Blu has gone 2h35 at Mexico last year. Fastest ever according to this article is Matt Hanson 2h34 at IM Texas 2018
Women , Kristin Moeller ran 2h41m57s at IMUK 2011
But this feels like pretty thin air, they are the best performances by the best athletes on their best days, when racing.
I’d love to see Blu go out and run 2h20-2h25, but he’d be getting pretty close to the women’s WR for a standalone marathon of 2h14 or 2h17 depending on whether you count events with male pacers. So I’m not seeing it, but would love to be proved wrong
yes I think 10-15mins is more than possible for a fresh marathon even “untrained”. They are well trained endurance athletes so have the engine, and they will be able to hold better form for longer than they would do off the bike.
Yeah I’m in this camp. Though I’d caveat to say that there are probably a few athetes on either end of the scale i.e. Some that are really close to that aerobic threshold that is mega high, so woukd have a standalone and IM mara that are very similar. Others will naturally have much more speed and a higher threshold etcm who will have much greater gaps between their potential standalone and IM maras. Just the fact is they’ve never trained or raced a standalone for obvious reasons.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Blu race a standalone mara in like a 2.20 or something if he tried.
Whilst there will be an argument that the top IM pros are running ironmans much closer to their open capability than us mortals, and that IM training isn’t the ideal open marathon training… I don’t think there can be any doubt that swimming 4k and biking 180km is going to have a detrimental effect on someone’s marathon time!
I think the 70.3 run times give a good indication of potential. 65min half should equate to an equivalent full in 2:15ish. So 2:20 seems perfectly feasible for a standalone.
Will be fun to see how they go…I wonder whether the differing strategies are somewhat contrived to make it more interesting?
Reckon they could all hit the target if they have a good day. But my money is on Blu/Kat.
Having some involvement with two of the teams I would be wary of what some of the athletes are claiming as they’ve had very little input into bike pacing or strategy.
The LCB example is good evidence of something I haven’t contested - if she’s run 12min faster in a trained-for stand-alone marathon you think she can do the same in a Sub8? I don’t. I think she can run 5-6min faster in a Sub8, not 12.
. Hopefully I’ll see most of it tomorrow, and the teams all do brilliantly - good luck to em 
