1:59 challenge

Shirley Basso

Anyone watching this? I am on baby duties this morning so have the joys of the most bland television personality - Clare boring balding introducing. Hopefully eurosport does a better job of the coverage

pblakeney

Drafting does seem like a bit if a cheat but of it's within the rules...
Edit:- Ah, no record so not within the rules. Still impressive if done!

mickledore.fy

Hope he does it. Totally artificial and no world record but it takes some doing. I like the car shining the laser so that the pacers can pace themselves.

Every credit to everyone involved for having a go.

Quite a few spectators this early in the morning.

Foxymoron

Yes, love Kipchoge, awesome human

morstar

Have they explained why the runners are forming a concave v shape and not a convex one? In my simple mind they are channelling the air inwards rather than away from Kipchoge.

PhilipPirrip

They'd done CFD work and determined it was the best model to reduce drag on Kipchoge.

mrb123

At the speed they're travelling you'd think he would be better off in some sort of skinsuit.

orraloon

Watching the coach gesturing for the team member behind Kipchoge to close up and thinking man, what if he clipped his heel by being too close... Looking good to do it bar mishap.

mad_malx

Bloody Ineos train destroying the competition.

I know a lot of people who think 2h at 21.1 km/h is a fast cycle ride.

craigus89

mad_malx wrote:

Bloody Ineos train destroying the competition.

good one.

bianchimoon

Looking good, Fingers crossed he can do it, I’m sure he will.

mad_malx

Found that quite emotional .

chris_bass

can't help thinking this is happening at a very bad time - the whole salazar/drugs in athletics thing going on as someone runs unbelievably fast

pross

4'33" miling, I can't run 400m at that pace. It took me 4 attempts to run a half in under 2 hours and I was close to tears when I finally did it, hopefully he can do it in competition and some point and make it official (obviously he'll have to upload it to Strava for it to count properly though).

DeVlaeminck

Great achievement but I'd rather the 2 hour barrier remained unbroken until someone could do it in a race or if not then an unpaced time trial.

cougie

Fantastic stuff. What an athlete and what a team.

surrey_commuter

DeVlaeminck wrote:

Great achievement but I'd rather the 2 hour barrier remained unbroken until someone could do it in a race or if not then an unpaced time trial.

Yep I am in two minds about this. Like Bannister “cheating”to beat 4 minutes it removed the psychological barrier so could be interesting to see what happens next.

ddraver

Surrey Commuter wrote:

DeVlaeminck wrote:

Great achievement but I'd rather the 2 hour barrier remained unbroken until someone could do it in a race or if not then an unpaced time trial.

Yep I am in two minds about this. Like Bannister “cheating”to beat 4 minutes it removed the psychological barrier so could be interesting to see what happens next.

This, plus the whole magic shoes thing. I suppose it's kinda cool but it doesn't feel real

I dunno, it was better than Saturday Kitchen...

mrb123

Wonder what distance a paced effort for the hour record in a velodrome could hit...

TheBlueBean

mrb123 wrote:

Wonder what distance a paced effort for the hour record in a velodrome could hit...

The recumbent record is pretty amazing.

timothyw

It's a fair point on velodrome pacing, I'm sure I read somewhere that the UCI banned having a pace setting spotlight in the velodrome for hour record attempts (in much the style of the lasers used in this run).

Certainly it's hard to envisage a situation in which an actual marathon would be run at such a steady (and fast) pace so it seems likely the actual record will stand for a while yet.

It is nice that Kipchoge actually got out there and did it, if nothing else. Impressive as the Merckx hour record was, for me there has always been a what if element... if he had run a sensible pacing strategy, could he have broken 50km?

Matthewfalle

Did anyone else notice Lt Nick Bradshaw as part of running dude's final pacemaking team?

Now that is cool but does raise a whole load of security questions ........

bondurant

Apt that he was running as a wingman

pross

ddraver wrote:

Surrey Commuter wrote:

DeVlaeminck wrote:

Great achievement but I'd rather the 2 hour barrier remained unbroken until someone could do it in a race or if not then an unpaced time trial.

Yep I am in two minds about this. Like Bannister “cheating”to beat 4 minutes it removed the psychological barrier so could be interesting to see what happens next.

This, plus the whole magic shoes thing. I suppose it's kinda cool but it doesn't feel real

I dunno, it was better than Saturday Kitchen...

Magic shoes is a bit of a stretch. It's just technological advancement. Do you feel the same if the hour record gets broken on something other than a steel frame bike with drop bars?

ddraver

Well, the UCI certainly do.

(Or used to...)

morstar

ddraver wrote:

Well, the UCI certainly do.

(Or used to...)

And they killed off the hour record with their approach.

TheBlueBean

Presumably he could also have run this quickly if he did it on the track or on a downhill course. It's interesting that he has chosen to do it with the rotating pacemakers. Perhaps, this way is more marketable than the other ways.

morstar

TheBigBean wrote:

Presumably he could also have run this quickly if he did it on the track or on a downhill course. It's interesting that he has chosen to do it with the rotating pacemakers. Perhaps, this way is more marketable than the other ways.

The track is not ideal as the bends are quite tight and you'd be spending 50% of your time running corners. More force required as you're accelerating in corners.
Downhill is a clear mockery of the human effort. Pacemakers are used in all major road races so they are not making a mockery, they have simply been optimised.

TheBlueBean

morstar wrote:

TheBigBean wrote:

Presumably he could also have run this quickly if he did it on the track or on a downhill course. It's interesting that he has chosen to do it with the rotating pacemakers. Perhaps, this way is more marketable than the other ways.

The track is not ideal as the bends are quite tight and you'd be spending 50% of your time running corners. More force required as you're accelerating in corners.
Downhill is a clear mockery of the human effort. Pacemakers are used in all major road races so they are not making a mockery, they have simply been optimised.

Pacemakers are used, but only when they run from the start. This involved fresh pacemakers running in the most aero format. Note the reason given for Radcliffe's quick marathon is that she had male pacemakers presumably providing the same advantage.

The track is quicker if you look at world record times.

surrey_commuter

morstar wrote:

TheBigBean wrote:

Presumably he could also have run this quickly if he did it on the track or on a downhill course. It's interesting that he has chosen to do it with the rotating pacemakers. Perhaps, this way is more marketable than the other ways.

The track is not ideal as the bends are quite tight and you'd be spending 50% of your time running corners. More force required as you're accelerating in corners.
Downhill is a clear mockery of the human effort. Pacemakers are used in all major road races so they are not making a mockery, they have simply been optimised.

The fact that they pulled out the car, the bikes and pacemakers so they weren’t in the finishing pictures would suggest they thought they were making a mockery

orraloon

Ah c'mon, the boy dun good innit.

This man ran a marathon distance sub 2 hours. Respect.