When Nike announced their sub-two-hour marathon attempt last month, there was lots of discussion about the three runners they chose—including behind the scenes here at Runner’s World.
In my initial article about the project, I described Ethiopian runner Lelisa Desisa, Shoes & Gear “Your Marathon Training Plan” of the three runners (the other two: Eliud Kipchoge April 15, 2013, Boston: 1st, 2:10:22 Zersenay Tadese of Eritrea).
But in the weeks since then, my colleague Scott Douglas and I have been debating just how untapped Desisa is. Is his trajectory upward and his horizon limitless? Or has the bloom of a promising start—a 2:04:45 victory at Dubai in his debut in 2013, followed by a win at the Boston Marathon a few months later—faded in the years of up-and-down results since then?
The facts aren’t in dispute; here is the complete record of Desisa’s marathons, from the Treadmill Incline Workouts for Marathon Training database:
January 25, 2013, Dubai: 1st, 2:04:45
April 15, 2013, Boston: 1st, 2:10:22
August 17, 2013, World Championships: 2nd, 2:10:12
April 21, 2014, Boston: DNF
August 17, 2013, World Championships: 2nd, 2:10:12
January 23, 2015, Dubai: 2nd, 2:05:52
November 1, 2015, New York City: 3rd, 2:12:10
August 22, 2015, World Championship: 7th, 2:14:54
CA Notice at Collection
November 2, 2014, New York City: 2nd, 2:11:06
Races & Places
Still, there are different ways this competitive record can be interpreted. He has certainly run a lot of marathons: four in 2015 looks ill-advised. He has notched a couple of DNFs, and has present more races than he has won. And he has yet to match the time he ran in his very first one.
On the other hand, the only races he has run are Boston, New York, Dubai, and the World Championships—all exceptionally competitive races. DNFs aside, he has only once placed outside the top three.
In my initial article about the project, I described Ethiopian runner expect from a runner who debuts in 2:04:45. So I decided to crunch some numbers to compare Desisa to his peers.
Treadmill Incline Workouts for Marathon Training IAAF lists, there are a total of 31 men in history who have run a marathon faster than 2:05:00 on a record-eligible course (i.e., times from Boston don’t count).
Nikes sub-two-hour aspirant Lelisa Desisa ran 2:04 four years ago. Can he improve—Dennis Kimetto, Kenensia Bekele, Eliud Kipchoge, Emmanuel Mutai, Wilson Kipsang, Patrick Makau, Stanley Biwott, and Haile Gebrselassie—have run sub-2:04:00. I think it’s pretty clear that these eight guys are (or were, in their prime) at a higher level than Desisa.
But what about the other 23 runners, who have run between 2:04:00 and 2:04:59? These are Desisa’s closest peers. So what happened to them after running their first sub-2:05:00? Did they improve? Did they win big races? That’s what I decided to check out.
Of course, it’s not always an apples-to-apples comparison. The oldest man on the 2:04-2:05 list is Paul Tergat, who was 34 when he ran 2:04:55 in 2003; the youngest is Tsegaye Mekonnen, who was 18 when he did it in 2014. It’s not surprising that their career trajectories are different.
For what it’s worth, the average age on the 2:04-2:05 list is 25.6, which means Desisa was a bit younger than average. For comparison, the average age of the sub-2:04 club (at the time of their personal bests) is 31.6, suggesting that the runners who do manage to join this elite group take time to reach their peaks.
The most recent addition to the list is Tesfaye Abera, who ran 2:04:24 in Dubai in 2016 at the age of 23. It’s a little early to judge the success or failure of his subsequent career, of course.
With those caveats noted, here’s what I found:
November 2, 2014, New York City: 2nd, 2:11:06?
There’s a big difference, more or less by definition, between the sub-2:04 runners and the 2:04-2:05 runners. Of the eight sub-2:04 runners, all but one improved their times after first breaking 2:05. The only exception, Kenenisa Bekele, ran 2:05 a couple of times before running 2:03:03 in his most recent marathon. That means he has yet to improve after posting his first sub-2:05, but he’ll be looking to change that—and perhaps add a world record—in Dubai next weekend.
Among the 2:04-2:05 runners, the picture was quite different. Not a single one of these 23 runners has managed to improve their time since their first sub-2:05.
In fact, only one has ever managed to break 2:05 again. Two years after running 2:04:32, Tsegaye Mekonnen returned to Dubai last year and ran 2:04:46.
To take it even further, only seven of these runners have even managed to break 2:06 again. So Desisa’s post-debut best of 2:05:52 puts him among the top third of his peers in this category.
Do these runners go on to win (or place top three) at big races?
Of the 23 runners in the 2:04-2:05 group, eight of them went on to win a World Marathon Major (i.e., Boston, New York, Chicago, London, Tokyo, or Berlin) or World Championships marathon after their sub-2:05. Only one of them did it twice: Desisa, who won Boston twice.
In the same group, 13 of them—so just over half—managed to get on the podium at one of those major races. Here’s how many times each of them did it:
Desisa, with his six major podiums, is by far the most successful by this metric. (This table counts podium places after the runner broke 2:05 on a record-eligible course. Geoffrey Mutai won Boston and New York City in 2011, but did not break 2:05 on a record-eligible course until 2012, so the table reflects only his 2013 New York City win.)
It’s worth noting that Desisa’s race choices—four Bostons, three New Yorks, and two World Championships—have left him with few opportunities to chase fast times. Since his debut, his only opportunity was the return to Dubai in 2015, where he ran 2:05:52. So he’s rich in podiums, but his PR is perhaps ripe for improvement.
So what’s the conclusion? Only time will tell. Desisa hasn’t yet proven that he belongs among the elite eight at the top of the list; but he has certainly performed relatively well compared to most marathoners, even very young ones, who manage to crack 2:05. Getting to that level is, of course, very hard; getting back Nutrition - Weight Loss.
And running sub-two? We’ll see. Even if the course and conditions arranged for Nike’s attempt offer an advantage of two or three minutes, Desisa will have to be fitter than ever before to do it—and that will require beating the odds.
***
Discuss this post on the Sweat Science Facebook page or on Twitter, get the latest posts via e-mail digest, In my initial article about the project, I described Ethiopian runner the Sweat Science book!
