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“We keep talking about the sub-two,” Nurse remembers saying. The game found its way to the retreat in Sisters, where Nurse tasked the NSRL team to imagine how they could make a two-hour marathon a reality. A parlor game arose among physiologists and statisticians, arguing when we might see the first sub-two: in 10 years, 25 years, 70 years, never. In the past 20 years, as the world record continued to inch downward, the debate over whether a sub-two might actually happen became more and more contentious. In other words, the sub-two was possible, but only just, and only in theory. By analyzing three main factors that limit a runner’s performance-VO 2 max (the maximum oxygen an athlete can consume while running), lactate threshold (the running speed above which lactic acid in the muscles accumulates prohibitively), and running economy (the efficiency with which a runner moves down the road)-Joyner argued that the perfect time for the perfect athlete in perfect conditions was 1:57:58. In 1991, when the world best for the marathon was 2:06:50, an American physician named Michael Joyner wrote a now famous paper, published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, estimating the best possible time for a marathon runner. Over the past century, the world’s best time for the marathon dropped at an average rate of about five minutes per decade, driven by the professionalization of the sport as well as advances in shoe technology. In 1896, in the first Olympic marathon race, only one man broke three hours-the winner, Spiridon Louis, of Greece-and that race was less than 25 miles long, rather than the 26.2 that became standard in 1921. It was a science fiction idea, long dismissed by aficionados of the sport as a waste of time and energy. An American physician named Michael Joyner argued that the perfect time for the perfect athlete in perfect conditions was 1:57:58.