Keith Strudler: Running For Numbers

I’ve been running long enough that I still remember when two hours and 14 minutes was a fast winning time for a top marathon. I suppose it actually still is, if evidence by this past weekend Chicago Marathon, perhaps the fastest run on American soil. Only 214 wasn’t the winning time for the men’s race. It was the winning time for the women’s race, which Broke a 16-year-old world record by some 81 seconds.

This new mark was run by dominant Kenyan distance runner Brigid Kosgei, who has now both reinforced her and her nations place at the top of the elite distance running pantheon. To put her performance in context, Kosgei’s time was five minutes ahead of her next competitor, which is about the same time she was behind the first American men’s finisher. For the record, the men’s race was won in two hours and five minutes by Kenyan Lawrence Cherono, in a time that falls some four minutes behind the men’s record for that distance.

That record is held by none other than Eliud Kipchoge, also from Kenya. And his record time all actually feels glacial compared to last week’s mind-bending performance by Kipchoge, who is now the first ever human to cover 26.2 miles in under two hours. Kipchoge did this in a special closed course exhibition, not in a standard race against other competitors. In running one hour 59 minutes and 40 seconds, Kipchoge carefully followed a rotating crew of elite pace setters who followed a lead car that consistently clipped miles at a four minute 33. In case you’re wondering, that time would win most high school track meets. Unlike Kosgei’s performance in Chicago, Kipchoge’s run does not count as a world record because it wasn’t done in a standard open race. Still, it does stretch the imagination of human performance, particularly for the average marathoner who hopes the cross the line somewhere south of five hours.

There are some technological developments that may have helped usher in this generation of world best. For example, everyone is now wearing the next generation of Nike racing flats, which have a series of spaced aged technologies that feel right out of a sci-fi movie. Of course, thousands of weekend warriors were the same $250 shoes and didn’t manage such impressive times. So contrary to Morris Blackman’s belief, it’s not necessarily the shoes. Runners at all elite marathons also employ fairly sophisticated Groups of pacemakers, runners to lead the pack through an even and consistent pace while also potentially breaking the wind. It’s not cycling, so that draft only goes so far. But for the most part, it’s not really the technology that’s getting better. It’s more likely the people are just getting faster.

There’s nothing unnatural about athletes getting better over time. In fact, anything but would be counterintuitive. Whether it’s technology, education, or simply evolution, we should be better today, as an aggregate at least, then we were yesterday. That’s part of the joy of sport.

But the quest for records isn’t just a numbers game, particularly when it comes to things like the sub two hour marathon, a quest assumed impossible like three weeks ago. Setting records in the marathon has to some degree become more than simply part of the sport. Increasingly, it seems like it might actually become the sport. See, there’s always been something of a dichotomy in particular sports like running, swimming, really anything that can be measured in reference to time and distance. On the one hand, the goal seems like it’s winning. Going faster or higher or longer or something more than anyone else. That’s the essence of sport, defeating an equal competitor.

On the other hand, watching a marathon isn’t inherently exciting to anyone that isn’t, well, an avid marathoner. To the average sports fan, watching really skinny people run long distances is about as appealing as the overnights on cspan. Which is why winning a marathon doesn’t really pay all that well, and finishing fourth or fifth is hardly worth the effort – financially speaking at least. But watching someone supersede human potential and its history – that’s always fun. Which is why it’s a lot more profitable to break a record than win a race. And why some of the most intriguing efforts in all of distance running, including Eliud Kipchoge’s sub two hour marathon, wasn’t even a race at all. It would be like changing the NFL to series of punt, pass, and kick competitions – and some of you know what I’m talking about.

Is that the future of running? Just a quest towards never before? What does that mean for the actual sport itself, races where most people run to win? It’s hard to say. But for now, it seems that when it comes to marathoning, winning isn’t everything.

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