He had zero pacers today, give him that and maybe berlin course and it would be easy for him.

Better be tested day and night and not only by keynias!

and he looked great after the race - he didn't look like someone that just ran 26.2 miles

The marathon is on Peacock - i couldn't find it under sports, but the "channels" section has the Chicago NBC station's coverage

I agree that he looked great. Jumping into someone's arms is something I would not attempt after a marathon! His form looked great and pace only increased in the last 5-10k. Damn impressive, and very modest saying he was only aiming for a course record.

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I couldn't find the "Channels" menu at all on my phone, so it watched it from NBCChicago's stream - kinda fucked up that the last mile or mile audio was clogged with "Can you hear me now?"

Four course records PLUS a WR on the day!!!

Also - don't think I'd EVER want to run a marathon with a bump like that in the final; I know Central Park is twisty & lumpy, but after running 26 miles, that looks like the first hill of a roller coaster

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he had a pacer but he couldnt keep up. berlin has multiple pacers

And what about Hassan? Clocks the 2nd fastest women's marathon time ever 2h13'44" 6 weeks after coming 3rd in the 1500 m and 2nd in the 5000m in the WC in Budapest...

Ya, the only pacer was off the whole day. Half split was over 2:01. Or maybe this was as per schedule?

Too bad he also run shoulder to shoulder with the other guy for 30 km. If they would have taken a few turns, he would have saved some energy and could have got a lot closer to the 2 hour barrier. Not sure what the conditions were today, but if the "windy city" lived up to it's reputation, the southern loop can get quite windy later during the day.

And thank your for not starting another super shoe vs old school racing flat argument ;-) BTW did some testing at my current marathon pace (~6:20/mile) on the treadmill between vaporfly and new generation old school flats (hyperspeed) with the new Asics foam, supershoe is barely faster by ~1 bpm at the same pace. I think it is almost all about the foam and not the plate.

One pacer and wasn’t planned to pace for entire race. Pacer had never ran a marathon before.

I was at mile 21 spectating. Wind was calm most of time during pro/elite run. Also winds aren’t as big of a factor in Chicago with the buildings. There’s only a few spots that are relatively open.

Also yes on foam tech > carbon tech, at least from sports scientists and papers I’ve read.

It was perfect conditions today.

And as for wind not being a big of a factor in Chicago... think it's likely you haven't seen all the conditions over the years. Wind can be gnarly over the second half, which is pretty much all exposed.

Sorry i wasn't very clear. , yes you are right at the end. And I meant in more moderate wind conditions not being as big as factor as other races. I didn't mean it wasn't much of a factor at all.

But I've raced, spectated or volunteered every year for maybe the last decade.

I saw three going to 35-40k. But that’s at nearly WR pace and didn’t even know there were that many that could go that far that fast.

From twitter.

https://twitter.com/.../1710773535361081849

#ChicagoMarathon Pacing Assignments:

• Three pacers are planning to hit 60:40 (That’s 2:01:20 marathon pace) through the halfway point and go to 35K-40K.

• One pacer is planning to lead a group through the half in 62:00-62:30 and go to 25K

• Two pacers planning to lead a group through the half in 63:00-63:30 and could go to 35K to 40K.

• One pacer is planning to lead a group through the half in 64:00 and go to 25K

• Three pacers are planning to go through the half in 66:00 and could go 35K to 40K.

well i think its cool the pacers failed, making this WR more legitamite human effort. I know some males were hired to pace females... not sure about that

I assume 66 min half marathon pacer was who Hassan was with ? But that pacer was there for anyone trying for sub 2:15

Was your test with the hyperspeed3 ? Also best of luck on your upcoming marathon (sub 2:50 ?)

I really can't stop laughing at your comment...of course the pacer was not expected to pace the whole race...otherwise he would be the record holder ;-) And no recent record holder has broken the world record without pacers.

Only women's race have male pacers that go all the way simply because there are probably 5,000 African male runners that can run ~2:10. Think about it.

My point is that if you go 2:00:30, you don't split 1:00:30. Someone correct me if I am wrong, but none of the last ten or twenty fastest marathon have been negative splits, this might have been the first one.

Have you actually run the course? The tall buildings don't go all through the course. When I did the race a few years ago, I found a bit of wind in all three of the loops whenever you are away from magnificent mile area.

Have you ever run at 12-13 mph? The drafting effect is significant at those speeds, even without wind.

Hence why...they have pacers!

Chicago is not particularly windy, and that's not where the nickname comes from.

From the very beginning, Nike said it was the foam, not the plate. This was corroborated by others soon after. It was hilarious when Hoka put carbon plates in EVA shoes. But in your test case, something is off. The Hyper Speed uses Flytefoam which is just EVA and far from super. It's probably the fact that you were testing on a standard treadmill which has a lot of flex, vs pavement where only the foam is responsible for rebound.

only his third marathon but, after victories in Valencia and London, he already has three of the top six times in history, including the actual fastest in history

I gotta get some of these shoes

The perfect sinergy between physics (carbon plates, foam, etc...) and chemistry, the supplements, you know...

Agreed. Its like Steve Prefontaine goes third and second at the 1500 and 5000 and then clocks second fastest Marathon time ever. Not that that ever happened.

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Kiptum is a huge talent. 2:01, 2:01, 2:00, in his 1st 3 marathons. Conspiracy corner but feel like he got blocked from Berlin this year because Kipchoge didn't want the H2H. Really looking forward to them racing in London or at the Olympics. Chicago is pancake flat + the weather was perfect this year but there are a lot of turns & the crowd support really dies down after halfway. I like the 2nd half of the course/used to live on it but those miles can be pretty lonely. He dropped an unreal 4:18 mile 22. 30k-40k was a sub-28 10k. He has now closed his last 2 marathons in under an hour. We're going to get a real sub-2 in the next few years.

The women's race was also really good. Dk why Chepngetich made the same mistake as last year & went out too hot through halfway. They went out in 65:42. That's ~30s under new WR pace. Just something as simple as going 66:00-66:15 might've gotten someone to 2:11 or 2:12. Makes no sense to me but Hassan tripling at Worlds & then beating this field decisively is very impressive. 2nd fastest marathon in history & easily could've been a little faster.

Solid day for the Americans all around. The BYU boys grabbed the Olympic standard & unlocked 2 spots. Rupp isn't my favorite runner but he showed that he's not done & will be a threat at the Trials, especially in a probable warm/tactical race. Nice to see Chelenga break through at his age. Sisson/Bates both didn't have the days they wanted. It's too bad that they couldn't take advantage of the conditions. Seidel, similar to Rupp, showed that she's on her way back. I would argue that her Olympic + NYC performances were stronger than 2:23 in perfect conditions on a flat course but that's still a PB for her. She faded a little in the 2nd half but not as bad as most of the other top Americans.

or going by her sketchy AF post race interview I think this one was down to God! She kept on saying she was just really grateful to be able to run like this and kept on mumbling some nonsense when asked about her build from Budapest to Chicago by one of the journalists.

I thought it was breezy yesterday when not downtown and especially the last few miles going straight north. It was not a sustained wind thankfully but there were for sure times where we had some decent gusts that sucked but thankfully it was not too bad. But wind the last few miles is awful no matter how much there is.

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Again, even if wind speed was recorded as 0 kph (and it wasn't), there are significant savings to run behind someone at 20 kph. Heck, even at 15-16 kph. All these guys have GPS watches and are professional runners 100% in tune with their targeted paces, so the pacer is not really showing these guys how fast they should go. Why do you think the Ineos 1:59 had alternating pacers in the "V" formation all the way throughout the attempt?

Anyway, mark my words, this guy will break 2 hours in Berlin next year with better pacing help.

I think pacers are helping set the pace more than you give them credit for. Sure they can all run their targeted pace but the mental load of just stay on this guys tail is a lot less than the mental load of setting that pace yourself. Running in a pace group at any race will definitely show that to be true. I think ineos and the other exhibition used alternating pacers because they wanted some level of realism to the project. Otherwise they could have just put him in one of those wind blocking things that sprinters use.