RECKLESS RUNNING in Chicago: ANOTHER American record, INSANE pacing, EPIC blow-ups!!
Ruth Chepng'etich runs EARTHQUAKE-LIKE splits, can EASILY go sub-2:13; 'Tis the Sisson for a MASSIVE WOW!!!
This is all very old news already, but here’s what you absolutely must know about the 2022 Chicago Marathon’s and women’s machine-free elite races (RESULTS) before you think another thought:
Ruth Chepng'etich missed the world record by 14 seconds despite a first 5K at 2:07:30 pace (YOU READ THAT, RIGHT?)
Emily Sisson was ahead of American record schedule from the start, then SPED UP like a BOSS, finishing second
Conner Mantz delivered a KILLER race and may break 2:07 eventually
Chepng’etich, a 28-yearold Kenyan, came into the race with a personal best of 2:17:08 from three years ago and a 2:17:18 in Nagoya in March. She also ran 30:29 for 10K at the Great Manchester Run in May, finishing third.
Her splits today were suggestive of someone whose mind was continually being reset to think “30 more minutes to the finish line and then I can drop.”
Chepng’etich's 5K segments this morning, along with her last 2.195K:
15:11, 15:29, 15:39, 15:51, 15:53, 15:58, 16:24. 16:37, 7:16 (=16:30 5K pace)
Mapping these onto a 2:01:39, now the second-fastest men's time ever, would result in these cumulative splits:
5K - 13:45, 10K - 27:46, 15K - 41:57, 20K - 56:18 (59:32 at 13.1M), 25K - 1:10:41, 30K - 1:25:09, 35K - 1:40:00, 40K - 1:55:04.
Not a likely scenario.
Even an evenly-paced opening 13.1 miles in 1:05:44 would have caused Chepng’etich significant distress in the second half. But had the 1:05:44 with the included splits represented an all-out race effort, it would have been classified as a crash-and-burn.
While there’s no way to pinpoint how fast Chepng’etich could have run today had she magically dialed into whatever her body’s perfect pace is, 2:12:59 is a conservative guess, and Letesenbet Gidey’s 1:02:52 half-marathon last year immediately placed 2:12-double-freakin’-zero within the limits running’s version of Overton window, even if no one dares mention it
Had someone run even splits en route to a 2:14:19 (3:11 per km on the nose), here's what her deficit vs. Chepng’etich throughout the race would have looked like:
5K: 44 seconds
10K: 1:10
15K: 1:26
20K: 1:30
Half: 1:25
25K: 1:32
30K: 1:29
35K: 1:00
40K: 18 sec
Finish: 1 second
A race held on a 400-meter track between this hypothetical even-pacer and the flesh-and-blood Chepng’etich would have seen Chepng’etich lap her robotic rival about seven miles into the race, establish a further gap of close to 100 meters (for a 500-meter race lead), see her lead shrink to 300 meters with four and a half miles left, maintain a 100-meter gap until six laps remained, and win by a step.
Chepng’etich's listed 25K (1:18:03) and 30K (1:34:01) splits are 1:50 and 2:04 under the official world road records for those distances maintained by Athletics Weekly. But they probably didn’t have official timing set up at those points in Chicago, which I believe is needed for ratifying intermediate times as world records.
American Conner Mantz, ostensibly seeking to run 2:07:56, went through the halfway point a little ahead of schedule (1:03:45), and his pacing to get there wasn’t optimal. But he still ran 1:04:31 for the second half to place eighth in 2:08:16. Considering that I predicted he might run 2:08:30 off a 1:04:00, but that this was unlikely in his maiden voyage, means that I undersold him by more than it appears at a glance.
Mantz may never break the American marathon record—I don’t see him finding the two minutes and thirty-nine seconds he currently needs to get—but he could one day become the first American (and human) to average under 5:00 per mile for a road 50K. This requires a 2:35:20; the WR is 2:40:13, but this could easily be lowered by five minutes given the right financial incentives. For whatever reason, I can see Mantz making a serious attempt at this distance before he retires, which might be within five years.
One man whose efforts cannot pass without comment is local legend Frank Lara of Roots Running. Lara went through 35K in 1:47:00, which is 4:55 a mile and 2:08:59 pace. He then ran the final 4.5 miles of the race at 6:28 pace, inefficiently at that. Lara is capable of running 2:08:00, but not with devastating stunts like bashing out a 14:48 for the third 5K of a marathon. Literally everyone in Boulder wants Frank Lara to run 2:08 in whatever way he can, which can’t hurt his chances.
Sisson went through halfway in 1:09:26, about ten seconds ahead of American record pace, before unloading a 1:09:03 to knock 43 seconds off Keira D’Amato’s nine-month-old mark. My pre-race comments about her amounted to “I give her a good chance, but only if she’s juiced.” That she did break the record, resoundingly, establishes nothing besides the fact that I view it as tainted.
If a man with 14:53 and 30:49 track credentials and 1:07:11 recent half-marathon to his credit popped a 2:18:29, and clearly had more go-juice in the marathon given his splits, reasonable people would immediately clamor for access to his medicine chest, not that any modern person even maintains an apothecary anymore. But rather than wallow in pure cynicism, I’ll speculate that Sisson’s father Mark, who has become wealthy as a paleo-diet impresario, probably has access to some decent diet plans, plus maybe the odd plant-based supplement or peptide or whatever.
The women who finished third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and eighth among Americans, all of whom landed in the top 15 women overall, are Boulder-area athletes.
I guessed that six American men would break 2:12:00, and that three would break 2:10:00. Had the fourth American in the race, Nico Montanez, run five seconds slower, both guesses would have been right. Even a moron can get lucky.
Lastly, since I am FREAKIN’ ROCKIN’ IT, a couple MORE predictions:
Since Sisson is only 30 and childless, Women's Running will now invoke the usual post hoc reasoning to explain why nulliparous 30-year-olds who run for companies other than Nike, rather than mothers in their late thirties, are perfectly positioned to set American distance-running records.
David Roche, meanwhile, will suddenly get the idea to "analyze" Sisson's training, after which a bevy of half-literate trust-funders residing in Boulder County will Internet-clap at the Beavis-and-Butthead-caliber result, all to better help propagate a huge, happy handjob.
MORE LATER! In the meantime, stay safe and be happy, offering warm smiles to most and lecherous smirks to the ones who qualify!!