“This was unequivocally the greatest marathon performance of all time. And that makes me queasy. In fact, I’m outraged.” – Amby Burfoot
2:09:56!
First got the news from Bill Rodgers. Yeah, that guy, the one with the 2:09:27 personal record. Set at Boston, which is not eligible for World Record consideration. Billy was likely the Greatest of the Greatest Running Generation. Another time he won Boston in 2:09:55.
2:09:56 would have won a lot of Bostons.
Mr. Rodgers is skeptical. For “all” the reasons so many others are.
Amby Burfoot, who won Boston 1968 in 2:22:17, just ain’t buying it.
2:09:56, that is.
One old expert told me, there are many good college cross-country teams who don’t have eight athletes who can run fifteen flat for five kilometers. He’s probably right.
But eight in a row, all by yourself. A girl?
Been asked by interviewers why exactly I wrote When Running Was Young And So Were We. Okay, one interviewer. This is what I told him.
Somehow, sometime, I must’ve thought, you know, there was a time when Americans were great, when Americans were fast, when Americans ruled the roads, when even normal people, even average athletes like me, ran fast. Before the festivalization of running, before the East Africans, we were great. There was a moment.
I love the East Africans, I love the festival, but I want today’s runners to know about the first running boom. I wanted today’s runners to know… it’s okay to go fast. At least it’s okay to try. We used to party – trust me – but we partied after the race, not during the race.
When I started running, I ordered years of bound back issues of Track & Field News. Think I got a half-dozen years’ worth. 1965-1971. Maybe seven years. Black & white photos of men excited about breaking a half hour for a six-mile run. Good times. Wasn’t all Vietnam and protests.
I think of those athletes of the Sixties and Seventies and even the early Eighties as the Original Gangsters of Running. They didn’t open the door so much as break the door down. After building it.
Boom. They were running’s Greatest Generation and Frank Shorter’s PR is 2:10:30.
Do you have any idea how hard Benji Durden had to work to run 2:09:57?
2:09:56 by a female marathoner is gonna take some adjustment in many folks’ thinking about what’s possible? And how?
I asked around. The coaches think it could be the coaching and the shoe designers say it is definitely the super footwear.
Myself, I believe the woman.
Learned that lesson from Anita Hill.
“Kenyan distance runners are not pure, clean-living athletes; they are dirty-drugged-up, carpet-baggers after the money”
“The poor people of Kenya want money and will do anything to get at it” – Christopher Kelsall
https://christopherkelsall.substack.com/p/kenyan-distance-runners-are-not-pure
In this special bonus episode, Marathon Handbook editor-at-large, Boston Marathon winner and respected author Amby Burfoot discusses his op-ed on the site about his skepticism of the world record performance by Ruth Chepngetich at the 2024 Chicago Marathon.
His main concern: that fans of the sport, including himself, have grown cynical of extreme outlier performances, and that this cynicism is going to irreparably damage running, especially women’s participation in the marathon over time.
It should be made clear: Ruth Chepntegich has never failed a doping test, and the world record has not yet been ratified by World Athletics, the global governing body of the sport.
He highlights the lack of transparency in athletics, particularly in women’s running, and the need for institutional reform to ensure the integrity of the sport. The hosts analyze the data behind Chepngetich’s record-breaking run and compare it to world record performances in other athletics events in history. They call for increased accountability among stakeholders in the marathon running community, including shoe brands, World Athletics, the World Marathon Majors race organizers, and the agents and coaches working with elite marathoners today.