Alex Hutchinson writes Outside’s Sweat Science column, about the science of endurance and adventure. He started out as a Cambridge-trained physicist and long-distance runner on the Canadian national team. As a journalist, he earned a National Magazine Award for his energy reporting with Popular Mechanics, covered adventure travel for The New York Times, and wrote a training column for Runner’s World. His latest book, out in February 2018, is ENDURE: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance. He lives in Toronto, where he runs fast, climbs poorly, and gets outside as much as possible with his wife and daughters.
Are Marathoners Getting Faster or Is It the Shoes?
Plotting top-100 marathon times for the past decade shows that Eliud Kipchoge’s world record is a huge outlier. The question is why.