Well, it is not exactly breaking news at this point, but the Marathon World Best was completely obliterated by Kenyans Geoffrey Mutai and Moses Mosop in what for me was a surreal moment. With the stock markets open and churning with regular frantic intensity, I dutifully spent the day at work trying to casually and not blatantly follow my favorite local holiday. Nearing the end of the race, I wandered in to see my coworkers gathering in a coworker's office to watch the marathon race unfold. In a brain fart of colossal proportions, I narrowly missed the women's finish including American Desiree Davila's spellbinding last mile. I did not, however, miss the last three minutes that I thought would surely be at least five.
After all, the announcers had to be wrong when they said there was only a minute or two away from the finish and something like 600 yards left. The clock had barely just passed 2 hours on the screen; surely they were a smudge under a half dozen minutes away at best. For this race course was the historic Boston layout. One that was defiantly slow in its own right with a quad-busting course that defied the new convention of super-fast drag races held in Rotterdam, Berlin, Chicago and London. As if to make it even more of a point of pride of the course's challenges and the literal uphill battle one would need to fight to run a fast time, the course organizers assigned no pacemakers and left the protagonists to take the pace on their own. Boston had always been 100% race and 0% time trial. Winning was the only order of business. Fittingly, the course was technically not eligible for a world record with its straight line trajectory and net downhill elevation change.
Until Monday, I thought that was a characteristic that was of complete irrelevance. It was about as pertinent as the Franklin Park Cross Country course not being eligible for a track 5,000 meter World Record. After all, Boston was typically won in 2 hours and 8 minutes, which was positively light years away from the world record. Of course, what followed on Monday was the perfect storm of factors. A decent early pace led by free-running American Ryan Hall, a two-man battle of men on par with the best credentialed men the race had ever seen pushing each other to the end, and of course a relentless tailwind urging the field along in a way that is only possible on a race like Boston's.
The results are stunning. A 2:03:02 clocking that shattered Haile Gebresalassie's world record mark by a staggering 57 seconds. The debut record and American record were broken with similar laughable ease. But, what does it mean? How do we account for the wind, the course, the pace, and the splits?
One of the earliest places to take a stab at this was the fine writers at -The Science of Sports Blog. I encourage you to read Ross Tucker's take on the performance. He takes scientific approaches using some calculations on the physical effect of the wind, as well as some statistical analyses of prior years. My own take is different, as I'd say I am more bullish on this performance than many, who have been somewhat dismissive because of the wind. Here's why:
1) The Pace and the the Course
The men hit the halfway mark in what on any other day would typically be considered a staggering 1:01:58. Staggering because the course has the bulk of its most iconic hills in the latter miles of the grueling course. History has shown that irrational exuberance on the early downhill section of the course has mostly led to disastrous results. Most first halves of the marathons have been characterized by the alpha dogs wisely conserving for a series of major moves on the hills. So, 1:01:58 sure seems fast. However, as Dr. Tucker so presciently noted, given the conditions this year it actually was relatively conservative. So, you'd probably assume this is indeed a negative for seriously considering this a super-fast performance, all things being equal.
However, I would disagree with you there. In fact, I think Boston's layout makes a conservative and smart first half desirable for an optimum time. A key case of this would be last year's previous course record effort of Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot as compared to the effort of the record prior to that by countryman (but not relative) Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot. See the table below charting their splits.
Kiprono (2010) Kipkoech (2006) Kiprono’s +/-
5 Kilometers 14:53 15:23 -0:30
5 Miles 24:16 24:20 -0:04
10 Kilometers 30:08 30:07 +0:01
15 Kilometers 44:58 44:51 +0:07
10 Miles 48:08 48:07 +0:01
20 Kilometers 1:00:12 59:43 +0:29
1/2 Marathon 1:03:27 1:02:55 +0:32
15 Miles 1:12:32 1:12:03 +0:29
25 Kilometers 1:14:58 1:14:36 +0:22
30 Kilometers 1:29:58 1:29:31 +0:27
20 Miles 1:36:27 1:36:17 +0:10
35 Kilometers 1:44:47 1:44:47 0:00
40 Kilometers 1:59:21 2:00:01 -0:40
25 Miles 2:00:06 2:00:49 -0:43
Finish 2:05:52 2:07:14 -1:22
As you can see from this table, Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot made up two minutes on the previous record in roughly 7 miles. An astounding amount of his margin was made in the finishing stages of the race. This has a lot to do with the way the two Cheruiyots marshaled their efforts. The 2006 record-holder ran out of gas when athletes can make time- the downhill section that follows the Heartbreak Hills. In this year's race, the reasonable, but not dawdling, pace set by Ryan Hall set up Mutai and Mosop to tear up the hills and still have lots left in the tank for an extremely fast finish. Instead of slowing and then feeling the after-effects of the hills, Mutai capitalized fully on the course's downhill finishing profile and the supporting tailwind. His 28:22 10,000 meter split from 30K to 40K is incredible and would not be possible without a reasonably guarded first half. It's a credit to Hall that he unabashedly ran what on a windless day would be suicidal splits.
One more thing is that extremely fast marathons in the 2:04 range need not have perfect splits any more. The athletes have gotten that good. Take Emmanuel Mutai's 2:04:40 run in London (again no relation). His effort included a similar negative split and seesaws in pace that included a sub 28:50 10,000 meter split, and two above 15 minute 5,000 meter splits. Even though Mutai had a striking 28:22 10,000 meter split amongst a sparkling negative second half split, that doesn't preclude me from extrapolating a blazing time on a windless course.
2) The Caliber of the Athletes Themselves
I believe Geoffrey Mutai is the best athlete to ever run Boston. Not only that, he is in the best form of his career. To whit, Mutai won Kenyan nationals over a slew of sub 27 minute 10,000 meter runners on the track/road and sub 1 hour half marathoners. How much did he win by? A mind-boggling 45 seconds. A coach and advisor of many Kenyans one Renato Canova, who I would trust to know these things, had this to say at the time: "At the moment, there is an athlete clearly stronger than any other in the World, and [that] is Geoffrey Mutai." Mutai also touts two sub hour victories in the half marathon, and a pair of stellar marathons last year- 2:04:55 and 2:05:10 efforts.
The runner up was Moses Mosop, a debutante but no stranger to either fast times or the roads. Mosop touts personal bests of 12:54 for 5,000, 26:49 for 10,000, as well as 59:20 on the roads for the half marathon. His honors include silver at the World Cross Country Championships and a bronze at the World Championships.
These exceptional credentials for two marathon athletes bring me to a broader point I've made in a post before. The best distance runners in the world are moving to the roads as the financial incentives have never been greater. Mutai is a competent enough track runner to finish second at Kenyan Nationals last year in a wild time of 27:25 at altitude, and he obviously excels in cross country, too. Yet, in the prime of his career he puts the most emphasis into his marathon racing. Mosop, meanwhile, has exceptional marks on the track and finishes in cross country, but has joined the fray early in his career. Simply put, the rewriting of the record books for the marathon and half marathon is ongoing and inexorable. We should expect records of all kinds from these athletes, as long as they eschew the track to chase times on the road.
3) The Battle between Two Men
One thing that I think is undoubtedly true in any race, is that having a competitor to push an athlete along at the end can make a mighty difference. Putting a time value on this is very difficult. Psychologically, a marathon is draining and demoralizing. Having that guy on the shoulder to extract every last bit of energy out of you has to be a plus. Ross estimated it at 20-30 seconds over 10 KM in our discussion in the comments section of his article. I'd say that's reasonable. Now, it's worth noting that this sort of situation is pretty uncommon in the marathon. Not to say all fast marathons are blowouts, but it does take something out-of-the-ordinary to have two very high-caliber athletes feeling and performing at their top performance level on the same day. The highest profile and fastest example of this in the past was the battle between Duncan Kibet and James Kwambai in the 2009 Rotterdam Marathon. The finish saw the two battling back and forth with Kibet prevailing in an astonishing time of 2:04:27 that was awarded to both men. The next best time either man has is Kwambai's 2:05:36 in Berlin.
Conclusion: Wind notwithstanding, I believe the 2011 Boston race had all the variables lined up for a sensational time and performance. I haven't even mentioned the temperature, which was near-perfect. Now, for the fun part which is making completely speculative guesses about what the performance is worth.
On Boston (windless, same otherwise): ~2:05:30 for Mutai, ~2:07:30 for Hall
On Rotterdam/Berlin: ~2:04:00 for Mutai, ~2:06:00 for Hall
This was my final comment in Ross's and my discussion as far as the big picture, and the possibilities for Berlin this year:
"As for Berlin, I could amazingly see a 2:03:30, but again Mutai had so many things in his favor at Boston that just don't happen at every marathon. The athlete will need a solid pace that doesn't lag, a companion to push through the latter stages, good weather conditions, and his best day to achieve it. I think this is what remarkably happened for Mutai at Boston, and the performance would have stood up in time without wind(a 2:05:30 at Boston with no wind would be mind boggling)."
Anyhow, I think that sums up my thoughts on a remarkable performance and a mind-blowing time. Feel free to chime in, and if you ran this year's marathon or know someone who did, even better.
