Stunning results at the top of the field. Some interesting takeaways on both fuelling and shoes.
Maurten spent months working with Sawe and other runners getting their gut capacity trained so they could absorb and burn 100 carbs per hour[0][1]
> The Maurten research team was embedded with Sawe’s team in Kenya for 32 days across six trips between last and this April. They were training his gut to absorb that load by mimicking race-day protocol in training. The hydrogel technology they have developed over the past 10 years now allows athletes to absorb 90–120 grams of carbs per hour without GI distress.
Second is the shoes. Adidas Adizero weigh 96 grams[2] with new foam tech and new carbon plates
Nike and INEOS spent millions over years to get Kipchoge to a sub-2 in artificial conditions, and now the elite end of the field are knocking that barrier out in race conditions. Unreal.
Running tech and training have been revolutionized in the past few years.
burning a hundred calories an hour is trivial. Most people will burn 100 calories per mile when walking or running, and more if moving as fast as these athletes, and many, many humans can do this for far, far longer than 2 hours.
It's the absorbtion that's the challenge. Maurten is not somehow alone in the particular stuff they've developed - ultra runners are generally shifting up into the 90-120 gram/hr range (or beyond!), using a variety of different companies' products. The gut training protocols for this are widely discussed in the world of running for almost any distance above a half marathon.
loeg 18 minutes ago [-]
> burning a hundred calories
GP left out the units but is clearly talking about grams ("absorb ... 100 carbs per hour"), not calories (no one needs training to absorb 25g/hr). Carbs are 4 kcal/g. 100g of carb (400 kcal) an hour isn't replacement level for even casual athletic efforts, but it does mitigate the loss of glycogen in muscle somewhat.
groggo 2 hours ago [-]
One gram of carbs is 4 calories., so more like 400 calories per hour.
It was confusing when the running industry switched from calories to grams of carbs, but that's all anyone talks about now.
mbesto 51 minutes ago [-]
Because calories simply do not matter. At high intensities of working out, it's the amount of carbohydrates you can consume that allow more fuel to be burnt.
"In the aerobic exercise domain up to ~100% of maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max), CHO is the dominant fuel, as CHO-based oxidative metabolism can be activated quickly, provide all of the fuel at high aerobic power outputs (> 85-90% VO2max) and is a more efficient fuel (kcal/L O2 used) when compared to fat."
Calories do matter (obviously, as energy intake is the entire point) but as you note the specific form that the fuel takes matters. However "carbs" is a catch all that includes plenty of things that (I assume) would be of similarly minimal use in this scenario. The calories need to take a very specific chemical form for this to work.
loeg 16 minutes ago [-]
They're equivalent modulo some multiple. It doesn't matter which one we talk about, as long as we're consistent.
whycome 1 hours ago [-]
It’s also confusing that most nutritional labels say “calories” (Cal) when they really mean kilocalories (kcal). And those are different from regular (‘small’) calories
(a measure of energy needed to heat 1g water 1c).
1 food calorie as listed on a food label is enough to heat 1kg of water by 1c
28 minutes ago [-]
justinwp 1 hours ago [-]
It's deliberate, because you generally do not want calories from fat or protein during a marathon or other running race.
nradov 2 hours ago [-]
The leaders were burning a lot more than 100kcal per hour. I think you mean 100g of carbohydrates per hour.
andy99 11 minutes ago [-]
I used to be very into running, it’s very interesting to learn that the bottleneck is apparently energy. Maybe it’s obvious in retrospect but you think about lactate threshold, VO2 Max, I know obviously about “the wall” and depleting the body’s glycogen (which I understood to be the point of long slow runs in training and what I personally felt was the weakest aspect of my training), but it never occurred to me that elites were bound by not being able to get enough calories.
addaon 2 hours ago [-]
100 g of carbs is 400 calories, not 100.
ekr____ 2 hours ago [-]
Correction: 100g of carbohydrate/hr. That's approximately 400 calories/hr.
1 hours ago [-]
tokai 1 hours ago [-]
Pro cycling has been on the high fueling strategy for a while, with huge results for record times. Its a game changer for endurance sports.
adidas introduces the Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3 – the lightest and fastest Adizero shoe ever, weighing an average 97* grams.
The race-day shoe represents the culmination of three years of cutting-edge research. It is 30% lighter, delivers 11% greater forefoot energy return, and improves running economy by 1.6% compared to its predecessor - making it a record breaker before it’s even laced up.
The shoe will launch with a highly limited release, with ambitious runners able to sign up for the chance to get their hands on a pair from April 23. This will be followed by a wider release in the fall marathon season. The Adizero adios Pro Evo 3 will cost $500/€500.
For other marathon racing shoes, Google says:
The Nike Alphafly 3 is the lightest in the series, weighing approximately 7.0–7.7 oz (198–218g) for a men's size 9, and 6.1 oz (174g) for women's sizes.
The PUMA Deviate NITRO™ Elite 3 is exceptionally lightweight, typically weighing 194g (6.8 oz) for a men's size 8 (UK)
Much like the road bikes that cost as much as a sedan, unless you are competing on a world stage, these aren’t meant for you.
I’m sure someone will happily sell them to you if you enjoy wasting money.
spenjovewkwhalo 1 hours ago [-]
Posted to my in-laws, who asked how:
Super shoes. Most shoes have carbon plates in them now, they act as a spring, storing energy and propelling athletes forwards.
Better understanding of fuelling. Most athletes are taking between 100-120g carbs (sugar) per hour. Bicarbonate of soda has also been effective.
Better planning tools. Athletes look at elevation, headwind, tailwind and will plan a strategy around going harder into the hard stuff and knowing when they can back off and rest.
And to be honest, probably a metric tonne of PEDs (performance enhancing drugs) - unfortunately this is very common across all sports at the top level.
k2enemy 54 minutes ago [-]
> Most shoes have carbon plates in them now, they act as a spring, storing energy and propelling athletes forwards.
This seems unlikely to be true, although it is repeated in every article I read about carbon plated shoes. The people that study them in a lab environment seem to disagree. See some of the papers here:
However, I agree wholeheartedly with the overall points in your post!
spenjovewkwhalo 44 minutes ago [-]
Ooooh, interesting- I’ll take a read, thanks!
I’m guessing like most things of this nature, you’re likely to have super-responders, responders and non-responders?
tejohnso 20 minutes ago [-]
> Super shoes. Most shoes have carbon plates in them now, they act as a spring, storing energy and propelling athletes forwards.
I wonder where that leaves the barefoot movement. Hype dust?
brewdad 4 minutes ago [-]
Was the barefoot movement ever about running faster? I always thought they sold injury prevention by strengthening tissues that running shoes tend to over support.
jimt1234 43 minutes ago [-]
I thought those carbon plate shoes were barred from competition???
lukeinator42 1 minutes ago [-]
nope, nike vaporflys are super popular. There are usually limits on stack height for many marathons though.
vessenes 2 hours ago [-]
Don’t forget Yomif Kejelcha who finished in 1:59:41, a world record up until 11 seconds prior. Amazing.
curt15 38 minutes ago [-]
> Don’t forget Yomif Kejelcha who finished in 1:59:41, a world record up until 11 seconds prior. Amazing.
In his marathon debut too.
ronbenton 1 hours ago [-]
Imagine having the second fastest marathon time ever yet not winning the marathon you ran it in
m463 57 minutes ago [-]
Nobody ever remembers who was in 2nd. sigh.
dmurray 2 hours ago [-]
There's something about the London course today that made for very good running.
Three athletes broke the men's world record. One athlete broke the women's world record, and three were in the all time top 5. An Irish record was also broken, likely other countries too that I'm not familiar with.
Not to take anything away from the achievements. Incredible running.
PaulDavisThe1st 2 hours ago [-]
> One athlete broke the women's world record
Not so. She broke a record for a female-only-pacer marathon time. The women's world record was much, much faster.
ekr____ 1 hours ago [-]
To add some color here:
It is very helpful to have someone pace you so that you can run an ideal pace without worrying about whether you are running the right speed. However, the rules require that pacers start with you [0], which means that by definition if you are running faster than anyone has ever gone before you have to run some of the race alone.
However, because marathon are often mixed gender and the best male runners are significantly faster than the best female runners, it is possible for a woman to be paced from the gun to the tape by a male runner. For this reason, there are separate records for the women's marathon for women's only events.
[0] This is one of the things that made Kipchoge's original sub 2 result not record-eligible.
dmurray 54 minutes ago [-]
I stand corrected, but I don't think this changes my point at all.
She broke the thing that the IAAF have gone back and forth on calling "the world record". It's the relevant record for this event - there was no more chance of her beating the man-paced record than of beating the men's record or the Le Mans lap record.
cowthulhu 2 hours ago [-]
Wow, that’s ~13 mph, basically a full-on sprint for a mere mortal. Absolutely insane.
PaulDavisThe1st 2 hours ago [-]
The fastest marathoners are moving at 4m30sec per mile or faster.
Very few mere mortals could run that fast for even 100m.
hackingonempty 36 minutes ago [-]
Here's a random high school in Northern California. Everyone on the team is beating 16.7 seconds in the 100m. For the 1600m there are six kids with times under 4m30s and another seven with times under 4m40s, all in the last month.
* of course one mile is hardly comparable to the marathon that pros are able to sustain such speeds over...
hyperpape 5 minutes ago [-]
Unless kids have gotten a lot faster in the past 25 years, I think that's a lot better than a typical 2000 person high school.
sethev 17 minutes ago [-]
Not sure that disproves the point :) Most people have never been anywhere close to competing with the top 6 athletes at a high school with ~2k students.
hackingonempty 2 minutes ago [-]
There are thousands of these high schools all across the USA. The top high schoolers in California so far this year are doing 1600m in 4m7s.
> Very few mere mortals could run that fast for even 100m.
That works out to roughly a 16.7-second 100m. While certainly not crawling, that would be a fairly average pace for a fairly fit middle- to early-high-schooler with a bit of practice.
Yes that’s insane to maintain for a marathon, but it’s not even remotely out of reach for 100m for most relatively-fit people at some point in their lives.
PaulDavisThe1st 18 minutes ago [-]
It's the "at some point in their lives" that matters here. For most folks, the period where a 16.7 100m is feasible is pretty short.
croemer 48 minutes ago [-]
I think it's even slow for high schoolers. I didn't practice that much and ran 100m in 12.5s from rest at my peak. 4s slower is snail pace. I think most in my class could run that fast (or slow).
jmb99 17 minutes ago [-]
I agree. I ran mid 16s in 8th grade, and was in the 14s in high school, with the only training being whatever we did in gym class. But I do also look at the sheer number of overweight kids these days and figured, well maybe mid-16s is actually a reasonable average point.
petepete 1 hours ago [-]
There's an interesting video by Mark Lewis on this.
Sometimes they have big running machines with a crash mat around them running at 2h marathon pace at running shows. I’ve o ly seen them on video - no one can keep up with it for more than 30 odd seconds. It’s INSANE they are running this fast.
Also bear in mind running a single mile under 4 mins was considered impossible for a long time.
soupfordummies 2 hours ago [-]
Yeah I can barely even ride my bike that fast much less keep that pace for two hours.
willsmith72 29 minutes ago [-]
You must be crawling on your bike I'd love to see that
croemer 51 minutes ago [-]
No, it's slower than most people's sprints. It's 17 seconds per 100 metres which is slow. Most teenagers can do this starting from rest.
mkl 1 hours ago [-]
21.19km/h on average, or 17 seconds per hundred metres on average.
Cthulhu_ 2 hours ago [-]
I'm not a runner at all, but people say that they can do that for like a minute, maybe two at best... and these guys did it for two hours straight.
fredley 1 hours ago [-]
He did his _last_ mile in 4.17. Insane.
adverbly 2 hours ago [-]
Wait two runners beat it in the same race?
Was there perfect conditions.or something?
Insane you could run 1:59:41 and not win!
rkagerer 2 hours ago [-]
Three of them, actually:
Sabastian Sawe 1:59:30
Yomif Kejelcha 1:59:41
Jacob Kiplimo 2:00:28
The previous official record was Kelvin Kiptum's time of 2:00:35 in 2023. Eliud Kipchoge did 1:59:40 in 2019, but that wasn't record-eligible as it was held under controlled conditions. Source: The article.
mkl 1 hours ago [-]
Two beat two hours is what they meant.
nradov 1 hours ago [-]
Weather and course conditions were good but not perfect. There is potential to take a few more seconds off the world record in slightly colder conditions and on a course with fewer turns. I wouldn't be surprised to see someone run 1:58 in the next few years.
ohyoutravel 47 seconds ago [-]
This is probably right. We’ll also see at least five unique sub-2s before the end of 2027.
hdndjsbbs 2 hours ago [-]
Pacing is a big part of endurance sport. If you're in the lead you know intellectually you want to pace for sub-2 hours, but if you're watching someone beat you maybe it gives you the extra edge?
It does sound like the course and the weather made it more likely to happen. And technical advances in shoe composition.
PaulDavisThe1st 1 hours ago [-]
That's not a description of how the pacing for this race actually happened.
> The leading men went through halfway in 60 minutes and 29 seconds: fast but not exceptionally so. But it turned out that Sawe was merely warming up.
Between 30 and 35 kilometres, Sawe and Kejelcha ran a stunning 13:54 for 5km to see off Kiplimo. Yet, staggeringly, more was to come as the pair covered kilometres 35 to 40 in 13:42. To put this into context, that time is two seconds faster than the 5km parkrun world record, set by the Irish international Nick Griggs.
It was only after a 24th mile, run in 4:12, that Kejelcha wilted. But still Sawe kept going. Astonishingly, he crossed the line having run the second half in just over 59 minutes.
“Before 41 kilometres, I’m enjoying, I’m relaxed,” said Kejelcha, who had won silver over 10,000m at last year’s world championships.
“My body is all great. At exactly 41 kilometres, my body stopped. I tried to push, but my legs were done.
Sawe, though, powered on to set the fastest official marathon time in history. For good measure, it was also 10 seconds faster than Eliud Kipchoge’s unofficial 26.2 mile best, set in Vienna in 2019.
And the only place this appears on ESPN is if you click on "Olympics," which has nothing to do with this race. Where coverage should be: on the home page.
freediver 2 hours ago [-]
Incredible result! (on the day I did my own 5K pb)
This is a nice video of the last 10 mins of the historic marathon race finish
Amazing to me that I'll never get my *half* marathon time close to his full marathon time.
nradov 1 hours ago [-]
A 1:59 half marathon time is achievable for pretty much anyone who doesn't have a serious physical disability and is willing to put in the necessary training. I've done it a few times and have no particular talent for running.
PaulDavisThe1st 1 hours ago [-]
That's a 9m10sec per mile for 2 hours. While I'd agree that there are millions or even billions of people who could train to do that, I think it's wrong to suggest that "pretty much anyone" could do that.
pollymarket 38 minutes ago [-]
My predicted half time is under 2 hours and I was sedentary for years before starting to run 9 months ago, and I'm 40 years old.
Endurance sports are quite accessible and don't require that much time, effort, or talent to get way better than the vast majority of people, it's just consistency.
PaulDavisThe1st 14 minutes ago [-]
I've been an endurance athlete most of my life, running 100 miles at 17, a 5:30 mile at 50, and lots of other stuff in between. I know that a 9min/mile pace is "easily achievable" by many folks, which is why I noted that millions or billions of people could do this. Nevertheless, I think it is really important to not overstate how achievable this is - there are many more people who could not do this than could, I think.
FWIW, that now includes me, as a 62 year old. I can hit 6:30 pace for 400m, but find it almost impossible to get under 10:0x for a mile. And that's even after 6 months of training for a 50 mile trail race.
stockresearcher 4 hours ago [-]
3 people beat the previous world record in this race! This is some combination of improved tech and extraordinarily good weather.
London is a fast course. Let’s see what happens in Chicago and Berlin. If it was primarily tech that did it, we should see the record fall again.
Yomif Kejelcha also ran sub-two, clocking 1:59:41 on his debut marathon
You have to feel for Kejelcha - breaking 2h marathon and not even winning the race!
piker 2 hours ago [-]
Insane; and second place was sub-2:00 as well. Relegated to trivia questions for the next decade.
It would be interesting to adjust this speed to account for the insane advancements in shoe technology over the last decade. Could it be as simple as measuring the delta in median marathon performance? Then look backwards to, say, 1996 and see what the technology-adjusted 2:00 mark is.
wry_durian 1 hours ago [-]
I suspect there would be larger deltas due to improvements in nutrition and fueling. As another poster has mentioned, today's runners are ingesting so many more carbs per hour than 20 or 30 years ago. And if doping trends have changed over time, that's another factor. (No clue either way, but it's a potential factor.)
There's been lots of research into shoes though, so you might be able to work something out. For instance Jack Daniels (the running coach, not the beverage!) found that adding 100 grams to a running shoe increased aerobic effort by around 1%.
canucker2016 1 hours ago [-]
Second place male runner was running his first marathon race as well.
Sub-2hr marathon, beat the previous world record before Sunday, on your first try, and you don't win! Bad timing...
Looks like first place male gets US$330K. Second place will get US$180K.
Divide by 2 to get the approximate hourly rate. :)
michaelt 1 hours ago [-]
> Could it be as simple as measuring the delta in median marathon performance?
The popularity of running waxes and wanes - and the performance of the median runner varies with popularity.
Back in the 1980s the average half marathon finishing time was 1 hour 40 minutes - whereas today it's a little above 2 hours because there are a lot more people particpating.
nradov 2 hours ago [-]
The confounding variable is higher carbohydrate intake based on optimizing the glucose/fructose ratio and improved techniques for gut training. That happened at about the same time as the new carbon fiber shoes so it's hard to isolate how much impact the shoes had alone.
UebVar 1 hours ago [-]
This is historic. To put this into perspective for people how to not follow running: This is about about as big as "derGrobe" beating the one-minute-mark in 4b2c.
Metacelsus 28 minutes ago [-]
It's always interesting to see East Africans doing so well. Even with technology like advances in shoes and diet/training, genetics is still a huge factor.
Also it must be an crazy feeling to be Kejelcha, the guy who came in 2nd place. It would have been a world record, except for Sawe!
elchief 2 minutes ago [-]
Not necessarily genetic. They run a lot, at altitude, from childhood
geargrinder 10 minutes ago [-]
It was his first marathon, so he is probably thinking next time he will be the one to break the record.
wavemode 2 hours ago [-]
That's literally running a 4:30 mile, 26 times in a row. Jesus.
ccheever 1 hours ago [-]
4:33
alex1138 1 hours ago [-]
WHAT???? NO. WAY.
That's not me being sarcastic. I never, ever thought this would happen
mkl 31 minutes ago [-]
Why not? People were not far from it and have been getting closer and closer to it for years. To me it seemed almost certain that it would happen this decade or next.
Noaidi 2 hours ago [-]
Basically, he did not beat the record because he was faster, but only because the weather was better. This record needs an asterisk.
clutter55561 1 hours ago [-]
Two marathons will never be run in the same conditions, that is the nature of outdoor sports.
Besides weather, there are loads of factors in the performance: shoes, clothes, food, etc. So basically every record gets an asterisk?
soupfordummies 2 hours ago [-]
So if the weather was bad the accomplishment would mean more then? I don’t think this is how it works. Sports don’t happen in a vacuum.
jjmarr 1 hours ago [-]
Sprinting/jump performances are invalidated for world record purposes if there's over 2.0 m/s of wind assistance.
There is no rule for marathons.
dmurray 45 minutes ago [-]
There is a rule for marathons to counter wind assistance, but it's basically that the finish of the race needs to be pretty close to the start.
aaronbrethorst 1 hours ago [-]
Too bad, you could run a lot faster in a vacuum...except for that whole breathing thing.
Yes. If sports does not happen in a vacuum then comparisons are unfair. If I go to the moon and break the record for long jumping should I be applauded?
I thought there were scientists on here...
gbnwl 1 hours ago [-]
Never thought I'd see the day ragebait made it to HN. Yes, let's pretend doing a long jump on the moon is comparable to running a marathon at its prescheduled time at its prescheduled location. Weather is always a factor in sports that take place outside. Might as well put asterisks on all accomplishments that took place on sunny days by your logic right?
Noaidi 1 hours ago [-]
It’s either scientific or it’s not.
Don’t forget that two people actually ran under the two hour mark.
ternaryoperator 42 minutes ago [-]
Not sure I understand what you mean by "scientific." If you mean exactly reproducible, then almost nothing in athletics fits that definition. Every record in baseball, football, etc. would fail that definition.
snayan 1 hours ago [-]
I am impressed by your ability to delineate the weather effect on his run with such confidence! Particularly given advances in other variables that contribute.
nradov 1 hours ago [-]
No asterisk needed. The criteria for record-eligible courses have been clearly defined. The weather was good, but not quite ideal. In slightly colder conditions I think Sawe could have gone a few seconds faster.
PaulDavisThe1st 1 hours ago [-]
Better weather has, to the best of my knowledge, never been part of marathon record keeping. People do note in accounts of (e.g.) the Boston marathon that the weather was particularly atrocious in some years (hence a general slow down across the field), but weather "aided" fast times are not considered illegitimate or even worthy of note.
Obviously, barring wind, which is why some marathon courses are not eligible for world records.
nradov 1 hours ago [-]
Correct. Boston is a net downhill point-to-point course and not record eligible under World Athletics rules.
> Better weather has, to the best of my knowledge, never been part of marathon record keeping.
It should be.
PaulDavisThe1st 12 minutes ago [-]
Human response to temperature shows significant variation. 50F/10C may be absolutely ideal for one runner, but a little too cold for another. That's why you can't unambiguously declare a given race to be "a good weather day".
By contrast, hail/rain and wind will negatively impact almost everyone, which is why talking about "a bad weather day" makes more sense.
Forgeties79 2 hours ago [-]
That’s a wild reason to withhold a true record. People run marathons in all sorts of conditions since it became a thing. It is unlikely this is the best weather ever for a record set and even if it was, it’s never been a factor when deciding to qualify a record. That’s beyond unfair.
Noaidi 1 hours ago [-]
I am surprised at the push back on this. It is just science and it mentioned it in the article.
I just said it needs an asterisk, not withholding anything. What if someone runs one second slower in higher humidity and temperature. Now that I would applaud.
ekr____ 1 hours ago [-]
Why do you think the existing records weren't also set under good conditions?
lazyasciiart 47 minutes ago [-]
What was the temperature and humidity for the previous record? Or the rest of the top 10?
clutter55561 2 hours ago [-]
~~A car going as fast as him would have gotten a speeding ticket in the residential areas of Wales. Crazy.~~
Edit: I was thinking in km/h and mixed it up. Sorry.
edo_cat 2 hours ago [-]
Speed limit is 20mph right? He ran 26.1 miles in 2 hours so average speed is 13 mph
adzm 2 hours ago [-]
Looking this up, fastest human is still Usain Bolt at 27.78mph (at one point in a 100 meter dash)
clutter55561 1 hours ago [-]
Damn was thinking km/h. Thanks for the correction.
sowbug 12 minutes ago [-]
You actually can get a ticket for driving 13 in a 25, at least in the US, so you're not entirely incorrect.
soopypoos 2 hours ago [-]
I hope there was a runner dressed as the finish line
Rendered at 23:14:09 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
Maurten spent months working with Sawe and other runners getting their gut capacity trained so they could absorb and burn 100 carbs per hour[0][1]
> The Maurten research team was embedded with Sawe’s team in Kenya for 32 days across six trips between last and this April. They were training his gut to absorb that load by mimicking race-day protocol in training. The hydrogel technology they have developed over the past 10 years now allows athletes to absorb 90–120 grams of carbs per hour without GI distress.
Second is the shoes. Adidas Adizero weigh 96 grams[2] with new foam tech and new carbon plates
Nike and INEOS spent millions over years to get Kipchoge to a sub-2 in artificial conditions, and now the elite end of the field are knocking that barrier out in race conditions. Unreal.
Running tech and training have been revolutionized in the past few years.
[0] https://marathonhandbook.com/sebastian-sawe-arrives-in-londo...
[1] https://www.instagram.com/p/DXmvAUvkWaq/
[2] https://www.runnersworld.com/uk/gear/shoes/a71129333/sabasti...
edit: correct :s/calories/carbs thanks
burning a hundred calories an hour is trivial. Most people will burn 100 calories per mile when walking or running, and more if moving as fast as these athletes, and many, many humans can do this for far, far longer than 2 hours.
It's the absorbtion that's the challenge. Maurten is not somehow alone in the particular stuff they've developed - ultra runners are generally shifting up into the 90-120 gram/hr range (or beyond!), using a variety of different companies' products. The gut training protocols for this are widely discussed in the world of running for almost any distance above a half marathon.
GP left out the units but is clearly talking about grams ("absorb ... 100 carbs per hour"), not calories (no one needs training to absorb 25g/hr). Carbs are 4 kcal/g. 100g of carb (400 kcal) an hour isn't replacement level for even casual athletic efforts, but it does mitigate the loss of glycogen in muscle somewhat.
It was confusing when the running industry switched from calories to grams of carbs, but that's all anyone talks about now.
"In the aerobic exercise domain up to ~100% of maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max), CHO is the dominant fuel, as CHO-based oxidative metabolism can be activated quickly, provide all of the fuel at high aerobic power outputs (> 85-90% VO2max) and is a more efficient fuel (kcal/L O2 used) when compared to fat."
https://www.gssiweb.org/sports-science-exchange/article/regu...
1 food calorie as listed on a food label is enough to heat 1kg of water by 1c
I’m sure someone will happily sell them to you if you enjoy wasting money.
Super shoes. Most shoes have carbon plates in them now, they act as a spring, storing energy and propelling athletes forwards.
Better understanding of fuelling. Most athletes are taking between 100-120g carbs (sugar) per hour. Bicarbonate of soda has also been effective.
Better planning tools. Athletes look at elevation, headwind, tailwind and will plan a strategy around going harder into the hard stuff and knowing when they can back off and rest.
And to be honest, probably a metric tonne of PEDs (performance enhancing drugs) - unfortunately this is very common across all sports at the top level.
This seems unlikely to be true, although it is repeated in every article I read about carbon plated shoes. The people that study them in a lab environment seem to disagree. See some of the papers here:
https://www.wouterhoogkamer.com/science2
However, I agree wholeheartedly with the overall points in your post!
I’m guessing like most things of this nature, you’re likely to have super-responders, responders and non-responders?
I wonder where that leaves the barefoot movement. Hype dust?
In his marathon debut too.
Three athletes broke the men's world record. One athlete broke the women's world record, and three were in the all time top 5. An Irish record was also broken, likely other countries too that I'm not familiar with.
Not to take anything away from the achievements. Incredible running.
Not so. She broke a record for a female-only-pacer marathon time. The women's world record was much, much faster.
However, because marathon are often mixed gender and the best male runners are significantly faster than the best female runners, it is possible for a woman to be paced from the gun to the tape by a male runner. For this reason, there are separate records for the women's marathon for women's only events.
[0] This is one of the things that made Kipchoge's original sub 2 result not record-eligible.
She broke the thing that the IAAF have gone back and forth on calling "the world record". It's the relevant record for this event - there was no more chance of her beating the man-paced record than of beating the men's record or the Le Mans lap record.
Very few mere mortals could run that fast for even 100m.
https://www.athletic.net/team/770/track-and-field-outdoor/20...
* of course one mile is hardly comparable to the marathon that pros are able to sustain such speeds over...
https://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/rankings/list/168546/...
That works out to roughly a 16.7-second 100m. While certainly not crawling, that would be a fairly average pace for a fairly fit middle- to early-high-schooler with a bit of practice.
Yes that’s insane to maintain for a marathon, but it’s not even remotely out of reach for 100m for most relatively-fit people at some point in their lives.
https://youtu.be/xkBmYQucyMs
Also bear in mind running a single mile under 4 mins was considered impossible for a long time.
Was there perfect conditions.or something?
Insane you could run 1:59:41 and not win!
Sabastian Sawe 1:59:30
Yomif Kejelcha 1:59:41
Jacob Kiplimo 2:00:28
The previous official record was Kelvin Kiptum's time of 2:00:35 in 2023. Eliud Kipchoge did 1:59:40 in 2019, but that wasn't record-eligible as it was held under controlled conditions. Source: The article.
It does sound like the course and the weather made it more likely to happen. And technical advances in shoe composition.
> The leading men went through halfway in 60 minutes and 29 seconds: fast but not exceptionally so. But it turned out that Sawe was merely warming up.
Between 30 and 35 kilometres, Sawe and Kejelcha ran a stunning 13:54 for 5km to see off Kiplimo. Yet, staggeringly, more was to come as the pair covered kilometres 35 to 40 in 13:42. To put this into context, that time is two seconds faster than the 5km parkrun world record, set by the Irish international Nick Griggs.
It was only after a 24th mile, run in 4:12, that Kejelcha wilted. But still Sawe kept going. Astonishingly, he crossed the line having run the second half in just over 59 minutes.
“Before 41 kilometres, I’m enjoying, I’m relaxed,” said Kejelcha, who had won silver over 10,000m at last year’s world championships.
“My body is all great. At exactly 41 kilometres, my body stopped. I tried to push, but my legs were done.
Sawe, though, powered on to set the fastest official marathon time in history. For good measure, it was also 10 seconds faster than Eliud Kipchoge’s unofficial 26.2 mile best, set in Vienna in 2019.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/apr/26/sabastian-sawe...
This is a nice video of the last 10 mins of the historic marathon race finish
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1voTDQQQf5g
Endurance sports are quite accessible and don't require that much time, effort, or talent to get way better than the vast majority of people, it's just consistency.
FWIW, that now includes me, as a 62 year old. I can hit 6:30 pace for 400m, but find it almost impossible to get under 10:0x for a mile. And that's even after 6 months of training for a 50 mile trail race.
London is a fast course. Let’s see what happens in Chicago and Berlin. If it was primarily tech that did it, we should see the record fall again.
5km - 14:14 10km - 28:35 15km - 43:10 20km - 57:21 Half - 60:29 25km - 71:41 30km - 1:26:03 35km - 1:39:57 40km - 1:53:39 Finish - 1:59:30
Yomif Kejelcha also ran sub-two, clocking 1:59:41 on his debut marathon
You have to feel for Kejelcha - breaking 2h marathon and not even winning the race!
It would be interesting to adjust this speed to account for the insane advancements in shoe technology over the last decade. Could it be as simple as measuring the delta in median marathon performance? Then look backwards to, say, 1996 and see what the technology-adjusted 2:00 mark is.
There's been lots of research into shoes though, so you might be able to work something out. For instance Jack Daniels (the running coach, not the beverage!) found that adding 100 grams to a running shoe increased aerobic effort by around 1%.
Sub-2hr marathon, beat the previous world record before Sunday, on your first try, and you don't win! Bad timing...
Prize money for London Marathon 2026 - https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/38880592/london-marathon-2026...
Looks like first place male gets US$330K. Second place will get US$180K.
Divide by 2 to get the approximate hourly rate. :)
The popularity of running waxes and wanes - and the performance of the median runner varies with popularity.
Back in the 1980s the average half marathon finishing time was 1 hour 40 minutes - whereas today it's a little above 2 hours because there are a lot more people particpating.
Also it must be an crazy feeling to be Kejelcha, the guy who came in 2nd place. It would have been a world record, except for Sawe!
That's not me being sarcastic. I never, ever thought this would happen
Besides weather, there are loads of factors in the performance: shoes, clothes, food, etc. So basically every record gets an asterisk?
There is no rule for marathons.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00421-010-1410-1
I thought there were scientists on here...
Don’t forget that two people actually ran under the two hour mark.
Obviously, barring wind, which is why some marathon courses are not eligible for world records.
https://worldathletics.org/records/certified-roadevents
It should be.
By contrast, hail/rain and wind will negatively impact almost everyone, which is why talking about "a bad weather day" makes more sense.
https://marathonhandbook.com/large-scale-marathon-study-iden...
I just said it needs an asterisk, not withholding anything. What if someone runs one second slower in higher humidity and temperature. Now that I would applaud.
Edit: I was thinking in km/h and mixed it up. Sorry.