After the members of the Olympic Sports Center Elite Running Club finished their individual warm-ups, they set off together.
Wang Qiuxia was the big sister of the group as well as its leader, and she took the lead at the front of the pack.
Jiang Yining ran level with her, the two of them leading side by side.
Leading from the front was more tiring than following behind.
First, they had to take on the task of breaking the wind for the runners behind them.
Although air resistance could neither be seen nor touched, it was a crucial factor in running.
In distance running, especially at top-level marathons, elite competitors would adopt a group-running strategy.
By changing formations effectively, they could greatly reduce air resistance and achieve better results!
According to research by sports science experts, an athlete running alone in windless conditions had an air resistance coefficient of 0.97.
But if the "test subject" ran sandwiched between two runners, one in front and one behind,
then the runner in the middle had a drag coefficient of just 0.11, only one-ninth of that when running alone.
The study showed that distance runners could significantly reduce air resistance through drafting strategies, thereby improving their results!
In 2019, an extreme Sub-2 challenge had been held in Vienna.
Before that, no human had ever completed a full marathon in under two hours.
Success in this challenge would carry extraordinary significance.
For this challenge, Nike had prepared a windbreaking team of as many as forty runners for Kipchoge, who was known as the god of the marathon.
This could effectively reduce the air resistance he encountered while running, creating an almost windless environment for him.
According to the final calculations, with the addition of the forty-person windbreaking team, the air resistance Kipchoge encountered while