**1. Introduction**

The Olympic motto "Citius – Altius – Fortius" which expresses the aspirations of the Olympic Movement as captured in the Olympic Charter [1], resonates perfectly with the innate human desire to do and accomplish more in life. The three Latin words mean Faster - Higher – Stronger (modified by adding '-Together' in 2021) and were first expressed by Dominican priest Henri Didon during the opening ceremony of a school sports event in 1881 [2]. These words were adopted by Pierre de Coubertin, who was present that day, as the Olympic motto and included in the first Olympic Charter in the 1890s. It expresses the aspirations of the Olympic

Movement in its athletic and technical sense as well as from a moral and educational perspective [2]. This desire has led human beings to seek ways to work efficiently and improve their performances in the diverse aspects of life. Over the years, many sports practitioners have turned to sports science to develop and use a variety of ergogenic aids. Great efforts have been made to discover innovative ways that can help athletes to achieve an edge over their opponents in the sports arena [3]. Techniques or substances used for the purpose of enhancing sports performance are referred to as ergogenic aids and they act by improving energy production, energy control, or energy efficiency [4]. These come in many forms including –but not limited to, physical, mechanical or technological, nutritional, psychological, and pharmacological methods that either directly improve physiological variables associated with exercise performance or remove subjective restraints that may limit physiological capacity [5, 6]. As the variety of ways athletes seek to improve their chances of winning are becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish from doping concepts [7, 8], there are growing legal, ethical, and safety concerns that threaten the integrity and survival of sports as a socio-economic institution and one of the largest industries, with an estimated global turnover worth over 1.3 trillion USD in 2017 [9, 10]. The aforementioned is exemplified by running sports -both shortdistance and long-distance events. This chapter focuses more on distance running, particularly on the marathon.

#### **1.1 Historical perspective of endurance running**

Distance running is said to have been used as a means of hunting for food, survival, and mode of transportation during early civilisation [11, 12]. However, it developed into an endurance physical exercise and a popular major athletic sport that it is today. As an exercise, it serves to improve cardiovascular system, strengthens bones, improves knee health, boosts mood or self-esteem, and alleviates stress [11, 13–15]. As a sport, distance running comes in different forms, including track events and road races, the marathon being the most popular. The history of the marathon race dates back to the ancient Greek civilisation. In 490 B.C., a Greek soldier named Pheidippides ran from Marathon to Athens, Greece (roughly 25 miles), to deliver news of a military victory against the Persians at the Battle of Marathon, immediately after which he kneeled, fell over and died -probably because he had not trained for the extensive running feat [11, 16]. During the onset of the modern Olympic Games in 1896, a "marathon" race was organised to pay tribute to Pheidippides, spanning from Marathon Bridge to Olympic Stadium in Athens, with an estimated distance of 24.85 miles [17]. The marathon race was later established as 26.2 miles at the London Olympics in 1908. Many more marathon races continued to be organised within and outside the Olympic Games. The Boston Marathon was first held in 1897, this being the oldest marathon after the initial event in the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 [17]. The road-running sports industry has continued to expand with an estimated value of \$1.4 billion in 2015 in the U.S. alone, with the running shoe business alone said to be worth about \$3 billion [11, 18, 19]. An increasing number of people are taking part in marathon races both for recreation, fun, and as a professional pursuit, with some of the major events such as the Abbott World Marathon Majors registering more than 50,000 runners each year [11].

#### **1.2 Efforts towards sub-two hour marathon**

Performance in the marathon race has gradually improved over time, with top athletes recording times just short of two-hour mark (by less than 5 minutes in the recent times since September 2003) [20]. According to the World Athletics records,

#### *Sports Science and Efforts towards Sub-Two Hour Marathon Performance DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.100005*

the all-time top 100 performances thus far range from 2:05:47 by Marius Kimutai in Amsterdam on 16 October 2016 to 2:01:39 by Eliud Kipchoge in Berlin on 16 September 2018 [20]. It is important to note that athletes from the East African region account for about 90% of all-time marathon performances, with Kenyans accounting for 47% and Ethiopians 41%. This phenomenon has continued to attract researchers all over the world, with no consensus on the reasons behind the world dominance in distance running performance, although several factors have been proposed [21, 22].

With race performance times edging closer and closer to two hours in recent times, it is believed that it is a matter of time before a sub-two-hour marathon performance is achieved. Efforts have been made to achieve this sooner [23], particularly by athletes from East Africa, with their agents working hard towards this elusive mark. One such effort has been made by the World and Olympic champion Eliud Kipchoge, who ran the world's first sub-two-hour marathon, clocking 1:59:40 in Vienna in 2019. However, the performance was not recognised in the official world records because of what was said to be the 'use of pacemakers who were getting in and out of the race', pacing laser beams, as well as 'placing of refreshment into his hand instead of him picking them', which are privileges that are not found in normal race conditions [24, 25]. Kipchoge who had set the marathon world record of 2:01:39 in Berlin in September 2018 was recorded saying that "Running Berlin and running Vienna are two different things; Berlin is running and prepping a world record, Vienna is running and making history in this world, like the first man to go to the moon" [26]. The feat was accomplished running on a straight flat course through the Prater Park with curved turns at each end. The event was organised by Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the INEOS chairman and CEO [27], a few years after similar efforts by Nike in 2017 fell short of the target by 26 seconds [28]. With the race hyped up through the 'No Human is Limited' slogan, he aimed to inspire humanity to realise that we can stretch our limits in our lives and we can do more than what we think we can do, to inspire others to believe they can overcome their own personal barriers. Even though the performance is not recognised as a world record, it gets a step closer towards realisation of similar performances in a competitive race situation.
