Bradley Simpson

Is their likely to be a Sub 2-Hour Marathon in your lifetime?

I would compare someone running under 2 hours for the Marathon to breaking the sub 4-minute mile and the 10 second barrier for the 100m – both of which have obviously been achieved. In fact, now the records stand at 3.43 minutes for the mile (set over 9 years ago), and 9.69 seconds for the 100m.

If Roger Bannister was still alive and in the shape of his life and raced the current World Record Holder he would not even be in the home straight when his opponent crossed the finish line. I am sure if you told someone back in the early 1950s that before the end of the century someone would beat the sub 4-minute mile mark by a ‘home straight’ they would take you for crazy. Indeed many people did not think even sub-4 minute mile would ever be broken not long before that.

The relationship between chronological time and Marathon time are obviously not linear – that is we should expect the times people are running to start ’slowing down’ relative to date-time. We can see this clearly when we plot the World Record for the Marathon on a graph:

World Record Marathon Progression

We are now 4 minutes off a sub 2-hour time (the World Record is 2:03.59). If we look historically we may get some indication as to how long it will take: The 4 minutes (from 2:16 to 2:12) took about 7 years. The 4 minuets after that (from 2:12 to 2:08) about 19 years. The last 4 minutes in the Marathon World Record (from 2:08 to 2:04) have taken about 24 years. So I think we can safely assume it will take more than 24 years.

And so history tells us it may be sooner than many people (predicting 2100+) think.

It would be ignorant to think that we will not develop superior training techniques and nutritional practices than we currently have, which will of course continue to push the time down further. Are we likely to see some ‘break-throughs’ that will make a significant difference in a short amount of time? No one knows.

You will notice the graph has quite a few blips in it – especially around the early 50s and mid/late 60s when the record came down a significant amount. If we see something like that again then 2 hours could be broken in the next 10 years.

But I doubt it.

Some people have identified the limiting factors to a sub-2:00 Marathon anytime soon, and doubt they will see it in their lifetime.

I would predict that it will take at least 40, and probably more than 50 years to break. So the question of whether or not you are likely to see it in your lifetime may well depend more on how long you are planning on living than anything else!

I am not holding my breath.