Haile Gebrselassie

Shock news and comment on The Science of Sport here.

.. are laid out and analysed on Ross Tucker and Johnathan Dugas's excellent Science of Sport website.

"And with that, Gebrselassie finally got the marathon right. It is harsh to say that, but he himself admitted in a press conference that he felt his previous marathons were not yet perfect.

Imagine running for one hour round a track with every lap 68 seconds or faster!

That's the magic of Haile Gebrselassie, who has broken the 16-year record for running one hour, covering a mighty 13 and a quarter miles at the Golden Spike meeting in Ostrava, Czech Republic. Glory be, that's 4:31 per mile pace!

Reporing the feat, Athletics Weekly couldn't resist starting with a reference to his age. Maybe they think Geb should be hanging up his spikes by now?

I just found the The Canadian Athletics Coaching Centre website, which bagged recent interviews with Henry Rono and Haile Gebrselassie. It also has loads of interviews and features on training techniques and philosophies.

I've only listened to Henry's so far; a bit long on the historical for my taste, as I am more interested in what he is doing NOW. However, he does say he still has as goals a world mile record, then the World Masters Championships in Italy in September.

Haile Gebrselassie ran his third marathon of the year at Fukuoka on Sunday and beat last year's winner Dmytro Baranovsky (UKR) in 2:06:52. He ran the second half much faster than the first: 62:33 to 64:19.

Geb is now only the second runner (after Felix Limo) to run four career sub-2:07 marathons.

It was the first time in the history of the race that three men ran sub-2:07:30 in the same year; Baranovsky set a national record of 2:07:15.

Geb is now contemplating a 2007 attemnpt on Paul Tergat's world record 2:04:55.

Quotes from the Daily Yomiuri online:

"I could have made it faster but I decided just to win."