What does a 2 hour marathon look like

The two hour marathon is a hot topic, and if ever achieved, an awesome human feat.
In order to demonstrate the sustained effort necessary we filmed an athlete running at the speed necessary to complete a marathon in four, three and two hours.

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• Marathon
• 2 hour
• Haile Gebrselassie
• Sheffield Hallam University
• Engineering Sport
• John Kelley

[Buzzardheart]

unless you are an elite marathon runner, you can't keep a 4:00 minute mile pace or whatever they round it up to for 26.2 miles and definitely not a 20.8 or even a 13.9 km/h pace

[CSERSheffield]

@Buzzardheart Absolutely! Currently the best marathon runners in the world need perfect conditions and a vanguard of pacemakers to even approach the pace necessary for a 2 hour marathon! It's a huge landmark in running which some argue may never be reached!

[CSERSheffield]

Sorry, I can't help on the song at the moment. YouTube has done something to AudioSwap. I can't find the piece of music attached to this clip any more.

[brucedeo1981]

I doubt the 20.8km/h speed.

Maybe the treadmill is not accurate or calibrated?

Check Haile Gebrselassie video running in the treadmill.

He is surely very efficient in terms of gait, but speed really shows!

I am amateur runner, goaling for 3hours. My intervals are @ 20km/h and I am moving way faster than that!

A very very nice video nontheless!

[CSERSheffield]

@brucedeo1981 Thanks for your comment! We did take the treadmill's readings as a given, but it is a treadmill in a University Biomechanics lab and used frequently for measurement and experiment so we have no reason to doubt its accuracy. How do you know the video above is too slow? It's actually quite hard to judge speed along the ground from step frequency. The height of the runner and their stride length all determine someone's speed along the ground.

[PaintrainX]

The comparison in style is nice, but the speeds in the vid are bogus. The insinuated pace of a 2 hour marathon is more like 15 km/h.

[CSERSheffield]

@PaintrainX The pace of running was controlled by the treadmill (Kistler Gaitway) according to the speeds on the video. The running speed may appear lower due to the efficient gait of our test subject :-)

[lunastraw]

2 Hrs * 20.8 Km/h = 41.6 km. A marathon is 42.195 km, so it should be 21.0975 Km/h.

[lobelia2]

ridiculous

[Vo2maxProductions]

@LMaster1 I'd give it to him if it was a world best - as long as the runner who does it is tested and comes out clean (no EPO).

[USA4thewin]

Need more Steroids

[MrGuitaristMatt]

@slomo8888 It will be broken in 2015 according to many expert statisticians. These dudes aren't guessing either. They know what they're doing.

[LMaster1]

@Vo2maxProductions Something gives me the feeling your going to win this bet, and while I don't see sub 2 happening my any means it will be interesting to see what Mutai, Kipsang, and Co. can do in London.

Now does your friend win if its a world best or does it have to be a WR?

[aaardvarkkk]

That's only what it looks like on a treadmill. Treadmills are extremely inaccurate. A 2-hour marathon would look a LOT faster than that.

[slomo8888]

@CSERSheffield yeah I give this 2 hour record another 2 years.

[Creamtea110]

How tall is this man may I ask?

[USA4thewin]

thats all wrong where are the up hills, down hill ,,, headwinds, slip streaming.

[TennisPlayer1922]

@buzzardheart a marathon is 42 km so if you are going 20.8 km an hour u r going at about a 2 hour and 1 minute marathon so ya they can keep that pace