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Comment by anonu | Hacker News Reader

Reminds me of this post on HN from 5 years ago: what will it take to run a 2 hour marathon?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8439408

Unfortunately the linked article seems to have disappeared.

I wonder if today's record was run with those special Nike shoes with the blades inside... The ones that supposedly give you a 1 percent boost or something similar... If you have shoes that give you such a boost, is it doping?

Edit: thank you web Archive: http://web.archive.org/web/20141010142108/http://rw.runnersw...

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I remembered this article also, thanks for digging it up again.

Its predictions were pretty spot-on:

- Predicted in November, actual mid-October

- Predicted in Debno, actual in Vienna, but both are very flat courses (I can't find if Debno is flatter)

- "The pacemakers will form a human wall" - yes, pacemaker strategy seemed critical here.

- "Mindblowing pay-day" - No clue, no articles seem to mention it.

- "Kenyans who dominate world marathon lists generally do little, if any, weight training, which may represent an untapped source of improvement." - "To his normal preparations he added workouts focused on core strength" (though unclear if weights were a focus).

- "5' 6" and [120lb]" - Kipchoge is 5'5" and 125lb.

- "access to [technology] we can't imagine" - the shoes I guess - I don't know how big an advance these are - compared to his last attempt the pacemakers and location seem more relevant.

- "early 20s" - complete miss.

- "I’m saying the year is...2075" and two generations late.

Interestingly, it predicts very precisely the characteristics of the run and the runner, except for time - both the runner's age, and the time until it would happen.

> the shoes I guess - I don't know how big an advance these are

The pacers wore Vaporfly, Kipchoge wore a prototype. The Vaporfly have been shown to actually make a difference of around 4%.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/07/18/upshot/nike-v...

No way. That was advertisement. You can check the results on strava or elsewhere. Nobody had 4% decrease in time after switching to this shoes.

NY Times used data from Strava to write the article, and there are other sources as well. Like this study from 2017:

A Comparison of the Energetic Cost of Running in Marathon Racing Shoes

> Conclusion

> The prototype shoes lowered the energetic cost of running by 4% on average. We predict that with these shoes, top athletes could run substantially faster and achieve the first sub-2-hour marathon.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-017-0811-2

Not that easy. NYT data shows not only 4% increase for VaporFly, but also 3% increase for Streak. Springer is harder. Though 18 male aren't enough to prove anything, the data is quite consistent. But 4% equals to 5 min in marathon. That means that a lot of athletes from 2013-14 could break 2 hours in that shoes easily. Probably 5 min on a treadmill at 18 km/h has little in common with 2 hours at 21 km/h.

But he also wore Vaporfly for his 2017 attempt, I thought - I doubt the prototype is 4% on top of that, or even 4% compared to what top-class runners were wearing before.

He did, but that was at Monza with more turns, maybe more elevation difference, not as good drafting strategy, etc. He said he learned a lot from that, so who knows how fast he would run if he had made another attempt in the exact same conditions but with the added experience.

At Monza he ran in 2:00:25 and this race took 1:59:40, that's 0.62% faster. Definitely within reason for a technical improvement.

Large parts of the track were re-paved specially for this event with fine-grained asphalt to avoid holes and unevenness. The re-pavement was paid by a project sponsor.

I'm in Kenya and the word is it's a $4m official payday with many other well wishers pledging to pay him now.

He ran with prototype shoes with carbon fiber in the sole.

https://www.believeintherun.com/2019/10/09/a-breakdown-of-th...

> If you have shoes that give you such a boost, is it doping?

Definitely not, as doping is about drugs. It may be cheating though.

Motor doping is the term for hiding a small electric motor in race bikes. So doping could apply to situations outside of using drugs to enhance your body.

I used the definition from Wikipedia:

> In competitive sports, doping is the use of banned athletic performance-enhancing drugs by athletic competitors.

Admittedly, this may not be the best source.

By definition it's impossible to "cheat" in an event like this. It was an exhibition with no rules, not a sanctioned race.

I think you have jumped to a conclusion here: blood doping isn't about drugs.

Yes. I heard he ran with a Nike prototype called alphaFly, which is probably superior to the VaporFly.

I mean rebound energy is great for a force to hit the ground with less Cush under foot. Newton’s law of physics bounce a ball off pavement and then on a pillow and see what has better rebound energy

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