October 7th was a record breaking day in the world of track and field. Two new world records were set in Valencia, Spain: the women’s 5.000m (Letesenbet Gidey) and the men’s 10.000m (Joshua Cheptegei). Using our model for human running performance (see the latest publication in Nature Comm.), one is able to gain some interesting insights from these new world records. The graph below shows how the current records (men and women) fit nicely into our model (orange curve). For comparison and interest, I also show the critical power (CP) model (blue curve). The two new world records from Oct 8 are highlighted in magenta.
Some observations, based on our model:
- The “slowest” distance is the 2000m race for men and women (this is an infrequently raced distance)
- The “fastest” distances are 1500m and 10.000m for men. So the new 10.000m record is the best performance of all distances.
- The “fastest” distances are 1500m and 3000m for women. Rather surprising is the big lead of these two distances over others. Our model says that they are more than 1% too fast, compared to overall world record performances. The large discrepancies could even provide an argument for a potential doping investigation of those athletes.
It is also interesting to use our model to predict potential race performances over longer distances for the new world record holder in the 10.000m: Joshua Cheptegei. Could he beat Eliud Kipchoge? Could he break the two hour mark for the marathon? I applied our model to find out. Using the same method as in our recent paper in Nature Comm., I find from his 5.000m and 10.000m times that Cheptegei has the capability to run a half marathon in 57:44 and a full marathon in 2:00:30! If he has the endurance and mental fitness involved in these longer races, Cheptegei could set another two new world records!
Our model can extract from race performances some useful physiological performance parameters: maximal aerobic velocity (vm) and endurance (El). Both are shown in the graph below, together with the marathon finishing times that they would permit a runner to achieve. This graph is taken from our latest publication. To demonstrate how one can use our model to help a runner achieve optimal performance, I place both Kipchoge and Cheptegei onto our graph using two magenta dots to mark where they fall. These dots indicate the estimates of our model for maximal aerobic speed and endurance of these two athletes. Both are very close to the two hour barrier for the marathon. What is interesting is how these two runners would use different “strategies” to achieve their ideal race times. Kipchoge relies on excellent endurance while Cheptegei would build on his faster maximal aerobic velocity. If Cheptegei improves his endurance slightly while maintaining his aerobic speed (it is very difficult to do both), he could potentially break the two-hour mark for the marathon!
