My view is that the 2 hour marathon is further away than people think. The winner of yesterdays London marathon took part in a special event a year ago staged carefully to try to break the 2 hour barrier. It wasn't a race. He improved on the world's best time by almost 2 minutes, but still finished over 20 seconds outside the 2 hour mark. It wouldn't have been recognised as a record anyway because it broke all the pacing rules:
The event was set up by Nike to publicise a new running shoe with a built-in "spring"-thing in the sole made from carbon fibre, which some experts have said makes a 4% difference to the amount of energy needed to run at a given speed, and others conjecture breaks the rules. Even with the greatest marathon racer of all time, at his absolute peak, and all of the above in place to ensure the fastest possible time, they still couldn't do it. It'll be quite a while until they do. Even then, it won't be recognised, because it will first happen at a point-to-point event (like Boston) where the whole race is slightly downhill, and where a following wind could give an advantage that it never could on a circuit.
The event was set up by Nike to publicise a new running shoe with a built-in "spring"-thing in the sole made from carbon fibre, which some experts have said makes a 4% difference to the amount of energy needed to run at a given speed, and others conjecture breaks the rules. Even with the greatest marathon racer of all time, at his absolute peak, and all of the above in place to ensure the fastest possible time, they still couldn't do it. It'll be quite a while until they do. Even then, it won't be recognised, because it will first happen at a point-to-point event (like Boston) where the whole race is slightly downhill, and where a following wind could give an advantage that it never could on a circuit.
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