This is why most Marathon world records are made and broken in Berlin

On Sunday 28th September 2014 at Berlin City in Germany during the annual Berlin marathon, a Kenyan Dennis Kimetto broke the world record only one year after his compatriot Wilson Kipsang’ broke another record in the same course. Kimetto’s feat was the fifth in the last eight previous years and each time it was on the same course making Berlin a different and unique course for breaking world marathon records.

The Berlin Marathon started in 1974 with a total 284 athletes and ran through Berlin’s nearby villages. In 1981 it moved to the city streets and now attracts more than 70,000 athletes every year.

30 year old Kimetto covered the 26.22 mile (42.2 km) course in 2:02.57 lowering the previous mark by 26 seconds held by compatriot Wilson Kipsang broken in 2013.

The other previous holders over the course in the last few years since 2003 are Kenya’s Paul Tergat who broke the record with a time of 2:04.55 (2003); Haile Gebreselassie of Ethiopia broke the record twice in 2007 (2:03.26)and in 2008 (2:03.59). From 2011 to 2014 with exception of 2012 where course record was not broken, Kenyans broke the subsequent records. In 2011 Patrick Makau did it with a time of 2:03.38; Wilson Kipsang’ was on target in 2013 with a record of 2:03.23 and finally Dennis Kimetto went with the crucial record 2:02.57 in 2014.

The flurry of record breaking performances over the course five times in the last 10 years has made many experts look into reasons why the course has been the venue for all those feats.

“Asphalt compared to concrete course help runners in reducing pains to the joints.” Mark Wilde the race director who took over in 2003 from his father who also founded the races said.

Another reason by Mr. Wilde is that the course is fairly flat with between 37 and 53 meters above the sea level recorded throughout the terrain.

The course also has few turns compared to New York Marathon whose course has several turns while Boston marathon course finish line is so much lower than it starts making it ineligible for world record marathon attempts.

Berlin is also not much windy and temperatures range between 12 c and 18 c. during September, when the marathon is run the temperature is 15 c which fall inside 10 c-16 c that experts agree is the optimum for a fast race.

But the question that the experts still grapple with is why records started being broken regularly from 2007 despite the course being used since 1981.

Hugh Jones who won 1982 London Marathon is not surprised at the increasing competitive nature of the races.

“An increasing in appearance fees, prize money and general profile of marathon runners has changed things dramatically in the past decade or so.” Jones who ran a time of 2:09.24 said.

Having fewer stars running together and having two or three who are focused to help each other break the record may have played a part. This is made possible due to the huge sums being paid for appearance fees for top athletes that prevented organizers and sponsors inviting many top athletes at the same time.

Ross Tucker an exercise physiologist at the sports science institute of South Africa had his take on this.

“The optimum set up to break a world a world record is to have one or two guys who are committed to going for the world record who are willing to work together and you just set the race up around those two. London pays for its own strengths with slower times.” He said in a quote to Reuters.

Two top stars ran in Berlin in 2014; Dennis Kimetto and Emmanuel Mutai helped each other maintain world record pace until Kimetto broke away three miles from finish. However both their time was better than the previous record held by Wilson Kipsang’.

Kimetto eventually became the first man to run a marathon in under two hours 3 minutes and led to new speculations about when not if we will see the two hour mark being broken.

However, Jones insisted that he did not foresee a situation where any athlete would run less than 2:00.00 record in the next 20 years but think it may happen after 40 years but looking at how Kimetto and Kipsang’ ran their world records and the time ran by Emmanuel Mutai during the 2014 race it is easy to believe if they took their time well they can still go a step further and do what none had ever imagined.