After coming from a back-of-the-grid start to win the UCI Cyclocross World Cup in Hulst on Sunday, Mathieu van der Poel did what comes naturally to an endurance athlete: he headed straight from the intense hour-long race and clicked off a run at a pace most normal runners would struggle to hit when rested.
Van der Poel posted the file from his run to Strava, entitling it "Tempo celebration run", showing he covered 7km at a pace of 3:50 per kilometre.
Now, that's nowhere near the world-record pace – which is currently a 2:34 kilometre pace set by Ugandan Joshua Cheptegei in Monaco in 2020. Still, it is well within the range of the best amateur runners and remarkable considering Van der Poel appears to run only occasionally.
During his early November camp in Spain, Van der Poel clicked off a few short runs, generally averaging over 4 minutes per kilometre so he must have had extra motivation after his stunning victory over Laurens Sweeck and Eli Iserbyt.
Van der Poel's run was also not nearly as quick as Tom Pidcock's infamous 2021 5km run that made headlines as a near-world record effort. His 13:25 time later appeared to be a glitch in his Garmin.
Pidcock may still be the quickest runner of the 'big three' male cyclocross racers, with an estimated best 5km effort on Strava two minutes faster than Wout van Aert and a minute better than Van der Poel, but if his mechanical luck continues – like the broken wheel he suffered in Hulst and the broken shoe and jammed gears in Overijse – he might need those skills.
None of the three riders' running paces even come close to the best marathon runners' speed - Eliud Kipchoge clicked off 2:52 kilometres when setting the marathon record in Berlin in September (2:01:09). Each of his 5km splits during that marathon was faster than their best runs.
Of course, none of those times were set after a ridiculously hard hour-long cyclocross race.
Van der Poel will be back on his bike this weekend with Saturday's Superprestige race in Boom on his schedule as well as Sunday's World Cup round in Antwerp. At the latter, he's set to face off against Pidcock and Van Aert for the first time this season.
