How fast will Letesenbet Gidey run in the Valencia Marathon?
How fast will Letesenbet Gidey run in the Valencia Marathon?
While marathon debuts rarely reflect true fitness, Gidey is good enough to break the world record in a subpar effort
For the second time in less than a day, I’m offering notice of a major running event set to start within hours and viewable for free in real time.
This is probably better than no notice at all for the three to six jogging aficionados who read this site yet are unaware of Letsrun.com. But this morning, I posted the wrong start times for the NXN races. I got the time of the webcast itself right, but someone with a formal math and physics background should probably not be thrown by the task of adding and subtracting whole numbers, even when working with (gasp) three time zones at once. Considering the cognitive capabilities of some of my recent ancestors, I’m surprised I can even read anything more complicated than a “Family Circus” comic strip, but sorry about that.
Letesenbet Gidey ran 1:02:52 a year ago at the Valencia Half Marathon, the most remarkable road run over a standard distance in human history. Gidey is debuting over 42.195K at the Valencia Marathon (part of the same event) in a few hours (2:15 a.m. Eastern Time). Letsrun has a preview of the four two elite races, and here’s a list of ways to watch live. (I expect to be awake at 12:15 a.m. my time, and I’m going with The Olympic Channel’s feed.)
A few ideas, which only a small percentage of you will read before the race is over:
It may look goofy for Gidey’s coach to say she’s capable of a sub-2:10:00 one day, but it doesn’t look absurd at all to observe that a 24-year-old who’s run a half at 4:47 per mile might be able to get to 4:57 per mile for a full. The only thing throwing static into the analysis is that Gidey is a woman.
From the Letsrun preview:
Gidey says she feels like Valencia is “my country” given it was the site of her 5,000 and half marathon world records.
“The Valencia Marathon we are working to have, again, records,” (race director Paco) Borao said. “Becuase (sic) this is our job. The day we don’t have that objective, you have to push us out.”
This is no grand revelation, but these quotes translate to “I won’t be drug-tested” and “That’s right, she won’t” in that order. Were Gidey actually a Spaniard, she might be in the testing pool, but Ethiopians simply aren’t tested.
If Gidey is in currently 1:03:00 half-marathon shape with equivalent potential in the marathon, she should be capable of a sub-2:12:30. We* have seen exceptions to the rule that excellence over 21.0975K ensures a certain level of excellence over 42.195K,
butas 58:23/2:08:46 guy Zersenay Tadese is one of many great athletes who never ran a remotely decent marathon.
It’s typically the case that few marathoners run what proves to be their fastest 42.195K race the first time out. But factors such as better-tailored in-race nourishment and instantaneously and continuously available pacing information have probably closed out some of the gap between an athlete’s debut marathon time and his or her ultimate best.I believe Gidey will either run close to 2:13:30 or slower than 2:16:00 after going out in very close to 1:07:00 and then accelerating. That will go one of two strongly bifurcating ways; she’ll either get to 35K/21.7M on 2:12:45 pace and fade to a 2:13:30 (and a new world record) or she’ll feel the sting earlier and fade to a 2:16 and change (and not win the race).
Of course, if she goes out on 2:12:00 pace and runs 2:11:59, I will not be shocked. It will look extremely weird, but so does 1:02:52 even a year after the fact. Gidey, no matter how much unfair help she might be getting, is an unprecedented athlete.
(12/4/2022 12:15 a.m. note: The e-mailed version of this post incorrectly stated that the Valencia Half-Marathon is part of the same event. The 2002 Valencia Half-Marathon was held on October 23.)