The #1 Running Scientist Who Helped Eliud Kipchoge Break 2 Hours In The Marathon Shares What Actually Makes Runners Faster — And What Most Are Getting Wrong
THE RUNNING EFFECT PODCAST
Dominic Schlueter
4.9 • 821 Ratings
🗓️ 1 April 2026
⏱️ 72 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A sub-2-hour marathon was supposed to be impossible. Then Dr. Brad Wilkins built the mathematical model that proved it wasn't, and Nike handed him the keys to make it happen.
In 2017, Kipchoge ran 2:00:25 at Breaking2—25 seconds short. Close enough to prove the science was right. Two years later, the 1:59:40 happened in Vienna. The blueprint Wilkins built made that possible.
Now he's back in a university lab asking an even bigger question: what is the actual ceiling of human performance? Spoiler: he doesn't think there is one.
From the gut bacteria influencing your race day performance, to the hormone data that's about to change how women train forever, to the super shoe numbers the industry doesn't want you to see, Dr. Brad Wilkins is bringing the actual science, not the headlines.
He'll tell you why your wearable is lying to you, why your brain quits long before your body has to, and why most of what you've heard about VO2 max, altitude, and recovery is noise dressed up as wisdom.
Ten years inside Nike's most secretive labs. Forty-plus published manuscripts. One bold claim: humans have no limits.
This is the episode that changes how you train.
Tap into the Dr. Brad Wilkins Special.
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If this episode blesses you, please share it with a friend!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | There's a version of training that elite athletes and their coaches understand, built on actual |
| 0:04.3 | physiology, actual lab data, actual science. |
| 0:07.2 | And then there's the version the rest of us are piercing together from podcast clips and Garumann |
| 0:11.2 | notifications. |
| 0:12.2 | Today's guest lives on the first side of that line. |
| 0:14.6 | His name is Dr. Brad Wilkins. |
| 0:16.0 | He's a sports physiologist at the University of Oregon, a former researcher at Nike, where he |
| 0:20.4 | helped with the |
| 0:20.9 | Breaking 2 project where Iliu Kipchogi ultimately came just short of breaking two hours in the |
| 0:26.1 | marathon, but the studies and the findings from that Breaking 2 project ultimately allowed him to |
| 0:31.0 | break it on his second try. And he's someone who has lab tested some of the best distance runners |
| 0:35.5 | in the world. In this conversation, we cover what V-O-2 match actually measures, whether double threshold training belongs |
| 0:41.6 | outside the professional ranks, and what the research says about altitude tents, sauna, cold |
| 0:46.7 | plunge, all this stuff you're either doing or considering. This conversation is remarkably |
| 0:50.9 | dense. Pay attention. It is a science class with one of the best sports |
| 0:54.9 | scientists in the entire world. This guy, Dr. Brad, has studied under some of the greatest |
| 0:59.8 | minds in the sport, in the research world, science world, and he has condensed it all into this |
| 1:04.9 | masterful 70-ish minute conversation. This one is, again, super dense. It's going to help you |
| 1:09.7 | become a better runner, a better athlete, and understand why you're doing what you're doing, what you should change, what you should start doing, and many other practical tools, literally from a 70-minute conversation. You will be a better runner on the other side of this. Give us a five-star view. Help us out. Take three to five seconds. Hit the subscribe button so you don't miss more conversations like this in the future and share the podcast with a friend I'm trying to get back on Spotify's charts. |
| 1:30.4 | For top sports podcasts in the U.S., put running on the map, help me do that by sharing the podcast |
| 1:34.9 | with as many people as you know and without further ado. |
| 1:37.2 | Enjoy science class with the one and only Mr. Dr. Brad Wilkins. |
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