The fastest marathon runner on Earth is Kenya's Dennis Kimetto, with a time of 2 hours, 2 minutes, and 57 seconds. Among women, Mary Keitany, also Kenyan, holds a mark of 2:17:01. Without a doubt, they are two of the best-prepared athletes to face and overcome such a demanding competition, but why can't the rest of us mortals do something like that? The answer forces us to consider at least three critical factors unique to each runner, along with basic conditions, footwear, and surface.
Humans are quick to identify barriers and almost instinctively pour all their resources and effort into overcoming them. Some have already been left behind, like the speed of sound and the ten-second barrier in the 100-meter dash, but others remain strong, including a speed of one thousand miles per hour for cars and exascale computers. If we focus on professional athletes, and specifically on marathoners, it's impossible to ignore the spectacular progress they have made over the decades. At the beginning of the 20th century, the best runners on the planet in this event were above two and a half hours. As the 21st century began, the so-called “African invasion” is on the verge of breaking the two-hour mark. The big question is: What is missing, and why can't we do something like this ourselves?
How Many Hours of Marathon Can You Run?
The folks at Wired decided to find out in a very particular way, by having part of their team run. Matching a two-hour marathon requires a constant speed of 21.0975 kilometers per hour, which the best of them couldn't sustain for more than a minute and a half. An athlete's performance is governed by three factors: The first is maximum oxygen consumption, also known as “VO2 Max”. For a normal person, VO2 Max ranges between 30 and 40 milliliters per kilogram per minute, but a professional marathoner doubles that number. Then comes the lactate threshold, the point at which lactate accumulation spikes. It's usually measured as a percentage of VO2 Max, and for us it's about 60 percent on average. In a marathoner, it can reach 85–90 percent.
Finally, we arrive at running economy. In other words, how efficient we are when running. It's the great “gray zone” of the whole process, with many theories ranging from the way the foot makes contact with the ground to leg length. This is where the biggest names in the market have decided to concentrate their firepower. Nike designed a new line of footwear that promises a 4 percent improvement in running economy.
Last Saturday, the company organized a race featuring Eliud Kipchoge (Olympic gold in the Rio 2016 marathon), Zersenay Tadese (Olympic bronze in the 10,000 meters at Athens 2004), and Lelisa Desisa (silver in the marathon at the 2013 World Championships in Russia). Technically, the results cannot be counted as records, but Kipchoge crossed the finish line with a time of 2:00:25, and we are left with his words: “With a good plan and good preparation, those 25 seconds will disappear.”.
