Ajax Bay
Guru
- Location
- East Devon
Paula Radcliffe ran the fastest marathon ever by a woman running in competition with other runners in the 2003 London race. Cheating? Wash your mouth out. Who's cheating who?
In the Bob Graham (have you completed it @swansonj ?) those who run alongside are there to assure that each and every summit is visited - they act as 'witnesses' - a criterion the Bob Graham Club require to record the completion (not a 'record'). In my experience there was minimal pacing advantage from those running with us - the benefit was the company. But I'm sure others would appreciate the navigational aid and water/food carrying that company might offer. And there is a safety aspect too, if fell-runners are on the limit of their endurance. Over a 20+ hours endeavour it's the individual who sets their pace, not those acompanying.
My take on the Vienna extravaganza is that it is what it is: a time trial over the marathon distance. I fear that when a runner breaks 2 hours properly (ie in a race) their achievement will be depreciated because of today's media scrum/hyped effort. Think how the world would have received Roger Bannister's 'breakthrough' if some bloke had broken 4 minutes a month or a year earlier, in a time trial with pacemakers jumping in and out.
. My point is that none of these achievements - Roger Bannister, Paula Radcliffe, Eliud Kipchoge - are cheating, because any set of rules that specifies what a pacer can or cannot do is arbitrary. It's not me that's called either Radcliffe's or Kipchoge's stupendous achievements "cheating", though others (not necessarily on here) have done so about both. Personally, I wouldn't have used your phraseology "when a runner breaks 2 hours properly (ie in a race)" because that implies there is something improper about his breaking two hours today.
