Yeah touch of the Mark Lewis about ‘untrained’ and his wife. It’s clickbait
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Didn’t put it on his Strava, so I’m asking myself…?
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Empfield has decided he’s an expert EV reviewer now. 
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It’s mainly folk posting photos of their calves
There’s a children’s book written by Astrid Lundgen (she wrote Pippy Longstocking), called Carlson on the Roof… he’s a bit like Dan Empfield, claims to be an expert at everything, but in reality knows nothing.
I bet Dan knows all about…Covid, Cyber Security, Supply Chain, War in Ukraine, Semiconductors. In fact I am not sure why Trump didn’t employ him
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Interesting slowtwitch thread here. Do most people have the potential to run a sub 3 marathon?
Opinions are quite polarised (who’d have thought it) but a decent read.
Some typical ST level of debate in there eg:
“Some people don’t have the mental ability to motivate themselves. That is part of ability. Last year, with an old college buddy of mine, we went on a plan to do 100 pushups per day for the last 100 days of the year. On Dec 31, I was done in the morning. I even did them after I did a 10km swim (that was 25x400IM).”
Reply:
“And of course you turned the discussion into you bragging about some workout you completed… we will give you a medal for being so mentally tough, pushups after doing a bunch of 100 IMs…wow”
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Betteridges Law of Headlines again.
However, in typical Slowtwitch / Internet style, that’s not the question asked! 
Does one have to be genetically gifted to run a sub 3 marathon. Assuming excellent training etc, how achievable is it?
No. One doesn’t have to be “genetically gifted” (whatever the hell that means)
And in “assuming excellent training” I’d be looking for around 150 weeks of 120-160km weeks, with lots of parkruns at sub17 minutes, as part of that “excellent training”
Then if I assume that, I’d say the answer is 100% 
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Without looking, I’m going to take a stab and say ‘Dev Paul’ ?
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100… in one go I hope??
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Well the everyone can do 3 hours is garbage (have they met any women?) but no way you’d need to do all that
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Joe Xs Law Of Genetics.
“Does one have to be fated to run a sub 3 marathon”
If you can replace the reference to genetics with fate without changing the meaning, the message is bullshit. 
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I know some very very “ fit / strong “. People
Some of them could never run a 3 hour marathon.
Have you been on Slowtwitch?
Women don’t exist.
@joex - What on Earth you talkin’ 'bout, Willis?
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Very good!
Having waded through the thread I think it’s a really good question, for men in their prime at least. Because you can argue either way & both sides seem pretty evenly balanced.
The line of thought I liked best was that if you picked 100 random young men, put them all in a room, and offer each $10 million on completion of a sub 3 marathon, would you expect more than 50% to achieve it, eventually?
I’m thinking yes. The calculators suggest this would require a VO2max of 53 and the ability to hold 80% of VO2max for 3 hours. I don’t know for sure, but think that’s achievable by at least 50% of young men, with the right training, although it might take a lot of time and work. Some would never get there due to things like limits on aerobic pathways, or because they hate money LOL, but my hunch is considerably less than half wouldn’t.
Women? Not sure. Maybe 10% to 20%? Or is that an underestimate?
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For men, you would think so. But it depends at what point in life. We are machines that have been honed over millennia to end up where we are now. Endurance machines.
Granted we’re doing our best to reverse all that lovely evolution at the moment!
The thing is the sub 3 is a totally random target that just happens to be a nice whole number. That’s where the question falls down. It probably is just a humblebrag for those STers taht want to tell everyone just how easy it is. Like what that boy Poet does when he describes how easy training for endurance events is!
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Yeah that’s true, but I think it would be a much easier question to answer at 2h30 (most can’t) or 4h (most could)
But then there wouldn’t be 12 pages of ST silverback action
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haha I knew it. That guy is so thin skinned and narcissistic it’s not funny. He likes to think he’s an expert on everything and gets bent out of shape when people like Turdburgler, Echappist and others start their own cycling threads and prove they know a shed load more about the sport than he does.
He’s incapable of reading the room.
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Anyone following James Dunne at the moment will find this subject interesting. He’s a physio (and coach) that bunged on some weight last and at 37, declared he wanted to run a sub 3.00 before he’s 40. At his fastest in his early 30s, he was 3.26.
His journey has not gone well so far, had a kid and we know how that can dynamite your life plans.
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Piece of piss though. Innit.
Total cop out.
Go do an Oly tri or half marathon if you really want to train and fail.
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Sweet. Looks at watch. Meh, near enough!
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