The 2 hour barrier has been broken for a marathon. A remarkable feat:
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It doesn’t count for an official world record because it wasn’t against proper competition. But then again, neither was Roger Bannister’s 4 minute mile.
For those with an interest in harness racing they would know there have been many time trials to set records. Whilst it wasn’t an official race and will not be ratified as an official work record it shows that the 2 hour barrier can be broken. The athlete still had to run the marathon.
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If it was broken, it’s not a barrier. Two hours was an arbitrary limit based entirely on previous performances. And now that a new record has been set, atheletes will strive to beat it … and one day one will succeed and so the saga will continue.
Your post is perhaps one of the most bizarre I have ever read on this forum. There have been many “arbitrary” milestones in the field of sport. The 4 minute mile is just one example. Similarly, the 2 hour time of the marathon is another. I noted that it wouldn’t be recognised as a record due to the special conditions of the race. How, this thread could elicit a post like yours in beyond my ken.
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What’s arbitrary was calling two hours a barrier. Would you now call 1 hr 59 minutes a barrier for the marithon? How about 3 minutes 43 seconds for the mile?
But I am not surprised that this concept is beyond your ken. So many things are.
It would be bizarre and frankly ridiculous to set it at 1 hour and 59 minutes. Maybe we need to contemplate the following as well:
Why 24 hours in a day? Why 60 minutes in an hour? Why 60 seconds in a minute? Why IIII rather than IV on time pieces?
So many whys and not enough units of time to answer them all.
Settle down and think for once. If it is bizarre and ridiculous to call 1 hr 59 minutes a barrier, then it is equally bizarre and ridiculous to call 2 hours a barrier.
The rest of your post is not relevant.
I gave serious consideration to flagging that post; I won’t need to consider my action if there is another post of similar ilk.
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That’s the nature of statistics in sports. It’s a big deal for a baseball player to hit 50 homeruns. No one cares afterwards when they hit the 51st. Sprinters want to run 100 meters in under 10 seconds not 9.95 seconds.
to break 2 hour you need to run at no slower then four and a half minutes a mile non stop for 26 miles, that is a massive barrier its likely impossible in a pure race without pace runners.
I don’t think people understand how hard it is to run a mile in under four and a half minutes, that alone a single mile is massive feat.
now do that none stop 26 times in a row.
The two hour barrier exist because there was a famous study by Physiologists that stated the perfect human could only run a marathon in an 1:57 ever since then people have been pushing to break two hours this is the first time anyone has ever run under two hours.
I’d love to have the physical abilities to be a professional golfer or basketball player. But being a professional long distance is not at all desirable to me. Just seems impossibly difficult.
Some people don’t seem to appreciate how humans think and are lost in math and numbers.
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Running 26.2 miles in under two hours has literally been the dream of every serious marathon runner for the past 50 years. It’s more than just some arbitrary number.
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Don’t interrupt the manic picking of nits!!!
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That’s averaging well under a 5min mile pace. For 26.2 miles.
Astounding.
The nature of sports statistics is to establish records. Just because a record remains unbroken for many years does not make it a barrier.
But he did it … therefore, it was not a barrier. It was just as arbitrary to say no man can ever run a marathon in less than two hours as it would have been to have set that mark at 1 hr 59 minutes or, for that matter, at 2 hrs 1 minute. If any barrier exists, it is physiological, not some arbitrary time rounded off to an even unit to sound cool.
