My view on the sub 2: It is a contrived marketing experiment in a controlled environment. The question i keep asking myself, are the results even relevant? I would equate it to asking Bolt to go sub 9, in a 100m chamber that has reduced atmosphere, gravity, on a slight downhill and with a controlled tailwind. Is it a true physiological performance? The more interesting aspect is the psychological side of the experiment. It is one of the factors they can't control. How motivated are the athletes to suffer for this? What happens if they fall behind the required pacing? (4 sec/km is a massive improvement at this level) Each second per km they miss the effort required to make it up is exponential. What is there mental state going into it? What is the athletes driver to do the sub 2. Knowing that they have limited super fast marathons in them, what future opportunities are they sacrificing? Ultimately this will not be a world record, it will not be a race win? A massive pay day if they do under 2 perhaps? Do they share the cash, or is just the guy that crosses the line first?
