Analysing Eliud Kipchoge’s Sub-2 Hour Marathon | Alex Hutchinson | Modern Wisdom Podcast 113

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   How does a human…

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      How does a human with two legs and two arms and a head create a physiology which is capable of running a two-hour marathon?

   2. AHAlex Hutchinson0:06

      The first really important task is to pick your parents correctly. You've got to be born to, to, to run that fast. You can work as hard as you want and you can pull in all the science, but the thing we wo- don't want to do is say, "Oh, Kipchoge ran a sub two-hour marathon because there was a bunch of science and it made it easy." It's like, no, there's still only one human in the world who could have done this. There's, you know, all the other great runners in the world, you know, massively talented, have worked hard. They're still not at Kipchoge's level. Kipchoge is a super special guy. He's got the physical tools and, maybe just as importantly or at least p- part of the package is he's got the mental tools. He's been at the top since 2003. He won a world championships as a teenager 16 years ago, and that's unheard of. Nobody has that sort of l- or almost nobody has that sort of longevity.

   3. CWChris Williamson0:50

      (wind blowing) Alex Hutchinson has joined us again. Alex, welcome to the show.

   4. AHAlex Hutchinson0:54

      Thanks a lot, Chris. It's great to be back.

   5. CWChris Williamson0:56

      It is timely to talk about endurance and running. This is the, we're at the, like, the genesis point of the, the new world of running right now, right?

   6. AHAlex Hutchinson1:07

      Yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's certainly an exciting time. Put it this way, I, I, I did Canadian radio this morning, I'm talking to you, talking to New Zealand Radio in a few hours, and then Australia a few hours after that. So, people are talking about endurance right now, and hey, I'm, I'm, um, happy to see it.

   7. CWChris Williamson1:21

      I bet you are. So for those of you who don't already follow Alex, if you have even the slightest interest in running, @sweatscience on Twitter. Ever since the podcast that we did at the start of the year, I only follow, I think I follow, like, 82 people or something on Twitter. Um, so you make up more than, like, about 2% of probably what, what I see on Twitter every day.

   8. AHAlex Hutchinson1:40

      All right. (laughs)

   9. CWChris Williamson1:40

      Um, and the articles that you've been putting out recently have been fascinating, so we're gonna go through, um, Eliud Kipchoge's recent, uh, marathon performance. Um, there's some really awesome breakdowns that you've done in the build-up to that and then afterward. Um, then we're gonna talk about some other records that have been broken. There's some, uh, controversy surrounding the shoes and the kit that people have been wearing. So we got, uh, we got a lot to get through today. It's gonna be exciting.

   10. AHAlex Hutchinson2:05

       Fantastic. Yeah, it's been a, it's been a busy week, so, uh-

   11. CWChris Williamson2:07

       (laughs)

   12. AHAlex Hutchinson2:07

       ... we'll have lots to talk about.

   13. CWChris Williamson2:09

       Cool. So let's, let's start with, uh, Kipchoge's most recent performance. Let's say that someone somewhere has been living under a rock, uh, and doesn't know what's happened. Can you describe what the INEOS, uh, 1:59 challenge was?

   14. AHAlex Hutchinson2:22

       Yeah, for sure. So, uh, you know, the big headline, the top headline is, uh, a human being ran less than or faster than two hours for 42.2 kilometers, 26.2 miles, uh, the marathon distance. Uh, the second headline is, but it wasn't a world record. It's not an official world record. It was, it was not, doesn't count under the official rules. And that's where things start getting a little, a little, uh, tricky. So this was, this race was a- an exhibition race held on, uh, uh, streets in Vienna, a, a park in, in a park in Vienna. Um, only one competitor, like, Eliud Kipchoge, who is the reigning Olympic champion and official world record holder. But every possible thing anyone could imagine to make him faster was done. The, the reported budget, this is just rumors, the reported budget was £15 million for this one race by one person. And so this is what made it exciting and interesting for, for people like me who are interested in the sort of th- the science of endurance, but also made it controversial, made it, you know, people felt it was a bit of a stunt, a marketing stunt, uh, maybe even a sport-washing stunt for INEOS. Um, but they, so they had, you know, they had an electric car driving in front of him at exactly two-hour marathon pace, shining lasers on the ground so that his teams of, you know, a to- there were a total of 41 world-class runners who were serving as pacemakers for him, blocking the wind in, in teams of, I, I think it was, uh, one, two, three, four, five, I think seven pacemakers at a time were trying to, you know, enco- encompass him or, or cocoon him from the, the forces of, of, of drag. Uh, and they were ru- and knew exactly where to run 'cause the, the car was shining lasers on the ground. Um, you know, he had, uh, um, uh, uh, a g- a guy on a bicycle handing him water bottles every few kilometers, which is instead of, you know, he d- didn't want to slow him down by having to pick up a bottle off the table. And he had these wacky, uh, prototype shoes on that nobody else ha- or, uh, basically nobody else has, has seen or run in, which are the latest iteration of a pair of shoes called the Nike Vaporfly, which s- uh, in the last three years has basically rocked the running world and totally reshaped what people think shoes are capable of doing for us. So all this stuff is boiled into, you know, p- people didn't think he could do it, people aren't sure whether it's fair, people aren't sure whether it's a good or a bad thing that we've got this exhibition event that won't count as a world record. And so basically everyone in the running world is having a big massive brawl about it.

   15. CWChris Williamson4:56

       (laughs) Yeah, I can imagine there's so many different people, right? Because for me, as someone who I don't have a... apart from entertainment and a, uh, genuine interest in f- sport and fitness, I don't have a side here. Um, I would, you know, if someone could run a one-hour marathon, like, sweet-

   16. AHAlex Hutchinson5:14

       (laughs)

   17. CWChris Williamson5:14

       ... like, oh, he had, he had rockets on his feet, but, you know, he still ran it or whatever. But I just want the entertainment value, but I imagine there's some sport purists out there who are going to be much more critical. Um, so to set the scene, no matter what the shoe is and the, the track and, and the pacers and the car and stuff like that, how does someone, uh, how does a human with two legs and two arms and a head create a physiology which is capable of running a two-hour marathon?

   18. AHAlex Hutchinson5:41

       Yeah, so the, the first really important task is to pick your parents correctly. You need, uh, you've got to be born to, to, to run that fast. There's only, you know, you can work as hard as you want and you can pull in all the science, but the only person, you know, w- th- the, the, the, the thing we wo- don't want to do is say, "Oh, Kipchoge ran a sub two-hour marathon because there was a bunch of science and it made it easy." It's like, no, there's still only one human in the world who could have done this. There's, you know, all the other great runners in the world, you know, massively talented, have worked hard. They're still not at Kipchoge's level. Kipchoge is a super special guy. Uh...... he's got the physical tools and, maybe just as importantly or at least pa- part of the package, is he's got the mental tools. He's got... He, he's been at the top since 2003. He won a world championships as a teenager 16 years ago, uh, and that's unheard of. Nobody has that sort of l- or almost nobody has that sort of longevity. So he's been... He's the classic... H- he grew up in the Rift Valley, uh, of Kenya. And a- a- at altitude, um, it's, it's a total cliche for world beater runners, but, you know, running back and forth from school, hugely active as a kid, uh, accumulating more training as a... you know, as an eight-year-old than most, like, university-aged runners, even serious runners in Canada, where I am, or i- in Britain w- would, and then started training seriously. He's been doing it year after year, week after week, hundreds... You know, he was running, uh, reportedly in the ne- in the neighborhood of 140 miles a week leading up to this, so that's... we're talking well over 200 kilometers a week, some of that at a relaxed pace, some of that at a absolutely inhumanly fast pace.

   19. CWChris Williamson7:22

       (laughs)

   20. AHAlex Hutchinson7:23

       And, and, and, you know, one of the cool things, I think one of the things that makes people root for Kipchoge is he got a lot of publicity two years ago. There was a very similar attempt sponsored by Nike called Breaking Two, where he came within 25 seconds that time of breaking two hours. And there was a documentary that, that, uh, National Geographic put out about his preparations for that, and it gave people a window onto this guy who is probably one of the richest men in Kenya. Uh, he has a wife and a few kids. He visits them on weekends, but he spends his weekdays at this totally spartan training camp where he lives with other runners. Uh, you know, it's just like... i- it's not quite mud hut, but it's, it's absolutely spartan. He... You know, they have a roster. He takes turns mopping, you know, mopping out the toilet, washing from, you know, getting water from the well and washing from it. You know, he could live like an absolute sultan there, but he is a very simple guy, and he's got all these aphorisms about how if, you know, if you don't control your mind, your mind controls you. And so he's just... uh, he, he's totally focused on performance, and he, he lives this hard life, this very simple life, trains and, uh... So, this is a long answer, but the, the point is, uh, uh, this moment has been, you know, not years in the making, but decades in the making, and h- and he's worked very, very hard to, to become the, the, uh, you know, absolute running machine that he is now.

   21. CWChris Williamson8:44

       Yeah. I, I think one of the things that fascinates me and a lot of people with Kipchoge is the fact that he has this monastic, very zen, like, transcendent, uh, uh, quality that he des- uh, how he talks about his sport or... uh, it's not even a sport. It's his life or his calling, whatever he wants to refer to it as. Um, but then he gets thrust into this world where there's a guy on a bike giving him water during the race. Then, when he takes the bottle of water back, they measure how much water is being drank, uh, offset how much he, they know he needs because they've done muscle fiber tests to work out how much he dehydrates. So you have this, this beautiful kind of yin and yang of the, the real technological cutting-edge stuff that's attached to someone who has this purity, uh, uh, very back to basics approach to running. I think that's what makes it interesting.

   22. AHAlex Hutchinson9:42

       Y- y- you're absolutely right. There's this amazing juxtaposition. And so, you know, two years ago, when he was doing this first Nike race, I had a chance to chat with him a few times and, you know, I was... I'm a science journalist, so I was like, "I want to know all about the formulation of the, the, the drink you're using and, and, you know, how are you going to alter your, your training distribution," blah, blah, blah. And he's a smart guy. Like, he, he, he knows what's going on, uh, so I don't want to make it sound like h- he's just, like, "Oh, the scientists take care of it." But he knows what his job was, and he knows the science was not his job, so he was able to, in the midst of, of this sort of massively scientific and, and, let's face it, commercial enterprise, his job was just to, to, uh, to run and to look within himself and, and, you know, learn to push his limits, and he was able to maintain that. So I would ask him all these questions, he'd be like, "Yeah, that stuff's important, and I leave that to the scientific team. My job is to, is to train my mind and be ready to go." And I think that's one of the... You know, I think when Nike chose him two years ago, they were lucky th- that they got him, because that's one of the reasons this whole endeavor has this sort of magical feeling to it.

   23. CWChris Williamson10:52

       Mmm.

   24. AHAlex Hutchinson10:52

       Uh, and, and rather than feeling like a sort of Barnum & Bailey, like, step right up and see the, the, you know, the fattest woman in the world or whatever-

   25. CWChris Williamson11:00

       Mmm.

   26. AHAlex Hutchinson11:00

       ... it's like he, he gives it a purity because he really... like, he, he comes off as absolutely sincere. So what you said, I think, uh, that juxtaposition is absolutely fascinating.

   27. CWChris Williamson11:08

       He's a great guy. Um, so just before we get on to the race itself and, and the course, the course choice and stuff like that, physiologically, Eliud, is he... if you were to design a, a runner in a lab, um, I remember reading (clears throat) a while ago, something to do with long shinbones being genetically something which is, uh, disproportionately more in Kenyan athletes, which, uh, means that they're good and then they need light feet and other bits and pieces and VO2 max and running efficiency. How, how does all that tie together for him?

   28. AHAlex Hutchinson11:40

       Y- y- you, you've been reading the right stuff, yeah. Uh, it, it, it... So-

   29. CWChris Williamson11:41

       I've been, I've been following you on Twitter, Alex. That's what's been happening.

   30. AHAlex Hutchinson11:46

       (laughs) Y- y- you know, so, uh, there's been this great mystery for the last 20 years, like, "Why are the Kenyans so good? And let's figure out if we can copy it somehow." And so, uh, there's all these, all these things, like you said. So the... the... there's... Go- going back decades, there's been fascinating experiments where it's like, okay, let's take a, uh, a lightweight, you know, uh, uh, a few ounces, and let's strap it onto someone's foot or their shin or their hip or wherever, and let's see how their running efficiency changes. And what you find, sort of not surprisingly, is the farther away from the center of your body a weight is-... the harder it is, th- the more ... I mean, and you can think about that, you know. You hold a weight up in front of you, it's one thing. You hold your arm out straight and hold a weight up, it's a lot harder. So if you have weight ex- a little bit of extra weight, a tiny bit of extra weight on your feet, for instance, with shoes, that changes your efficiency quite a bit. So what that means is that it's very advantageous to have very long but skinny, like no calf muscle, legs-
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. …

   1. AHAlex Hutchinson15:00

      loses its, its interest in a way. If, if, if you, if everything becomes quantifiable, then it's like, it's, it's just sport, you know. A race becomes a plumbing contest, who's got the biggest aorta or whatever.

   2. CWChris Williamson15:11

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   3. AHAlex Hutchinson15:12

      And that's ... There has to be s- there has to be some- something that we can't measure for it to be interesting, so, uh, yeah, to me, that's, that's, that's some of the magic. And, and, you know, I'll, I'll tell you, you talk about the X factor, uh, I guess I met Kipchoge for the first time, you know, what, three years ago maybe, and it's easy to say this in hindsight but he, he has an, uh, a presence that is, that is hard to quantify. It's like I'm not gonna say, "I knew that moment that-"

   4. CWChris Williamson15:39

      Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   5. AHAlex Hutchinson15:39

      ... "he, you know, he was gonna break two hours." But it's like this guy has the ... Y- you know, some people have, some people just have a presence where it's like th- there's p- you know. It's not a swagger 'cause he's very humble and very quiet-

   6. CWChris Williamson15:50

      Mm.

   7. AHAlex Hutchinson15:50

      ... but you just, you, you feel that he's bigger than he is, and, and, and, you know, that's z- I think that's something that in some un- unquantifiable way that plays into his, his abilities.

   8. CWChris Williamson16:00

      I'd love to see him at a party talking about swagger. Like I'd love to-

   9. AHAlex Hutchinson16:04

      Aapparent- apparently, he likes to spin the tunes. Uh, uh, in Vienna-

   10. CWChris Williamson16:06

       Does he?

   11. AHAlex Hutchinson16:07

       ... he was, he was, uh-

   12. CWChris Williamson16:08

       (laughs)

   13. AHAlex Hutchinson16:08

       ... he, he, he, he wa- there was a big dance that night and he was giving out prizes to all of his, uh, the pacemakers, these world-class runners who paced him, but yeah, he, uh, he, he, he's not like a super party guy, but I think he can get down.

   14. CWChris Williamson16:19

       After you've just run a sub-two-hour marathon, you got to at least have a beer or something, right? You gotta, you gotta chill out somehow.

   15. AHAlex Hutchinson16:25

       Yeah, yeah. You gotta- (laughs) you gotta unwind. He, he takes a month off after a marathon like that-

   16. CWChris Williamson16:29

       Wow.

   17. AHAlex Hutchinson16:29

       ... and just chills out. So he's not one of these obsessive people who's like, "Okay, I've, I've already taken 12 hours off, I have to get my next workout in."

   18. CWChris Williamson16:35

       Mmm.

   19. AHAlex Hutchinson16:35

       He goes hard, then he, then he relaxes and has a good time.

   20. CWChris Williamson16:38

       Talking about the way that he has presence, there's a, a clip, um, and if anyone goes back and watches the intro to the race, so the pacemakers at the very, very beginning of the race, the pacemakers are all there and then Eliud walks through this gap in the barriers behind them. And I remember ... So I haven't watched the full race. It was a silly time last week if were ... I was in the UK and I'd worked late and blah, blah. And I watched this clip and it, it f- looks ... I know this sounds w- weird and a- existential, but it, it looks like the universe just parts around him as he walks through those barriers, and it's like, it's like he's not moving, the universe is moving around him.

   21. AHAlex Hutchinson17:19

       (gasps)

   22. CWChris Williamson17:19

       And he just parts through it, man, and you can just ... The way he looks, you know, he's there with his, that look on his face and it's just, that's just where, where he's meant to be. So getting onto, getting onto the race itself, why did they choose Vienna?

   23. AHAlex Hutchinson17:33

       Yeah, it, it was a sort of global search for, for trying to find the best of all possible worlds for a bunch of different factors they had to optimize. Uh, one was they wanted a course that was flat, as flat as possible with as few sharp turns as possible. They needed to get the temperature and the altitude and the humidity and all these things right. Uh, even from a logistical perspective, they needed to find a place where the city was willing to say, um-... "Yeah, we can guarantee you access to this for like a s- uh, uh, a, a two-week period."

   24. CWChris Williamson18:07

       Mm.

   25. AHAlex Hutchinson18:07

       Because they didn't wanna just say, "We're gonna run this race on October 12th," or whatever. They, what they said when they, when they planned it is, "We're gonna run it some time between..." I think it was like October 10th and 23rd or something like that. And they were gonna decide at the last minute based on the weather forecast, because if it happens to be a little warm or rainy or something, they weren't gonna do that. So, um, there were about... And, and, you know, when they initia- when they were originally searching for places, they, they considered all sorts of options. They considered the world's largest indoor convention center, or at least North America, the largest corn- convention center in North America in Chicago. It, so it's indoors, climate controlled, perfectly flat, huge. Uh, the problem with that one was that the air conditioning in the, in the building wasn't strong enough to get it as cold as they wanted.

   26. CWChris Williamson18:46

       No way.

   27. AHAlex Hutchinson18:47

       Uh, they considered a dike in the Netherlands, which is perfectly flat for like 23 miles or something like that, and has a really reliable tailwind in one direction. So you could be, "Let's just run straight along this dike with the wind blowing."

   28. CWChris Williamson18:59

       Yeah.

   29. AHAlex Hutchinson18:59

       They decided that would feel too much like cheating.

   30. CWChris Williamson19:01

       Yep. Okay.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Yeah, exactly. (laughs) …

   1. AHAlex Hutchinson30:00

      the race.

   2. CWChris Williamson30:00

      Yeah, exactly. (laughs)

   3. AHAlex Hutchinson30:00

      Yeah, no. I think, I think they just wanted their, their name out there. Yeah.

   4. CWChris Williamson30:03

      I get it. Well, if you've got the money. Um, but yeah, there was something... You're right. I'll be interested to see... There'll be a-... after-movie documentary thing-

   5. AHAlex Hutchinson30:14

      I hope so.

   6. CWChris Williamson30:14

      ... coming out eventually, I'm gonna- I'm gonna guess. Um, but yeah, the Nike breaking too, it really did feel very special. Like I loved, I loved how, you know, they got Kevin... O- obviously, it's Nike. Like, they've... You know, when you think about the people that they can call in, like who the fuck is INEOS? Like, they can call in, like, a, like a petrol pump attendant or something-

   7. AHAlex Hutchinson30:33

      (laughs)

   8. CWChris Williamson30:33

      ... who's, like, really wants to do a marathon. But yeah, like, (coughs) the Nike one really did feel magical. And you're right, maybe the magic wasn't as optimal starting in this misty morning in Monza where they've got no crowd and it's just deathly silent, and you've got this Tesla that just (imitates sound) just pulls away, and that's it. And, like, there was... But it was, it was special. Now, I wonder... I, I wonder what would have happened had he have done it on that first time. I wonder how, how people might have changed and stuff. So, getting onto one of the more major controversies that's going on at the moment before we talk about some other records that have been broken recently, the shoe that Eliud had on for the first one was, was, uh, uh, again, a new, uh, a new iteration of a- a line of shoes, and then they've then taken it up a notch for this. Can you, can you talk us through how they relate?

   9. AHAlex Hutchinson31:32

      Yeah, and this is really important because I don't, I don't think we can talk about this race without talking about the shoes, uh, because I don't think we would be having this discussion or be here if it wasn't for a major change in shoe technology that took place in 2016, and Nike introduced a new line of shoes, uh, which has t- two distinct features. One is a- a stiff carbon fiber plate that goes through the- the- the midsole, and the other is that the- the midsole was made of this new ultra-light, ultra-resilient foam. And by resilient, I mean you squeeze it down and it springs back really quickly. And so marathon flats used to be as thin as possible. You wanted to be ra- racing in a shoe that weighed nothing, and so they're basically just a piece of rubber wrapped around your feet. Now, they're these big, thick, uh, y- you know, uh, uh, more than an inch thick is- is the sole of this foam, this lightweight foam, and then it's got a- a carbon fiber plate, uh, through the middle of it. And-

   10. CWChris Williamson32:27

       They look comical. If you look at the- the shoes that they're wearing now at the start of the race, it looks funny. Look like platform shoes.

   11. AHAlex Hutchinson32:34

       Yeah, it- it's- it's sort of taking us back to the '70s. It's, uh, uh, uh... They're- they- they look like sort of running pimps or something like that.

   12. CWChris Williamson32:40

       (laughs)

   13. AHAlex Hutchinson32:40

       Uh, it... And- and it's... You know, initially, when Nike introduced these shoes, no one believed they worked, so they were like, "Oh, it's all a big stunt, you know. All the magic is in the drafting or- or the- the course, and they- they're just trying to sell us these shoes." But it's become clear that, no, the- the- the data was true. These shoes-

   14. CWChris Williamson32:58

       They still are legit.

   15. AHAlex Hutchinson32:59

       ... really are several percent better than any previous shoe, and th- the sort of all-time lists and- and records have been rewritten over the last two years, and w- it's not just that one pair of shoes. So, so Kipchoge was... Two years ago, was wearing the initial line of the shoe. Since then, they've had a- a second iteration. It was the Vaporfly 4%, then the Vaporfly NEXT%. And now Kipchoge was wearing yet another shoe that is even... Which looks even wackier than the previous ones, because it's got these two pods under the forefoot in addition to the thick sole, and it's thicker, even thicker than the- the initial. Like, the initial ones were something like 31 millimeters thick, and apparently the prototype, although no one has been allowed to touch it yet, is quote pushing 40 millimeters, which is, uh... I don't know if... You know, a lot of people have heard about Hoka shoes, which are these big, super cushy maximalist shoes that- that... Uh, with thick soles. The Nike shoes are even thicker than these sort of clown shoes that everyone used to make fun of.

   16. CWChris Williamson33:56

       Wow.

   17. AHAlex Hutchinson33:56

       So, it sparked a big controversy-

   18. CWChris Williamson33:57

       (laughs)

   19. AHAlex Hutchinson33:58

       ... because when you have a shoe that's that much better and it's made by one company and s- and not everyone has access to the newest prototypes, then you start to ask, "Hang on. Uh, i- is it... Is it... Is the shoe determining who's winning the race? Have we moved to a Formula 1 model where it's an engineering competition rather than a stock car model where everyone's driving the same car?"

   20. CWChris Williamson34:19

       Yeah. It is strange. I think, uh, you know, for me, as someone who... If you tried to put 26 and a bit miles in front of me, like, you could put me in a pair of rollerblades and I'm not making it, but I- I wonder just how much of a difference the shoes make. I- I would be skeptical until reading and hearing more about it, I think, "Oh, it's just a pair of shoes. They can't make that much of a difference."

   21. AHAlex Hutchinson34:42

       So it... You know, if- if the goal is, uh,, you know, "Me and my mates are gonna run a marathon in- in a year just as a big challenge and we want to make it to the finish, eh, you know, doesn't really matter about the shoes." If you're- if you're racing yourself and if you're trying to set a best time or if you're trying to hit an external time like the Boston Marathon qualifying standard or something like that, then all of a sudden you start really paying attention to two minutes here, three minutes there. And there was a big... So, for the elites it's one thing. There was a big... The New York Times did a big crowdsourced analysis a year or two ago where they- they used data from Strava, which is this, uh, online platform that... You know, where people upload their- their- their runs from GPS, including their races and the... And they sometimes record which shoes they're wearing. So they said, "Let's look at the same runners who have switched from one shoe to another, either from another shoe to the- to the Vaporfly or the Vaporfly to another shoe," and what they found was more or less exactly what Nike- Nike was claiming. The runners were a couple of minutes, a couple of percent faster in the Vaporfly than they were in other shoes.

   22. CWChris Williamson35:45

       That's so crazy. So, what's the... What does that pod do? Have you got any idea what the- the pod... Is that similar to the... Is it the Joyride or the Float Ride that they've just brought out, that Nike have brought out?

   23. AHAlex Hutchinson35:55

       Oh, I'm not... Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. That- that's-

   24. CWChris Williamson35:57

       So that's the one that's got... That's a pod that's got little beads inside of the pod, like a beanbag.

   25. AHAlex Hutchinson36:02

       Oh, okay.

   26. CWChris Williamson36:03

       So that's... They- they recently brought that out, but the thing that Eliud's got looks a lot more, like, hardcore than that.

   27. AHAlex Hutchinson36:09

       Yeah, so the only- the only information we have is that there was a patent filing, uh, that someone unearthed that looks like Kipchoge's prototype, and so people are speculating that this is what's in his shoe. Uh, it's not clear that it... But- but the pod itself had these sort of fibers within it that get tensed and stretched, and like...

   28. CWChris Williamson36:28

       This is serious space age shit, isn't it?

   29. AHAlex Hutchinson36:31

       Yeah, and here's the, here's the thing, it's like shoe companies have been making these crazy claims for technology for as long as I've been alive. Every, every year there's a new, it's like, "We're, we're introducing the Nike Shox. We're introducing, you know, the, the gel this, or the torsion that," or whatever, and it's, and there's always this complicated plausible sounding explanation of why this is gonna be the best thing since sliced bread. And the, the sort of, the heuristic that I learned over the years is just ignore all that, because it's never true. It never makes a difference. All this stuff is just noise. And so that's why the Nike shoe caught everyone by surprise, so it was like, "Whoa, this really works." So now-

   30. CWChris Williamson37:15

       Yeah.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Ah. …

   1. AHAlex Hutchinson45:00

   2. CWChris Williamson45:00

      Ah.

   3. AHAlex Hutchinson45:01

      Uh, so Ryan is, is g- getting a little preachy here about Nike, and this is one of the sort of dynamics that makes this shoe in- debate so interesting is that everyone's got a vested interest. People... You know, w- everyone who's defending it, everyone who's criticizing it. If you're an elite runner or involved in elite running, almost everyone at, in, in that world has an affiliation to a shoe company. So it's hard to, to, to s- tease out, uh, what's a sort of principled stand against, you know, uh, technology in running shoes and what is a like, "Hey, that's no fair. I wish-"

   4. CWChris Williamson45:35

      Yeah.

   5. AHAlex Hutchinson45:35

      "... I had those shoes."

   6. CWChris Williamson45:36

      (laughs) Yeah.

   7. AHAlex Hutchinson45:37

      Uh, and so, so anyway, in the comments, yeah, so, um, you know, Ryan Hall is criticizing these, uh, spring shoes, and I think that's pr- I think that reflects f- on him, but maybe an imperfect understanding of what's going on with the shoes, 'cause they're, they're not, they're not springs any more than any other pair of shoes is a spring. Every, every shoe has squishy midsoles and they act as a spring.

   8. CWChris Williamson45:57

      Mm-hmm.

   9. AHAlex Hutchinson45:57

      The carbon fiber plate isn't a spring, it's a stiffening, uh, stiffening element. But anyway, that's, that's kind of beside the point.

   10. CWChris Williamson46:02

       Mm-hmm.

   11. AHAlex Hutchinson46:02

       Um, Ryan's calling out, uh, these shoes. Someone else is pointing out, "Uh, actually, your wife ran in an unreleased prototype in Berlin a- uh, just a few weeks ago." And they were speculating that it was the same carbon fiber plate prototype-

   12. CWChris Williamson46:17

       Mm-hmm.

   13. AHAlex Hutchinson46:17

       ... that, uh, Jan Frodeno ran at the, at the Ironman W- World Championships last week. Uh, however, S- Sarah Hall has gone on record as saying that actually her prototypes don't have a carbon fiber plate.

   14. CWChris Williamson46:28

       Mm-hmm.

   15. AHAlex Hutchinson46:28

       Now, she still did say that they're unreleased prototypes, and the IAAF rule is cr- is crystal clear now that you can't run in shoes that aren't generally available to all.

   16. CWChris Williamson46:36

       Yes.

   17. AHAlex Hutchinson46:36

       So I'm, I'm a little mystified by w- whether this rule is just there for decoration or whether, you know, like-

   18. CWChris Williamson46:40

       It's gonna be enforced at some point.

   19. AHAlex Hutchinson46:42

       Yeah. Uh, or they, and, and w- I guess they need to give a warning 'cause it's happening so commonly. But it, it's, it's pretty clear to me that, that she's, she's publicly saying, "Yes, I did this thing that is against the rules." So I, I, I would be a little cautious if I were Ryan and Sarah-

   20. CWChris Williamson46:54

       Hmm.

   21. AHAlex Hutchinson46:54

       ... about chucking, chucking stones through windows because they, they are, as far as I can tell, in, in violation of the rules.

   22. CWChris Williamson47:00

       But the po- the point is Ryan's argument appears to be predicated on the fact that this carbon fiber, uh, plate shoe technology is advanced. Any other technology advances, uh, as you've said before, they're just kind of nondescript and they don't really matter. But obviously that shoe, let's say that ASICS have come up with something... They probably haven't, but let's say that they've come up with something which is even better than a carbon fiber plate. You've still contravened the rules. You've still used something which is an unreleased prototype. All that you're, you're just... it's apples and oranges here, right? Like it's y- you're, you're criticizing one thing 'cause of its type, not because of the, the principle.

   23. AHAlex Hutchinson47:41

       That, that's exactly it. And, and the history of the carbon fiber plate is actually very, very, very interesting because it, Nike didn't invent this carbon fiber plate. Uh, in fact, Adidas is the company that sponsored the development of the carbon fiber plate and they had, in fact... H- Haile Gebrselassie set a marathon world record in Adidas shoes in 2007 that had a carbon fiber plate. The guy who developed that carbon fiber plate, not to get into the nitty-gritty here, but he's an academic at the University of Calgary here in Canada.

   24. CWChris Williamson48:09

       Mm-hmm.

   25. AHAlex Hutchinson48:10

       One of his PhD students then went to Nike-

   26. CWChris Williamson48:13

       No (laughs) way.

   27. AHAlex Hutchinson48:13

       ... and developed vapor flying. So there's a clear-

   28. CWChris Williamson48:16

       How cool is that?

   29. AHAlex Hutchinson48:17

       The, the carbon fiber plate that ca- that is in the Nike shoe is a direct lineal descendant of the one in the Adidas shoe, and same with the foam, that Nike's foam does exactly what Adidas' s, uh, foam, which was called the Boost-

   30. CWChris Williamson48:28

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:07:17

   Mmm. …

   1. AHAlex Hutchinson1:00:00

      sense that if you're out in front you're the hunted-

   2. CWChris Williamson1:00:03

      Mmm.

   3. AHAlex Hutchinson1:00:03

      ... and if you're lurking behind someone you're the hunter. And there, there's some aerodynamic stuff to- to do that. If you're leading you're- you're sort of breaking wind for everyone else. But it's, I think it's, uh, more than that it's psychological, this feeling of if you're the one who's stalking your prey you can choose when to pounce and then when you see a finish line you pounce, you go by them, they don't have a chance to react and it's over. So, it- it's sort of like these cycling pursuit races where they g- almost go as slow as possible for the first few laps.

   4. CWChris Williamson1:00:28

      It's crazy when you see that, isn't it? When they're doing those big U-turns-

   5. AHAlex Hutchinson1:00:31

      It's like they're almost falling over.

   6. CWChris Williamson1:00:31

      ... up and down. Yeah, it's so hilarious.

   7. AHAlex Hutchinson1:00:33

      Yeah, and those- those races can be fun to watch but it's interesting 'cause then you end up with really slow times and- and- and, and then this year was totally different. There were none of those sort of cat and mouse chess match games. It was like-... gun goes, I'm throwing down the gloves, and I am going balls to the wall to see, uh, and, and, s- see who can last. And so the times were extraordinarily fast, and just the way they were run. So, I, I ran some analyses. I, I, I, I calculated what I call the kamikaze index-

   8. CWChris Williamson1:00:59

      Mm-hmm.

   9. AHAlex Hutchinson1:01:00

      How fast did the races start compared to their average pace? And it, and it turned out that this year was anomalous compared to the last 20 years. It was the, th- there's, there's this cultural shift for some reason, and, and it's hard to know, like, did, did, d- did all the runners r- you know, did one runner do it and then everyone else was like, "Whoa, it worked for that guy, I'm gonna try that." And someone, "Well, I'm gonna try that," and everyone tr-

   10. CWChris Williamson1:01:21

       Mm-hmm.

   11. AHAlex Hutchinson1:01:21

       So, it was, it was interesting to watch. It's not that one type of race is better than, than o- others, but it was fascinating to see, uh, people letting it all hang out. And it made, you know, just from a personal perspective and a sort of applying this to, eh, g- general life and to a- the rest of us, it, it, it made me look back at the way I often run races, which is very cautiously, I don't wanna blow up.

   12. CWChris Williamson1:01:41

       Mm-hmm.

   13. AHAlex Hutchinson1:01:42

       And I've, I've thought a lot about this in re- you know, in recent years, just in the context of endurance that I think if you really wanna find your limits, sometimes you have to blow up. Sometimes you have to go out too fast.

   14. CWChris Williamson1:01:51

       Yeah.

   15. AHAlex Hutchinson1:01:51

       Um, and, you know, hopefully you go faster than you usually do and you discover, "Oh, wait, I can maintain this."

   16. CWChris Williamson1:01:56

       I can hold on, yeah.

   17. AHAlex Hutchinson1:01:57

       Yeah, and that's great. Then you set a new best time. Sometimes you discover, "Ah, no, no, it turns out I can't hold that."

   18. CWChris Williamson1:02:03

       Too fast, too fast. (laughs)

   19. AHAlex Hutchinson1:02:03

       That's fine. So, you gotta, you gotta chalk that up as, as a, as a valuable learning experience and say, uh, if you really wanna find out what your limits are, sometimes you've gotta exceed them and crash and burn.

   20. CWChris Williamson1:02:13

       Yeah, I, I love that. And you're right as well, there's part of me that just loves the idea of, of someone going out beyond what they usually would and then watching them hold on. It's the same way, so the CrossFit Open's out at the moment, and right now, uh, workout 20.2 just got released, which is just a, a grinder. 20 minutes, uh, AMRAP of, uh, dumbbell thrusters, toes-to-bar, and double-unders, and it's just the grippiest, longest, most painful thing that Dave Castro's ever programmed. It's savage.

   21. AHAlex Hutchinson1:02:43

       (laughs)

   22. CWChris Williamson1:02:43

       And, uh, I'm watching the guys in the gym do it this morning, and Jordan who has got the same score as Khan Porter, the guy that did the announcement. Uh, Jordan who's ex-regionals athlete in Newcastle, absolute freak. And I'm watching him go out and it's a 20-minute workout and he's going sub-one minute from the get-go. So, he's doing rounds in 45 to 50 seconds, his transitions are rapid, and I'm like, "Oh, he's gone hard." 'Cause once you've set yourself on that, it's the same with running, right? It's your splits. It's like, okay, I'm on this particular split, whatever it might be, you wanna try and run negative splits. You wanna try and run quicker, if you can. And I'm watching, I'm thinking, "He's gonna have to hold on." Sure enough, uh, three, two, one, and time. Clock goes, Jordan's straight outside because he needs to make sure that if he throws up, he throws up-

   23. AHAlex Hutchinson1:03:26

       (laughs)

   24. CWChris Williamson1:03:26

       ... in a drain. And he's just like, I wanna watch that. I wanna, and I wanna watch that on the world stage as well. I wanna know that professionals can be, um, as giddy and as, uh, uh, uh, caught in the moment as, as, uh, we can.

   25. AHAlex Hutchinson1:03:41

       And you wanna see them stretch their limits, not just totally under control the whole way. You wanna see the fear in their eyes two thirds of the way, like-

   26. CWChris Williamson1:03:47

       (laughs) Did you see that with some of the athletes?

   27. AHAlex Hutchinson1:03:50

       ... "Uh-oh, is this..." Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You could, and you can see s- a- and, and some of them did blow up, some, some of the people who tried to stay with them. Like, when, when, when you, when w- races go like that, you see carnage.

   28. CWChris Williamson1:04:00

       (laughs)

   29. AHAlex Hutchinson1:04:00

       You, you see what happens when a world-class athlete hits the wall. And, and, uh, yeah, it's, it's, I mean, I, I'm not saying I, I, I'm sure they didn't enjoy it, but it's, it's fun to see, 'cause then you know, yeah, this is, this is legit. This is, th- they're, they're stretched to their limits here, there's no...

   30. CWChris Williamson1:04:14

       This is their limit, yes.

Episode duration: 1:07:14