Do sport records really change the way we play?

Joseph Dana wonders if Nike has sullied the beauty of marathon running or taken the sport to the next level with its sub-2hour event

Eliud Kipchoge runs during the Nike Breaking2: Sub-Two marathon attempt at Autodromo di Monza in Italy. Pier Marco Tacca / Getty Images

What do you think of when someone says the word marathon? Perhaps you think of endurance or runners elegantly floating above the ground in brightly coloured shoes and vests. Perhaps you consider the history of the modern sport and locate its origins in a run from the Greek city of Marathon to Athens. Legend has it that in 490BC, a soldier named Pheidippides ran from a battlefield near Marathon to Athens. Pheidippides died after his heroic run. That bit of lore has not stopped millions of people from signing up, training for and running marathons around the world every year.

As the marathon has gained popularity among amateur runners in recent years, the world’s best runners have been pushing the envelope of what is humanly possible.

On a crisp morning last Saturday near Milan, Eliud Kipchoge ran the fastest marathon ever recorded. Wearing specially designed shoes by Nike, his sponsor and the organiser of the event, the slight Kenyan missed the elusive two-hour mark by 25 seconds.

Leading sports scientists once said breaking two hours was impossible before 2089. Cognisant of an incredible branding opportunity, Nike and Adidas have quietly poured large amounts of money into breaching the impossible barrier. In so doing, the companies addressed three major facets of road running: race conditions, footwear and running economy.

Instead of attempting the record on a big city marathon course that would qualify as a world record, Nike chose the Monza Formula One racetrack in northern Italy. Promising cool conditions with few turns to break the runners’ rhythm, Monza is an ideal place for a record attempt.

Additionally, Nike designed a special shoe complete with a carbon-fibre footplate that helps redirect energy. The shoe, which will soon be available for rank-and-file runners, stirred passionate debate inside the running community, as it obviously provides an artificial aid and thus violates a long-standing tradition in the marathon community of not adding springs to running shoes.

Running economy is similar to fuel economy in a car. It is a measure of how much energy it takes a runner to move forward and usually includes benchmarks such as VO2 max, which is a measure of how much oxygen one’s blood can carry during exercise. The top East African runners, who Nike and Adidas both employ in their attempts to break the two-hour barrier, have the best running economy. Given his slight build but extraordinary VO2 max, Eliud Kipchoge is to marathon running what placing a supercharged engine in a Honda Civic would be in vehicle terms.

There is something that strikes deeper about the Breaking 2 campaign than mere records or advertising campaigns. Millions watched Kipchoge run around the Monza track live on Twitter. Nike's commentator crew for the race urged viewers to be inspired and break their own "two-hour barrier".

If Kipchoge could push the boundaries of possibility with a two-hour marathon, then we can all get off the couch for 30 minutes on the treadmill. Undoubtedly, this idea will drive Nike’s branding campaign when the Kipchoge shoe hits stores.

The beauty of marathon running is the relative equality of the sport. When I toed that line at the New York City marathon last November, there was no way I could compete with the elite runners although they were on the same course. They faced the same wind, the same hills. Despite the gulf in our abilities, we were engaged in the same activity that required equal amounts of determination and grit.

The same can’t be said for Kipchoge’s incredible run in Monza. He ran on a closed course chosen by a team of sports scientists. There were no city spectators nor fellow runners (only pacers who served a specific task in helping him run faster).

Kipchoge and Nike have propelled the ancient sport of marathon running forward, but the two-hour barrier was neither breached nor broken.

On Twitter: @ibnezra