Puma are the headline sponsor for the event, and one of my sponsors too. Their focus this year is to run with JOY, to make running a total JOY, so I am going to put together the Bolt JOY bus. I am swopping my sleek aero outfit and heart rate zones for a day to be a part of the masses who finish around 2 hours for the race. We (possibly just me at this point) will depart en masse from the start, with music, lights and vibes. I will be donning the Bolt arms in the picture here:

We’ll have a dedicated photographer (also probably myself but I promise to work on it), a dedicated refreshment stand at the top of the big hill of the day and some great laughs guaranteed on the day.

Joining the Runners World 2 hour bus, we`ll create what the Two Oceans & Puma’s vibe is all about – that the JOY of running is whats important, not the overall time. Yes, some among us want to race for 2 hours, but we may as well have a laugh along the way, listen to some music, pose with the Bolt Arms (will do my best to get a few more sets organised – mail me if you want to wear them) a few times and cheer on the crowds as we go. 2 hours seems an arb number but its a milestone for a lot of runners.

If you are at all keen on this, please drop me a mail on the contact page HERE to let me know you want to be a part of this.

Now copy the page address from this, and send it out on an email, tweet it, put it in your facebook profiles, and lets get the ball rolling on this.

Let’s experience the JOY of running, have some fun and just generally rock out!

Here is me…

and this is Bolt…

Only difference is that he holds numerous world records, olympic medals and had a range of personalised clothing from Puma named after him.

But I guess he’s no Ironman. thanks Puma for keeping my head firmly on my shoulders.

Maybe when he’s in SA they`ll let me open the set before he trashes the decks. maybe…

Rock that! this, from Science of Sport

The limits to performance

As mentioned last night, it’s still just too early to produce any kind of 10m splits, though hopefully the buzz will speed up the release of those numbers (if you have them, let me know!)

And, as is customary when a world record is broken, people are turning to the next world record and asking how low can it go? Bolt himself said that he could run 9.4s. Like Haile Gebrselassie’s prediction of a 2:03 marathon, a lot depends on whether you believe that 9.4s means 9.40s or 9.49s.

I certainly think something below 9.50 sec is possible, though it starts to approach what I believe is a limit for performance. Last year, some scientists predicted that the ceiling existed at 9.48s, although those predictions always come back to haunt scientists! Peter Weyand once threw out a figure of 6 seconds, though I think we can safely say that’s not going to happen.

One year ago, 9.58s was hypothetical only, and Bolt has pushed the event forward by two generations in one year (it was exactly a year, to the day, between Beijing and Berlin, incidentally. Bolt must enjoy August 16th). So given that improvement, why not 9.4s by 2010? I somehow don’t see it improving that much so soon, but perhaps small increments, and given a long career, Bolt might yet go sub-9.50s. Certainly, not much seems impossible for Usain Bolt, though there is so much hype and lack of objectivity around, it’s difficult to tease out real from make-believe!

Amazing. Another great article of Bolt vs Gay (that’s Tyson Gay not some rumor of ill intent) can be found here.

UNREAL! I really enjoyed that. It will power me through my afternoon session.