Here I am still getting caught up with the breaking of world records. That\u2019s what I get for not running competitively anymore \u2013 so, I lost track of the marathon explosions that happened recently. The more I looked into it, the weirder things became. I think this article might disturb some of you, and I apologize in advance. I got sucked into the heroic feats of the Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge … world record after world record. Interviews put him in the same sentence as Roger Bannister, Neil Armstrong and stopped short of comparing him with Albert Einstein. My curiosity led me all over the internet. (I have no ill-will towards such this extraordinary runner by the way, only envy!) But the corporate world has gotten a firm grip on our shared everyday experiences such as \u201cgoing out for a run.\u201d In an article a few months ago I got a little cheeky about Nike sinking millions of dollars into the \u201cBreaking2\u201d project. Hired (and paid mercenaries?) rabbits were given orders to run in a pyramidal phalanx (oops, sorry, that\u2019s from Ancient Greece) uh, formation ahead of the three superstars to reduce wind. They had a perfectly flat paved racetrack \u2013 a Formula One racetrack in Monzo, Italy, measured at 1.5 miles (thus 17+ laps).<\/p>\n
And Kipchoge emerged as the only one of the elite three to keep the pace and finished in 2:00:25. So, Nike still got to sell millions of $$ of their newly developed \u201cVaporFly Elite\u201d after the race was done (and of course all those runners were wearing the \u201cbarrier-busting\u201d shoes). Since it was billed as a \u201cprivate race\u201d with rotating groups of three rabbits every few miles, this effort could not be counted as a World Record. To make the story even better, Nike \u201cteamed\u201d up with National Geographic, which recorded the whole battle …er race, and got it up on YouTube. When I wrote this part a few months ago, I felt something was fishy. Besides going to such extremes, it seemed a bit inhuman, or plainly not human. The time and effort and money could have been spent on building a running robot that would not have any human-like tendencies\/foibles and could guarantee it would cross the finish line in exactly 1:59:59. And then, changing the dial on some of the diodes and transistors, they could program a 1:49:59 \u201ceffort\u201d the following year. But surely humanity is not ready for such a blatant usurping of a hugely popular activity called running.<\/p>\n And now on to Oct. 12, 2019 and the INOES 159 Challenge. Again, I\u2019m not really wanting to discredit anyone here, but a little research keeps coming up with amazing things!! First off, INOES is the fourth-largest chemical company in the world. What? And sponsoring an athletic event? Hmmm. I don\u2019t think they need the money, and they don\u2019t have running shoes to sell. They have a $61 billion\/year revenue and employ 26,000. Well, Nike employs 75,000 and its yearly revenue is $37 billion. At least it\u2019s clear both companies are putting on these events out of the goodness of their hearts and are not trying to get rich quick.<\/p>\n Back to the name INOES, which combines Latin for a new beginning, and Eos, the Greek goddess of the dawn, and Neos, Greek\u00a0for something new and innovative. INOES states its name represents the “dawn of something new and innovative.” Okay, okay. So two years after Nike\u2019s commercial venture into staging an event to display their prowess in running shoes, along comes a global chemical company. (I would have enjoyed listening in on their board meetings back then \u201cHey guys, let\u2019s put on a splashy running event which has nothing to do with petrochemicals, you know, to relate to the average bloke).<\/p>\n Vienna, Austria was chosen as the venue \u2013 they boast a wide avenue in a park-like setting \u2013 it runs about 6.5 miles in a straight line, and only has to be run four times. This time Kipchoge is asked (paid?) to be the only runner (what? Talk about a private race), but there\u2019s a phalanx of 41 world class runners to do the pacing. They also had an electric vehicle (no fumes) driving exactly at the 4:34.8 mile pace. In fact (this made me gasp) the pace vehicle blazed onto the pavement behind it a laser rectangle grid so the rabbits had to just run to keep up with the moving laser beam. This means there was no guesswork, and each posted kilometer time was within 3 seconds of each other.<\/p>\n So, Kipchoge ran a completely steady pace, with no variations, no hills, and the date\/time (Oct 12) was 48 degrees, with slight rain at the start at 8:15 a.m. …that\u2019s Austrian precision! Everything was calibrated to allow NO flaws. And Kipchoge had trained well and stuck to the script perfectly. With 1\u20442 mile to go he broke free from the rabbits and almost coasted across the finish line. The INOES company obviously had a much better PR manager than Nike \u2013 there were thousands of spectators along the course, urging Kipchoge on. Again, this was no private race, it was a spectacle devoted to one Eliud Kipchoge.<\/p>\n What amazed me was the Guinness Book of Records did recognize this as a world record, though the relevant sports federation did not. Oh well. And one last thing, an interview mentioned that the bicycle always by Kipchoge\u2019s side, the one who handed over his drinking bottle (I wonder what was in it…) would quickly send the bottle back to be examined by the handlers where they determined if he was getting too much or too little fluids down his throat so they could tell him to drink more or less the next time. In my book, this is NOT an unassisted race. Yes, Mike Wolfe had friends at each Aid Station on the Bridger Ridge Run to hand him bottles of whatever he was drinking that day. So, he really could just run the darn thing without having to stop. My gosh, I wouldn\u2019t want that! At each Aid Station I counted on the many minutes spent sitting down in the shade of a tree and casually drinking\/eating to my heart\u2019s content. Oh, I wasn\u2019t going for any record, that\u2019s right \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n In wrapping up this expose\u0301 (I mean article) I discovered that the Women\u2019s Marathon World Record was set the very next day (after Kipchoge\u2019s) in Chicago. No hype. No conspicuous sponsorship from big international corporations, no splashy anything. There she was, Brigid Kosgei, also a Kenyan. Oh my gosh. She took a minute off Paula Radcliff\u2019s record from 2003 that had stood for 16 years. So let\u2019s find out about Brigid.<\/p>\n Granted, she wasn\u2019t trying to do anything but run her best. There was no fanfare about breaking a mystical barrier of time. Well, Paula Radcliff\u2019s WR of 2:15:25 had been that impossible barrier to break – for over 16 years. Maybe I\u2019m so amazed and upset that there weren\u2019t thousands of fans urging her on like Eliud had just the day before. But then if I had been following her career, maybe I would have been one of those thousands to cheer her on!<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/winddrinkers.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Screen-Shot-2022-04-29-at-9.13.32-AM.jpg\")
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