Ok, don't care if this gets laughed out of Sports Talk since it isn't one of the typical sports people like to talk about, but how do you think a cyclist of his caliber will do on a marathon (any time predictions)? What will this do for the popularity of running marathons (if anything)?

Not much coverage of this outside of the running world, but here's a link:
http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/news/story?id=2414546

10/5/2006 1:03:34 PM

He still can't hang with those skinny Ethiopians.

10/5/2006 1:07:17 PM

They compared his V02max to a world class Kenyan runner (which many runners consider the best indicator of performance potential), and they were identical. Although he had 30 pounds on the guy, so a lot of people are predicting a sub 3 hour running time (around 2:45 maybe), although I'd be suprised if he got it that low.

10/5/2006 1:14:00 PM

10/5/2006 1:26:08 PM

juicing

10/5/2006 1:35:41 PM

I bet he wins it at least 6 years in a row

10/5/2006 1:42:55 PM

He won't beat the Kenyans, but he'll have a really good time. He came from the triathlete world, so it isn't like he is foreign to running.

10/5/2006 1:44:52 PM

He will finish before puff daddy.

10/5/2006 1:51:34 PM

Quote :

"but how do you think a cyclist of his caliber will do on a marathon (any time predictions)?"

he'll do fine, but nothing spectacular. He's amazingly fit and an incredibly naturally talented athlete, but that doesn't change the fact that he's not a runner. He's been a full time cyclist for the past ~18 years - you can't just take all your talent in one sport/activity and transfer it to another activity, just because they both require lots of aerobic capacity and leg strength. That being said, he'll obviously be able to jump into this with much less training than the average person and produce a good time - times that other people who train for years might not ever be able to touch. He said in his first book that as a teenager when he was doing triathlons, he basically had a choice if he wanted to become a professional 1) runner, 2) swimmer, or 3) cyclist. he says he chose cyclist because he thought he had the best chance of success. While he went on to be [obligatory "one of"] the best cyclist ever, he could have still been an elite runner, but never the best in the world.

Quote :

"What will this do for the popularity of running marathons (if anything)?"

none. he's just another guy, running a marathon, just like millions have before, and hundreds or thousands of other celebrities have. Even though running and cycling are not at all popular as professional sports in America, they are already hugely popular participatory sports among adults. Marathoning is already incredibly popular, despite how hard it is, with 10s of thousands in single events in the US (40,000 in boston and chicago, 35,000 in New York, 25,000 in LA, etc).

He might inspire a few otherwise only cyclist to try running, but i wouldn't count of any noticable difference. I mean, why is it inspiring that he's running a marathon, exactly? He's arguably the best overall athlete of our generation. So now he can run 26 miles on the road in about 3 hours..... big whoop. Ironically, I think someone like Oprah running a marathon is much more inspirational to a much larger number of people. Oprah showed that an average person, or even an unfit, unhealthy person (albiet one with a lot of money) could get her ass in gear and finish a marathon. She probably inspired a ton of people to at least consider trying a marathon, although i have no idea how actually would follow up on that. At the least, she probably helped a lot of the middle-aged overweight women who sit around and watch her show all day to get off their asses and walk around outside some.


here's MP3s of an interview with runners world - http://runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-243-297--10400-0,00.html
and some discussion on how fast people think he could run
http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-243-297--10401-0,00.html

[Edited on October 5, 2006 at 2:17 PM. Reason : .]

10/5/2006 2:12:20 PM