An exercise scientist has a plan to finally conquer the 2-hour marathon

Associated Press

For exercise scientist Yannis Pitsiladis, the magic number is 178.

That's how many seconds an athlete has to shave off Dennis Kimetto's 2014 marathon time of 2:02:57 — the current world record — in order to run the first sub-two-hour marathon in human history.

That goal is widely regarded as unattainable in the running community. But Pitsiladis wants to use state-of-the-art training techniques to help a world-class athlete do the impossible, no drugs required.

Pitsiladis is a member of the International Olympic Committee's Medical and Scientific Commission and the founder of the Sub2 Project, a research group that brings together leading exercise scientists to figure out how to make elite running more efficient.

Pitsiladis believes the sport is rife with old-world thinking and could use a dose of disruption.

"We know nothing about the science of training," Pitsiladis told the New York Times, which featured his project in a recent two-part series. "I really mean nothing. When I say that, people get really upset."

To complete a marathon in 1:59:59, a runner must maintain an average pace of 4:34 per mile. Kimetto's average pace during his world-record run was seven seconds slower than that. The difference may not sound like much, but in the world of long-distance running, seven seconds is an eternity.

Nonetheless, Pitsiladis thinks he can shorten that gap by applying the latest research in training, diet, apparel, and genetics to create the ultimate competitive runner.

Associated PressPitsiladis is in Phase 1 of the project, and is still determining the ideal athletes to work with. As the Times reports, he has traveled the world over the last 16 years, training with promising young runners and collecting DNA samples from 1,000 Olympic athletes to see who the best candidate might be.

His current experiments also involve bringing athletes to extreme altitudes and depths, which have different effects on the human body.

Living in a place with less oxygen — like Denver, for example — causes the body to produce more red blood cells, which carry oxygen to the muscles. Pitsiladis hopes to find out whether athletes who have developed those extra cells at high altitudes can then train harder when brought to a place like the Dead Sea, which is a quarter-mile below sea level and therefore even richer with oxygen.

As a result of that adaptation, Pitsiladis thinks those runners might naturally develop stronger hearts and increased lung capacity in the long run. It's the same outcome that can be achieved by taking llegal drugs such as EPO, one of the key substances Lance Armstrong took during the Tour de France to improve his endurance.

Pitsiladis also plans to experiment with the idea that athletes should "live high, and train higher," the Times reports. In that case, runners might achieve better results by living in Denver and raining somewhere like Mexico City, which has an even higher elevation.

Associated PressPitsiladis is interested in the impact of diet as well. As a doctoral student, he gave runners heavy cream before a race to test the role fat plays in preserving the body's energy. However, follow-up tests have shown that heavy doses of glucose, provided by things like Gatorade, generally work better to keep runners fresh. An ongoing question in Pitsiladis' current research is when the best time might be for them to ingest that glucose.

Pitsiladis also wants to use apparel as a tool to monitor an athlete's performance. He plans to outfit his runners in clothing that tracks nearly every biometric signal: perspiration, heart rate, breathing rate, body temperature. No data point will be missed, no wasted energy left undetected. He can then use that information to adjust athletes' training regimens to get their numbers back in optimal ranges.

Pitsiladis has high expectations for the Sub2 Project — he's looking to secure $30 million in funding by 2021 to finance equipment, travel, and staff, and thinks the record is vulnerable within five years if he sticks to his techniques.

Ultimately, he wants to disprove the idea that humans have reached their peak output and that science has nothing more to offer. In fact, it may be the exact opposite: Science could be the only thing that advances running into a brand-new era.

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