“Nike’s scientists advance basically the same argument: if Kipchoge or one of his teammates succeeds in breaking two hours under the artificial conditions in Monza, it will pave the way for someone else to do it in a regular big-city race. The mind, in other words, frames the outer limits of what we believe is humanly possible. The debate brings to mind the arguments about supplemental oxygen on Mount Everest. When the first British expeditions attacked the mountain in the 1920s, the technology was still in its infancy, but some expedition members felt its use was unsporting and would tarnish their intended accomplishment.3 In the end, when Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay finally scaled the mountain in 1953, they did use oxygen. Another twenty-five years passed before Messner and Habeler’s oxygen-free first ascent. Would their feat have been possible without the route-finding and trail-blazing of the aided climbers who went before them? “Never” is a long time, but I suspect the mountain would still be unclimbed to this day. way, running is facing the same dilemma that confronted cycling’s governing body in the 1990s when they decided to “freeze” the technology permissible for the Hour record, and that faced swimming when they decided to ban polyurethane “fast suits” in 2010. Technology evolves, but when it evolves so quickly that it effectively picks winners, that’s a problem. The top three finishers in the men’s Olympic marathon in 2016, it turns out, were wearing disguised prototypes of the new shoe, which Nike has dubbed the Vaporfly. So was the women’s winner; so were the men’s winners of the 2016 London, Chicago, Berlin, and New York marathons. If we’re interested in human limits, what does a sub-two-hour marathon truly tell us if all it takes is a 2:03 runner wearing supershoes? Hutchinson, Alex. Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance (pp. 204-205). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. Hutchinson, Alex. Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance (p. 204). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. Hutchinson, Alex. Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance (p. 204). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. ”
