Sub-Two, and all that!
Yesterday I had the privilege of watching (online) Eliud Kipchoge become the first person to run a marathon in under two hours, which he did with seeming ease. Of course the apparent margin of comfort he had belies the years of training that led up to the record breaking effort.
Four and a half years ago I saw Kipchoge in the flesh at the London marathon. Back then he was running in only his fifth full marathon, but already he was an up and coming champion of stratospheric status, having won three of his four previous races to that point. They were significant races, too: Hamburg, Berlin, Rotterdam and Chicago, and Wilson Kipsang, then, and still to date the only person to beat Kipchoge in a marathon had to run a world record to do so.
The photo below that I took that day in 2015 to me is astonishing, even more so now than it was at the time. It's at about the 30km point of the London race and shows four Kenyans: Wilson Kipsang (the previous world record holder), Dennis Kimetto (then the current world record holder), Kipchoge and another marathon great with a best time of 2h03m51s, Stanley Biwott. These four were battling for the win, with Kipchoge eventually just pipping Kipsang at the end, with Kimetto third and Biwott fourth. Just tucked in behind them is the Ethiopian Regassa who finished fifth.
The winning time that day was 2h04m42s, which seems almost turgid compared to the times we're seeing now, just four years later. Kipchoge's best marathon time to that point was 2h04m05s, which ironically was his second place behind Kipsang at the 2012 Berlin marathon. A year later at London again, he lowered that to 2h03m05s, a course record, and then audaciously began training for his first proper crack at breaking two hours, the Nike-sponsored 'Breaking 2' event at Monza in 2017, although there was the small matter of an Olympic gold medal prior to that at the Rio Olympics.
After coming close at Monza (2h00m25s), and then lowering the race world record to 2h01m39s at the 2018 Berlin marathon, it seemed just a question of time before he would indeed break the two-hour mark.
Watching all that unfold yesterday instantly reminded my of watching Armstrong stepping onto the moon a little over 50 years ago, it was that sort of momentous occasion. Of course it has also been likened to Bannister breaking the four-minute mile way back in 1954, and like that occasion, the hope is that now the barrier has been broken, many more will realise the possibility of it and continue to lower the mark. Of course, the first real step is to lower the race record to two hours. That will still require a great many things to go right on the day for the athlete who achieves it, but after watching Kenenisa Bekele two weeks ago clock 2h01m41s at the Berlin marathon, I feel it won't be that far away.
These are exciting times that I never thought I'd get to see, and such a welcome distraction from the relentless horrors of the everyday news bulletins of late.
My own running is so far at the other end of the scale I'll leave discussion of it until the next post, but it is all good news thus far.
Wow, how exciting is this?
Lazarus
