In ideal Boston conditions, the best time is 2:03. todays race was won in 2:12.. best women's is 2:18, won in 2:29. according to my calculations, if they paved the road with Mondo track, and they ran in spikes, it would be 4 seconds faster per mile, 4 seconds for 26.2 miles, lets say we save 2 minutes.
proof: Leonard Komon ran 26 44 on the road. WR is 26 17. this is 27 seconds for road vs track, 10k. with 42k this is 27*4.2=113.4 sec
Heat was already calculated to be a constant 9-10 minutes delay (10 min for around 3 hr, 11-12 for 4 hr).
carbon dioxide and monoxide from the city and leading cars delay 1 sec per mile to the lungs. if the city did a pollution control, this would save 26 seconds on each mile. stop driving hummers and range rovers!
The winner is worth 2:00 flat! in ideal conditions. with tail wind we save 2.5 sec per mile (65 sec overall). this marathon was well worth a sub 2, in the range of 1:58-9 effort, given the ideal weather conditions, tailwind, pollution control 65 + 26+ 113 + 9 min = 12:24 saved
2:12:45 - 0:12:24= 2:00:21
given crowd hype, this would shed 1.7 seconds in the last half marathon. the crowd will realise they can break 2 if the split is just right. 1.7 * 13= 22.1 sec!
2:00:21 - 0:00:22.1 = 1:59:59!
not to mention if the city planted more greenery, more oxygen would be available. this could shed 0.5 sec per mile. proof: someone here ran 4:02 on the Oregon Michael Johnson Track, but ran 4:04 on a standard track.
not to mention, if they did EPO, and we assume Paula DID dope, we can use the Paula standard, assume 3 min faster (2:15 to 2:18) however, we cannot assume Paula doped, so we will cause this the "secondary pacing" method. that is, we have pacers pace the leaders in the second half
1:59:59 - 0:03:00= 1:56:59!!!
58 back to back halfs are doable, considering east africans go through the 10ks in 30 and 29s
now if we can only get a mondo track paved for 26 miles, abundant greenery, strict carbon emission laws, ideal temperature then we could have seen a sub 2 today. it was a sub 2 effort, but external conditions were not setup right.