The 2 hour barrier has been smashed.

Mind blowing performances at the London Marathon

What in the world did we just see!

The 2 hour marathon barrier has been broken. Three guys went under the old world record...

Sabastian Sawe just ran 1:59:30 with crazy negative splits, closing the last half in 59:01....faster than the American Record in the half marathon.

One of the most mind blowing performances we’ve seen maybe in the history of any sport. How did we get here?

Every breakthrough is a mixture of belief and progress. It takes folks daring to see what’s possible, surrounding themselves with a quality team and doing the work to give themselves a shot.

You’ve got to bet on yourself in a big way. Which is exactly what Sawe did in multiple ways. When asked whether he believed he could run a sub-2-hour marathon before the race, Sawe answered with one word: “Yes.”

Let’s get the obvious out of the way. Performance enhancing drugs are a legitimate question mark to every breakthrough. It’s just the reality of sport. When you see something that is too good to be true, it often is.

So Sawe did as much as he could about taking that off the table. He and his team asked to be tested all the time. His sponsor put up 50K to the Athlete Integrity Unit. The tests are run independently, no advance notice. Over a 2 month stretch, he went through 25 drug tests leading up to the Berlin marathon. This go round they spread it out over a longer period.

There’s always a doubt. There has to be given what we know. When you have three guys break the world record in the same race, questions will be raised. But hats off to Sawe for addressing it for himself in the best way possible, “I want to prove that I am clean when I set foot at the start line.”

But how’d we actually get here where two guys went sub 2 in the same race?

How we got here:

1. Shoe tech

We’ve had a revolution in shoe technology that boosts running economy. For years shoe companies said their shoe would make you faster and was mostly marketing. Until 2016, when it actually did.

Initial research showed a 3-4% saving in economy, while subsequent work has shown it’s highly variable. Now, it’s a matching game. Find the perfect shoe for your form and you can get a big boost. Shoe companies are in an arms race to develop the shoe that gets their athletes the big performance boost.

We can argue whether a tech arms race is good for our sport, but it’s here and it’s not going away.

Normally, it takes years of lots of miles and strength training to boost economy. But now we get that instant boost that not only helps improve performance but often leaves us feeling less beat up in the later stages of the marathon.

One overlooked component of the physiology of the marathon is our economy gets worse as the race progresses thanks to fatigue and damage. The slope of that drop off is now getting shallower. We’re closer to ‘fresh’ for longer.

In many ways, we’ve shortened the marathon. It used to be at this perfect point where we couldn’t quite make it without running low on fuel, our muscles getting beat up from damage, and more. Now, thanks to tech it’s as if it’s now a 20 miler, just on the right side of what we can handle.

I’m not sure if that makes it a better race, but it’s where we’re at.

One final point is you’re starting to see shoe companies target their shoe tech to the individual. At the bare minimum, they now bring in their pro runners to do testing to see which version gives them the biggest bang for their buck. We know from research that while on average runners got a 3-4% boost, some high responders got a 5-7% boost. We don’t quite know why yet, but it makes sense that if you can figure out what shoe helps someone become a high responder, you’ve just changed the performance game.

It’s an arms race of shoe tech. And today, Adidas definitely came out on top.

2. The fuel

For a long time, fueling was limited by biology. You could only take in and process so much. Then in the 2000s, researchers found if we mixed sugars, we can boost intake because they’re processed differently. Then we discovered our gut could be trained to handle a bit more. Then recently, Maurten found if you use a hydrxogel, you boost utilization without GI distress anymore.

We’ve gone from pushing 60g/hr to 120g/hr in a few decades. In fact, today we got reports that Sawe consumed 115g/hr of carbs, along with bicarb and had done extensive testing and gut training.

The end result is less bonking, and the marathon shifting from a fueling game to more like a half marathon or 10k where the fatigue mechanisms are muscular.

We’ve changed the demands of the marathon. It’s no longer the same event it was even a few short years ago. Which is also why bicarb might actually play a role now. If the demands of the event shift from more fuel dominated to something like a physiological/muscular fatigue issue like the half-marathon/10k, it makes sense that bicarb may help some.

We’ve altered the marathon game and limiting factors.

3. Depth

A few decades ago, you spent your career racing on the track and then once your speed started to fade a bit you went to the marathon. Now, many skip right to the marathon. That’s where the money is.

And with the economy boost from the shoes, you can make that jump quickly. You don’t need quite as many miles to get your economy where it needs to be. So the speedsters get to exploit that loophole. Jump to the marathon when they are still fast and fresh, and you get crazy breakthroughs.

More depth of talent means more competitors in their prime pushing barriers. It also means more folks around pushing one another, like we saw in this race with 3 individuals breaking the old record.

We also saw this effect in the middle of nowhere US, where american Vincent Mauri ran a 2:05:50 marathon, winning by over 15 minutes at the Toledo, Ohio marathon. Yes, the 3rd fastest time in American history was set at a minor marathon by a guy who graduated college last year with a best placing of 68th at the NCAA cross country championships.

We’re entering an era that was similar to the 1970-80s in the US, where you had a slew of guys training for the marathon. The depth helps everyone rise. Add in you have no idea who is going to be a high responder to the shoes, and the new strategy for world class performance is keep everyone in the arena for as long as possible to see who pops off.

4. Belief

Even with the shoes and tech, a few years ago sub 2 hours seemed a long way off, until Kipchoge pushed that barrier in a series of time trials.

Yes, they weren’t official races and had contrived pacing. But it absolutely shifted everyone’s thinking on what is possible. A generation of runners saw Kipchoge go for it twice, and get the time.

Our prediction of what is possible changed. Yes, sometimes we exaggerate the Bannister effect, but work from role models to belief effects show us that when we see a path as possible, it increases our drive and confidence. It’s as if a new possibility opens up.

It’s mind blowing how far we’ve come in such a short time. Yes, some skepticism is warranted as in all elite sport. But there also have been meaningful breakthroughs.

What once seemed decades away, just got smashed twice in the same race.

Hats off to Sawe, especially for addressing the scourge of doping and showing folks what is possible with a lot of hard work, some crazy belief, and some fortuitous advances.

-Steve
P.S. For more coverage: I did a video breakdown on my Youtube and a longer write-up on what the Sub-4 mile teaches us about belief effects on my Instagram.