Boston Marathon 2024 Elite Men Slow Motion Analysis

Sisay Lemma's huge gap on the field, Mohamed Esa overtaking Evans Chebet for second, and Chebet placing third after an achilles injury compromised his training... running form analysis reveals some of the reasons the race played out this way.
In this video, running form expert Jae Gruenke shares both slow-motion and normal speed footage from around Heartbreak Hill and shows how Lemma held on for first place, how Esa had the power to take second, and how Chebet may still be affected by his achilles issue.
Are you wondering what Jae would see if she analyzed your running form? Book a video analysis here: www.balancedrunner.com/work-w...
Many thanks to Evan Bourcier of Challenger Media and to Jay L for the video footage.
Check out these playlists to dive deeper:
Elite Running Form Analysis: • Elite Running Form Ana...
Everything You Need to Know About How to Swing Your Arms When You Run: • Everything You Need t...
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[@FPS1200]

I hope to see the women's analysis as I am always looking to learn more about how women run and what needs their feet have to improve my Reflexology and Gait Analysis for them.

[@balancedrunner]

Sorry to disappoint you this time around, but I won't be able to do a women's analysis for Boston.This men's analysis took me somewhere around 25 hours, and the London marathon is this Sunday, so I don't have enough turnaround time to do a second Boston video before I look at London. However you can find my analyses of Hellen Obiri and Sharon Lokedi, who came in first and second, in the Elite Running Form Analysis playlist. I analyzed each of them after they won NYC last year and the year before (respectively). They ran basically the same in Boston, so those analyses are still relevant.

[@balancedrunner]

Thanks for watching! Post your questions below and I'll answer as many as I can.

[@matthewnewnham-runner-writer]

Fascinating as ever, Jae - thanks very much. - Best wishes from Spain 😎

[@balancedrunner]

Thank you, Matthew!

[@staffandahlgren1805]

Thanks Jae, interesting as always! It was quite intriguing to watch the difference in running form between the top men last monday, the very tigh arm carriage and movement by Lemma and the smooth, springy stride by Esa (who ran in Nike AlphaFly3 btw). All these supershoes have carbon plates of course. the AlphaFly has have airpods in the forefoot that is supposed to work together with the place and the ZoomX midsole cushioning. Research have shown that it's more the midsole working together with the place creating the spring effect, rather than the carbon plate alone. Watching the women surging between 35-40k in 15:06 was even more fascinating, I become tired myself wathing Obiris arm swing but I know that's a powerful way of creating force, even though it looks hard :)

[@balancedrunner]

Glad you liked the video, and thanks for the shoe info! As you know, I really hate supershoes and can't stand to do research about them... and with Esa's form I doubt he really needed them. I focused in on that double pulse in the feet because I am concerned about the effect some of these shoes have on the achilles, and this type of thing would be one mechanism. I wish I had time to do an analysis of the women as well but I'm going to have to turn my attention to London instead. But with Obiri's armswing, just remember it isn't that she swings her arms big, it's that she lets her whole upper body capture ground reaction force and release it, and that's a lot easier than just swinging the arms alone (and it's why her head moves so much). Chebet has some of this in common with her.

[@fecardona]

10:04 Interesting you mention this - he’s the one in the analisys that is wearing a shoe with an “air pocket” or similar to a pump, in the midsole. It’s the Nike Alphafly 3, those red “cells” at the forefoot are definitely visible ‘at work’ in the footage.

[@balancedrunner]

Interesting! Thanks for sharing that.

[@jameschaves5723]

I find this comical. Do people really spend money on learning running form? God bless you for helping them

[@staffandahlgren1805]

Although running is a natural gait for us a lot of people don't actually know how move/run nowadays, just take a look around you, e.g., at a race. A lot of runners are injured every year, a lot of people don't really understand how a running stride works, where the power comes from and so on. I led a beginner group of runners for a couple of year in the past and I heard a lot of missconceptions and preconceived ideas about how they thought running should look like and work. A couple of years after stopping leading this group some participants still thank me for making their running feel easier, more fluent, more harmonius. Sure, most people run better if they run more but there's certainly no disadvantage of learning more about running form and movement.