A Perfect Run

The plan was to ride Broga loop with my darling dearest, Ronnie and use the saddle time to rekindle my love/hate relationship with Doc Alwi, the IJN poster boy who is also a renowned Cardiothoracic Surgeon. At my age, who knows when I might be needing a heart specialist. 

Then rain happened. The phone went abuzz at 6am and we decided to abort the plan. 4 hours, 2 shots of caffeine and a book later, it was still drizzling and I was getting restless. So I put on my running shoes and went downstairs. The guards shook their head, disapproved of my decision to run in the rain. 

“Easy run only” I told them. 

I kept my heart rate low, as promised, but the cool air and the drizzle certainly made it easier for me to run faster with less effort. Entertaining the same line of thoughts, my mind started to wander to the phenomenal running event in October 2019 when Eluid Kipchoge broke the 2 hour marathon barrier. 

1:59:40 to be exact. 

Even though it was not recognized as a world record, it was definitely an athletic spectacle of historic proportion. He shaved off 2 minutes from his own world marathon record time of 2:01:39. 

As a coach, I was curious to find out where the 2 minutes came from and the levers that I could think of are as follows: 

Race Environment 

• The race was so staged that the time of the race was not confirmed until a few hours before to make sure the weather was the most perfect. 
•  The course chosen was flat and fast with no sharp turns to ensure that the pace could be kept constant throughout. 
• He had a group of pacers who kept him shielded from any wind. (We all know with drafting this could minimize the energy utilisation by between 1-6%). 
•  There was also a car with the timing clock ahead of the pacers which could possibly provide drafting benefit as well.    

Training

• Based on an interview, Eluid Kipchoge trained for the 1:59 Challenge in the small town of Kaptagat, in the Kenyan Highlands. This is his camp for the past 17 years with his life-long coach Patrick Sang. Nothing extraordinary was done in preparing him for this challenge, so I will discount this out. 

Nutrition and Hydration

• A Norwegian company had been playing around with the fueling required and finally put together a cocktail with 14% carbohydrate! Those who know a bit of nutrition would know that, that is a lot of carbohydrate to ingest! A lot of research and technology had gone into this fuel to ensure that it would provide quick absoption and not upset the digestive system. 
• As for the hydration, Kipchoge had cyclists feeding him water while on the run so that he did not have to slow down at the water stations to pick up the bottle by himself. 

Equipment

• And then of course there were the NIKE Vaporfly shoes that had reviews saying that “it felt like running on trampolines!” NOTE: To treat myself to a pair or two of these! 
• Since then, 31 of 36 top 3 finishes in major marathons in 2019 were to found wearing these shoes when they claimed their podium positions!  NOTE: To treat myself to a pair or two of these! 

If I have to divide the 2 minutes, my best guess would be as follows: 

What are your thoughts?