice these people to come, things down further. And then finally, you need to be able to convince them to take a massive risk and maybe throw their entire marathon away by going out at, you know, 59, 59 pace in the first half of the marathon. So we’ve narrowed it down. There are.
Six races where this could conceivably happen. I think that’s it. Let’s go through them. We’ll go through them in chronological order. Okay. Tokyo in March, theoretically. London in April, possibility. Rotterdam in April. That’s where Tipton was going to try to run some too. So at least the course seemed like a possibility. And we jumped to the fall, Berlin in September.
Chicago in October and Valencia in December. That’s it. That’s all I see. I don’t see any other race. Do you guys deserve? Am I missing something? I don’t think so.
No, not yet. I don’t think so. I think if any other race becomes a candidate, it will be a new startup race in the next couple of years. And we’re not going to see that in 2025. Not another course that is legit. I’m not talking about another 159 challenge, another course that’s legit materializing and attracting all these runners before 2026. No, I think if it does happen this year, which I think it won’t, it has to happen on those six.
Katelyn Tocci (54:40.36)
with Alex and then not only does the course need to be perfect but the conditions need to be perfect so then that’s another you know that’s something else you just need to take a gamble with you know that it doesn’t rain or that there’s not a ton of wind or you just have really perfect weather yep it’s a gamble
There could theoretically be only three opportunities in the next 12 months for this to happen based on the fact.
And to be fair, my issue is not with the course. It’s not with the gear. Maybe gear gets better in a few years, but I think it’s plenty good now to have a 159 runner. My issue is with the runners. I don’t think there’s someone at that caliber yet. We might get into who the top runners are, but for now, all I’ll say is that the best marathoners, current marathoners are too far away from the sub two. I think the person who’s going to break it eventually
Yes.
Alex Cyr (55:32.832)
if they’re already on the radar, are currently known as half marathoners. And I think they’re going to need a couple of years to get under that too. What’s cool about this year is we’re going to see the debut of truly elite half marathoners. And then we’ll get a sense for where they are. But to have a runner go from being a 57 minute half marathoner, which is crazy impressive in its own right, to becoming a sub.
to our marathoner in the span of a year, just think is almost too much to ask for.
All
I agree with Alex as well. just thinking about the fact that last year we didn’t see a sub 202 marathon. So I think that right there is something that points me towards that we need a little bit more time. Like Alex is saying, we need another year or two years for these guys to get primed.
a lot of factors that go into this, right? Like last year, you could argue that the reason why you didn’t see anybody run under 20205, that was Sebastian Sawé who ran it in December. So at the very end of the year in Valencia, the reason why we didn’t see that is because there was the Olympics, right? At the heart of, right in the center of the year that pulled a lot of these athletes towards either trying to qualify for that and or running it. So.
Michael Doyle (56:50.466)
This year there’s a world championships, which may be a factor next year. There is nothing right. So maybe it’s 2026. Put a pin on it for when this is going to happen for a few seconds from now. Let’s take Alex’s like wonderful segue that I just trampled all over into talking about who might do this. Okay. Just as a little aside with the courses here, if you go down the course record for each of those six courses that I, each of those six marathons that I listed there.
Go to in Tokyo, Benson Kipruto last year. Two one twenty five twenty twenty three for London. Kelvin Kiptum. Rotterdam two three thirty six. Bashir Abdi from back in ‘22. Berlin is two one nine. The Kipper from when he set the world record in twenty twenty two and the new current world record of Chicago. Two hours, thirty five seconds again. Mr. Kiptum. Valencia is two one forty eight. That’s
Ceasei Lemma of Ethiopia that was run in 2023. Starting to hear some names here, right? It’s no longer with us is not a factor. I would say Eliud Kipchoge is also not a factor at this stage in life. Sadly. Although some people might find that a take and tell me in the comments that they think I don’t know what I’m talking about, but I think I.
I think I’d wager that Kichiyogi is not going to run under two hours at this stage. So some names, some names, some people. So you can, you can look really smart at your running dork dinner party in the next couple of weeks here. Or you’re like your post, your post spring marathon celebration, get together with your running pals. You can just be like, well I saw Sisay Lemma coming a mile away there for London. I’m not surprised at all.
But he’s actually running Boston. So not see Salem a time soon. Sisay Lemma, a 35-year-old Ethiopian, one of the fastest runners in history, 201, 48, Valencia in 2023. think he’s on the radar. Who else we got? Let’s we’ll do a little, let’s do a little roundtable here. It’s like we’re, it’s like we’re, like a fantasy draft here. We’re going to pick players. Who you got Alex? Who’s your,
Katelyn Tocci (59:13.833)
Marathon let’s do it
Who’s your number one draft choice for running under the two hour marathon.
So I’m really bullish on the current crop of half marathoners. So I’m thinking of three guys in particular and one with an asterisk. So Yomif Kijelcha, Ethiopian runner, absolute star on the track, is trained for, he’s a Nike runner and he’s been on the diamond league circuit a whole lot, Olympian. Has the current half marathon world record of 57.30. He took it from Jacob Kaplimo of Uganda.
who’s currently only 24 and over the half marathon is just one second slower than Kijelcha. So they’re effectively the two best half marathoners in the world. And Kijelce, I should mention, is only 27. So these are two quite young guys. My number three that I’ll add on that list, also because he’s relatively young and because he trains with Kaplimo, is fellow Ugandan Joshua Cheptegei, who is the 5,000m and 10,000m world record holder. The reason I’m adding him up there with an asterisk is that he has a slight difference from the other two is that he has debuted in the marathon. Some would say it might have been a little bit underwhelming. I think he sits at 205, which is still a world away from sub two. But for now, these are my three guys. I think at least one of them pops off. Can I add one more? Hagos Gebhreweit. Same same situation. 57 mid half marathoner Ethiopian start on the track.
Alex Cyr (01:00:51.596)
These four essentially have the same resume and one of them has to translate into a massive marathoner.
love, Katelyn, I love how Alex just drafted like four guys there on our, our, in our fantasy draft. you just, you pick, you pick the homes. Yeah. Come on.
He picked them all. mean, was going to say mine, he already took one of mine. I was going with Kijelce because I also wanted the half of that. Like I thought, okay, no, these guys are just working their way up the ranks super fast, know, world record. He’s going to be the next one to go. He just needs a couple of marathons under his belt and he’s going to, you know, blow us away. And, know, other than that, I want to go with C.C. Lemma because of his sheer speed. And I think that he’s in his prime right now to run this kind of…
kinds of times. I think he’s 35, something like that. So he’s right in that sweet spot for the marathon. if he has a time to do it, this is the time to do it.
Yeah, I would say as well, other people you look at, okay, so if you’re really into this stuff and you’re like, yeah, I just want to like nerd out talking about who might run the sub two hour marathon. Again, I’ll put it in the show notes when the story is online, but we created like a power ranking of like all of the possible candidates, rank them in order of who we think is going to most likely to lead to least likely to like a, you know, possibility of all of the athletes. think I got like 18 names in total of candidates.
Michael Doyle (01:02:14.05)
Many of them who’ve never run a marathon before. they’ve got like so much potential. It’s like buying a, it’s like an IPO stock, right? It’s like, you know, this new, new EV, this new car that’s come out, they’ve gone public. They’re going to be the next Tesla. And then next thing you know, they, finally grab a guy like Lemma. It’s a tough pick because he wrote, he won the Boston marathon last year. He is coming back to defend his title. Boston is not a record eligible. Right. So that’s like, that’s a problem for a 35 year old. That’s another.
Yeah.
Michael Doyle (01:02:44.576)
Marathon opportunity that he’s going to cross off the list. Not that the guy is necessarily focusing on breaking the two hour barrier. I think he’d probably just be as happy to be a back to back marathon, a Boston marathon champion. think he’d feel pretty good about that. Sebastian Sawe, who we mentioned before, he’s 29. He’s on the up. I like those half marathon runners that Alex mentioned. Stole. Stole from us.
soul from us. Thank you.
This guy Mengesha from Ethiopia. He’s a kid. He’s 24. He’s run 2:03:17. He won the Berlin marathon last fall. Very good runner. then just reaching, reaching into the back pocket here. Got the joker in my pocket here. It’s a Jackob Ingebrigtsen.
I saw you put him on the list. And I was like, Michael is very, he’s a visionary. He is seeing way.
I’m looking, just, I’ve got the crystal ball. like, what is that? Who is that Norwegian? Hmm. It’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen.
Katelyn Tocci (01:03:48.494)
Something year old.
is you should Google you should Google Jacob Ingebrigtsen half marathon and see if you want to keep
Jakob is fading out of my crystal ball. His face is disappearing into the ether once more. Yeah. He didn’t have a very good half marathon, but you know, he, was an experimental half marathon for him. He is somebody where I’ll say this, you mentioned before, you know, we got our six races that could facilitate.
a sub two hour marathon, a world record, then there could be some sort of special event or you could take Chicago and kind of refit it to be a Nike. I mean, is a Nike event, but Nike could be like, we’re going to supercharge Chicago one year and make it like we’re going after the sub two in Chicago. And Inger Britson has mentioned before that he’s interested in the marathon. He’s somebody who has brashly claimed that he thinks he can get like world records at every distance. And he is the kind of like.
personality, I could see Nike sort of organizing a major event around if it doesn’t happen, say in the next couple of years. I could see that happening. He’s like 24 years old.
Katelyn Tocci (01:05:00.524)
He’s super young. He’s got a big personality. He’s got a ton of confidence. mean, he’s someone that that people would like to see also, like as a character.
Now I should say, Alex is like, don’t know.
Well, yeah, it’s nothing against Jakob. There’s a lot of like Jakob hate out there. I love the guy. I love watching him. My skeptical face comes from the question of is a brand actually going to do another event like this? I was thinking about it before the podcast. Yeah. Because I don’t know if there’s as much appetite for a sub two attempt now because we’ve done it. It’s a lot of money. And as far as branded attempts go, we’ve done it. So it would have to be on the back of one of those existing races that we talked about. And so that kind of excludes brands that don’t have much to do with running. Like you think in another world you’d have like Tesla come in and say, we’re going to, we’re going to sponsor this event and we’re just going to get some eyeballs or something random like that. But I think that you have to have a running brand do it because it’s become somewhat inside baseball. And I guess if, if a brand is to do it, has to be Nike.
Because like if you go through that list of people we mentioned, the vast majority of these guys are Nike athletes.
Michael Doyle (01:06:16.878)
Mike or Adidas. would be really curious to see Adidas could take a crack at it. There’s another name that is sticking out here, which is John Korir, the guy who won the Chicago Marathon last year. Now he’s run 2:02:44. That’s what he ran in Chicago. He’s 28. The one thing that I find interesting about him is he was right after Kelvin Kiptum. When you look at the all time list of fastest second half splits in the marathon.
I know that’s super darky, but it is a huge factor if you’re going to run a sub two hour marathon. Fastest second half marathon splits in history. John career third overall, he ran just over an hour in the second half of the Chicago marathon. So he was like running down the race and a huge way with a huge negative split in the marathon. So that’s a big jump. that that’s interesting. Another number you can look at to impress your running friends on a long run is
World Athletics, the governing body of the sport, they do these mathematical tables and with the highest possible number being, I think 1400 is the highest possible score. don’t think no human has ever hit 1400. I can’t remember what Usain Bolt’s 100 and 200 meter world record times are like 13 something something, right? I think it’s mid to high 1300. Only people with a score over 1300 on this list are Joshua Cheptegai. He’s got it in the 5,000 and the 10,000.
And also the aforementioned, Jakob Ingebrigtsen. His 3,000 meter world record is 1320. Is the highest number on the board. So on the inside. Yes. Okay. So there’s some names for you. I’ll, I’ll, we’ll do, I’ll force you guys to make a pick who’s going to do it and when are they going to do it?
the men’s side.
Katelyn Tocci (01:08:07.374)
Okay, well, I’m going with Kijelcha and I don’t think it’s going to be this year. I’m going to go with late 2026 early 2027. Oh, that’s a good I wasn’t thinking that far ahead. Let’s Valencia. I think if maybe Valencia is going to be one of those marathons, that’s gonna kind of hype it up a little more and give a big
And where is he going to do it?
Alex Cyr (01:08:39.662)
I’m going Kiplimo, Chicago, pre deep dish pizza 2026.
you think he goes deep dish afterwards. He’s like goose, island, wheat, wheat, ale at the finish line and then deep dish to wash it all down.
He seems like a fun guy. He doesn’t seem like the guy who will do the Kipchoge of a bowl of rice and strawberries as the post-race treat.
Okay. Now I’m put on the, on the, put on the clock here. She’s looking through my picks.
Both chose how to
Alex Cyr (01:09:16.578)
I feel like, Michael, you shouldn’t. You should just tease your upcoming power ranking because your power ranking is going to show who you think. Almost, if, listen, hear me out. I’m sorry to the listeners. Michael, you’ve put too much thought into this to just throw out a pick. There’s a lot riding on this. There are hours of research riding on what you’re going to say next.
You’ve
Michael Doyle (01:09:36.792)
I don’t even love my first pick now. I’m like tempted to move him back. I’m having second.
It’s not gonna come out this week. No
Oh, it is. It’s coming out. promise. I’m going to do it. Pull the trigger. I fit so much work. Okay. But it’s so much work into a piece that dozens of people will read and appreciate. Okay. I won’t make a pick. I’ll just leave it at that.
I see it.
Katelyn Tocci (01:09:58.958)
Keep it a secret.
Final questions thoughts for all of us. First question. Has this already kind of happened on the women’s side? Has the sub two hour marathon effectively already been broken by a woman running an equivalent time?
If we look at one of Joyner’s research papers that he has contributed on, it’s called the two-hour marathon, what’s the equivalent for women that I took a look at, it actually states that the 2.1534 time was supposed to be the equivalent for the sub two-hour marathon for the men’s time. So actually, if we look at it, it would have been Paula Radcliffe’s world record.
which was 215, was a tiny bit under that, it was 215.25 set in 2003. So according to that study, that means that it has been, the equivalent has already been broken. But that’s according to that study. I don’t know if you guys saw some other details or data.
I’ve seen something quite different. I wonder if those metrics have to do with what people have already run in men and in women. And in that case, well, women’s times wouldn’t be expected to become as fast because fewer women would have run the marathon between, you know, the sixties and whenever time Jordan made the research. like 30, 40, 50 years later, I’ve seen, I’ve seen a different stat coming from world athletics. This is, this is nerdy, but interesting. Last year,
Michael Doyle (01:11:27.928)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Cyr (01:11:35.63)
when Ruth Chepingettage ran 2.0958. World athletics equated that to around a 1.58 on its tables. In January 2025, the tables were updated based on, well, they keep receiving data, right? So the tables update every few years. And now in the updated tables, Chepingettage is 2.0958, equates to two hours and 20 seconds.
time for men. So by that metric, we don’t have it. My read on this is that have we had this moment for women? Yes or no? The stats don’t say, but our reaction says a lot because as soon as Chep and Gettage ran sub 210, we didn’t accept it with open arms. We became suspicious automatically. And so I wonder what’s going to happen if
your Sebastian Sawe or your Cisse Lemma goes 159.30 out of nowhere in one of these major marathons this year. Will we accept it or will we think that it’s bogus?
That’s a fun question. Thought experiment of like, what’s the threshold for a jump, right? You know, obviously sub two 10 for a women’s time in fall of last year was too much of a jump for a lot of people to wrap their minds around the equivalent being what, like if some, like you said, if, uh, Sebastian saw, he runs one 58, 25, we’ll be all just be like, that’s not possible. So, you know, and that’s where I think some sort of.
organization and hype around an attempt at the event could be really valuable. And this could be a nice lesson for Nike to have learned about their Chicago experience where it’s like you’ve got Ruth Chapman get it. She’s a Nike athlete. She shows up in Chicago. No one had any clue that she was going to go after this. And she just completely demolished the world record by a lot. I think it’s a show your homework type scenario where if there’s hype around it, if
Michael Doyle (01:13:45.144)
For months, we know about it if we’ve got some socials with some video content, watching the training, and then it happens. It kind of feels like we’ve sort of seen, we’ve seen the homework. We’ve seen it all sort of laid out in front of us. It makes sense. And the breakthrough feels authentic. Right. So final question. This happens. The flood gates open. Do we just start seeing sub two hour marathons left and right after this?
become a boring number for us?
No, no, there’s too much incentive outside of it. When picking our athletes, I wanted to mention there’s another metric, another factor that we should consider when choosing someone. And that factor is, they motivated to break the two hour mark? Will runners remain motivated to break it when you can win a whole lot of money by going to Boston or somewhere where the course is not that fast? Winning the Olympics, maybe winning worlds. I don’t think we’re about to see a litany of sub two performances.
I so.
Alex Cyr (01:14:45.966)
because I think it’s just one incentive of many.
Yeah. And I would say it’s actually really hard to set something like this up. I mean, it’s something we haven’t mentioned earlier, but you know, even picking the London marathon, for example, which spends the most money of any race, organized and elite field is the most motivated to put the largest number of highest level athletes together in one race. You can’t find Pacers that are going to run the amount of distance you need them to run to set up a sub two hour marathon. Cause there’s just nobody in the world fast enough to do it. You can’t do what they did.
Breaking two or the 159 challenge where you’re subbing Pacers in and out every five kilometers. You can’t do that. It’s not allowed. It’s like a hockey game. Coming off the bench. Still in a penalty. So you basically need people like sacrificial lambs that are going to go out and. Run this maddening pace and maybe have the race fall apart on them. So that means you need to have a certain number of athletes that are going to get together and try to do this.
Exactly, jumping.
Michael Doyle (01:15:48.014)
You’re just not going to be able to find people that are, you’re not going to convince people to do that to the degree you need to achieve that. So yeah, I think I’m in accordance with you guys. think that we’ll be sort of surfing around the two hour, two hours, one minute, two hours, two minutes for a lot of races for the near future until we see a big technological jump and then other innovations that will carry distance running even faster, more consistently. All right. So I’m two hour marathon TBD.
The bottom line is the right runner, the right day, the perfect conditions, the right shoes, and someone who wants to take a risk.
still requires special circumstances and a special athlete.
So a million years later, we still agree with Michael Joyner.
There you go. T90, when Alex was minus however many years old. He wasn’t even a twinkle in his parents’ All these years later, it’s still accurate. Okay, guys, so. Yeah, all these years later.
Alex Cyr (01:16:47.852)
the twinkle in the eye.
They still don’t think about Alex on a daily basis.
Just nothing but regret. So YouTube, what do you got going on, Alex? What we, what’s coming down the pike?
Coming down the pike are now shoe reviews. So we had a little pause on the shoe reviews because it wasn’t really a new shoe season, right? Over the holidays, that’s not what happens. And now we’re getting hit with a bunch of new spring trainers. Yesterday, we did our review of the Bondi 9, the Hoka Bondi 9. And this one’s a bit of a special review because I brought in a co-host who you might recognize from some…
reels on our channel. It’s my girlfriend, my fiance, and effectively also my roommate, Alexis.
Michael Doyle (01:17:40.898)
Don’t call her your roommate, man. You wanna go down that?
We should have. I call her my roommate because right now she’s like way at the back of the condo being quiet so that we can do this podcast. But she’s a beginning runner and that’s why I wanted to bring her for the Bondi review because the Bondi is very much like a beginner friendly shoe and she is shoe shopping herself. So we just got her to ask the questions that a lot of beginners have. And so we went back and forth. I think it adds a different kind of flavor to the review. So the clips are in and I’m looking forward to getting this one out.
I previewed some of it and Katelyn, I can report that Alexis is funnier, more insightful and more charming than Alex. So get ready for one hell of a review. The Bondi nine coming out in the near future. Well, Alex, you’re not bad at the whole shoe review thing. Katelyn, we’ve got. Well, we’ve got the newsletter.
Yeah, we got Brady, right? Yeah, Brady Homer who just contributed to the Run Long Run Healthy newsletter last week for the first time, which was awesome. So tune in on Fridays to get his newsletter as well because it’s new and some new stuff and it’s awesome.
We’ll get him on the podcast soon. Mean, he’s, if you’re, if you’re on X, if you’re a running nerd who spends time on the platform, formerly known as Twitter, you probably have encountered Brady Homer. He’s got a significant presence there and he’s always mixing it up. Super smart guy, really dialed in. And so he’s doing the newsletter on Fridays for us, pretty sports science focused in a really good way. Monday to Friday, we’re doing, we got a newsletter coming out five days a week and we’re
Michael Doyle (01:19:25.326)
experimenting with some different weekend stuff as well. It’s a little bit more curated. Sign up for a newsletter. I’ll put a link in the show notes for that and or you just go to our site marathonhandbook.com and sign up for that. All right, guys. Yes. And stay tuned for the sub two hour marathon power rankings list, the athlete list. We’re also going to do super shoes. We’re going to do the best races in the world. We’re just going to power rank the holiday everything. OK.
Until next time, talk to you soon.
