Collis in elite company pacing Breaking2 in Italy

Australian distance runner Collis Birmingham will be sharing the road with some of the best athletes in the world who are pacing, yes pacing, three men in Nike’s Breaking2 pursuit in Monza, Italy.

The 32-year-old will be one of at least 18 pacers from around the world who will be leading Eliud Kipchoge, Zersenay Tadese and Lelisa Desisa in groups on rotation around a 2.4km section of the Autodromo Nazionale Monza Formula One race track.

Reigning Olympic marathon champion Kipchoge, the third fastest man all-time over the distance with a personal best of 2:03:05, is the one most favoured to achieve the goal of a sub two-hour marathon.

Eritrean Tadese should find the pace early on relatively easy being the half marathon world record holder at 58:23 but is yet to find his way over the longer distance in his career.

An injury early in the year for Desisa had set his training back somewhat but with a personal best of 2:04:45 the two-time Boston marathon winner could still run a quick time.

Nike has left nothing to chance with their scientific preparation completing extensive tests on the athletes, course, weather and even have ultra-flat timing mats providing near instantaneous data on pace while they are running.

The date of the run was even given a three-day window so that the best conditions could be had for the runners, with it only being decided this week that it would start on Saturday at 5:45am local time in Milan.

A long list of Nike elite distance runners make up the group of pacers which includes the second fastest man over 1500m and two-time Olympic medallist Bernard Lagat.

Most pacers will have three stints out in front of the three 'racers' running in pre-selected groups for about five kilometres and then rotating out with the following pack taking over pacing duties.

Crunching the numbers to determine the paces for the sub-two quest is jaw-dropping, with the required kilometre splits at just over two minutes and 50 seconds – just over 68 seconds for one lap of an athletics track.

Therefore, to run 1:59:59 on Saturday morning in northern Milan the African trio will need to cover every five kilometres in just 14:13 which is only 51 seconds outside the qualifying mark for the London world championships.

Here we go 4 days to. pic.twitter.com/w47YgHktXb

— ESMINTL (@ESMINTL) May 2, 2017

Widely labelled as a marketing ploy, the Breaking2 pursuit will be using every aid possible from revolutionary shoes, a pack of interchangeable pacemakers and a non-traditional course to help the trio run a marathon in under two hours.

The world record currently sits with Kenyan Dennis Kimetto from his 2014 run in Berlin of 2:02:57 meaning a sub two-hour marathon will require an effort nearly a kilometre better than that mark.

Given the obvious advantages that are not available in a conventional marathon, any time clocked by the three men will not be ratified as an official world record or a personal best time.

Birmingham has some experience pacing on the roads, having done so in a few marathons in Japan in recent years.

Personal best times

He is currently training in preparation for his first real crack at a marathon later this year in Europe.

What are you smiling about Jack? #carlsbad5000

A post shared by Collis Birmingham (@collisbirmingham) on Apr 3, 2017 at 12:17pm PDT

Birmingham, a two-time Olympian, has been on a long comeback trail from injury and has recently come from a training camp with the Melbourne Track Club in Mt Laguna before arriving in Milan.

Earlier this year he clocked 29:31 for 10km in Hobart, which was followed by a 14:00 over 5K on the roads at the Carlsbad 5000 in San Diego.

Click here to read a detailed story by Alex Hutchinson for Runner's World who is in Italy.

Breaking2 will be available to watch on livestream at Nike’s website on Saturday at 1:45pm AEST