Team sports including American and international football, baseball, and basketball are far more popular than running. More fans crowd their stadiums and events, more people have it on their televisions and phones, and more people follow their news cycles. Most people can probably name or at least recognize a number of athletes across the major team sports while they might be able to name one or two current world-class runners. I would venture to guess that the longest distance most people are willing to watch is the 200M, maybe the 400M. If an American athlete could choose between being a world-class 400M runner or becoming a first-round NFL or NBA draft pick, from a financial standpoint there’s no debate.
Without a doubt, team sports (and all sports) require their athletes to push their bodies to incredible limits and beyond in order to compete with the best. Around the world, the best team athletes are some of the best overall athletes. When teams like the New England Patriots or the Golden State Warriors have historic runs of dominance, it’s a testament to their athletic talent, coaching abilities, and hard work on all fronts. But, running is one sport that allows us to see what the human body can achieve in terms of speed.
We know there are certain speeds that a human cannot achieve, such as sixty miles per hour. That is reserved for cheetahs. What we don’t know is how much faster than our current records a human body can go. The world record for 800 meters is 1:40.9 and some question whether a human can go under 1:40.0. On one hand, that sounds absurd; it’s just one more second. On the other hand, 800 meters is a relatively short distance and humans have been racing it for a long time at a high level of precision, so maybe that’s true. Time will tell. This is one reason running is so interesting. What is our terminal velocity at various distances?
This coming fall, Eliud Kipchoge will be making another attempt at a sub-two hour marathon. He came close in 2017, posting 2:00:25. It’s one of the big “Can a human do this?” questions and many resources will be used to have him either reach that goal, or let it continue to sit out there, teasing all of us.
I believe he’ll go under two hours on this attempt and I have five reasons for this, which I will reveal next week…
Running food review of the week: (note–gels, bars, chews, and other items affect everyone differently. Try them on a short run before using them for a key training run or race): Skratch Energy Chews Raspberry: Like many energy chews, these would be more difficult to take down mid-run though if you were in an ultra where you expected to stop for refueling, they would work. The flavor was good and so were the results.
Sources used:
https://www.ineos159challenge.com/
https://www.runnersworld.com/advanced/a20784175/is-sub-1-40-possible/