For a few moments on Sunday morning, I wasn鈥檛 sure who was more tired, me or Eliud Kipchoge. I had slept restlessly in the basement and set my alarm for 4 a.m. so that I could watch a grainy live stream of a bunch of bantamweights running a marathon through the streets of Berlin. Kipchoge, the 33-year-old reigning Olympic champion from Kenya, had just breasted the tape. But instead of wheezing or collapsing to the ground or even breaking stride, he had pounded his chest a couple of times, surged across the line鈥攁nd then accelerated, pumping his fist and slapping his forehead in disbelief before leaping like an amorous bride into the waiting arms of his longtime coach.
I was awake, albeit puffy-eyed, because I knew there was a chance Kipchoge would do something ridiculous, and that if he did and I only found out after the fact, the world would already have changed such that whatever he did would no longer seem impossible. I wanted to experience the transition between wild hypothetical and established truth in real time. And (in case you haven鈥檛 seen ) that鈥檚 exactly what happened. Kipchoge ran 2:01:39, slicing a stunning 78 seconds off the previous world record, by far the largest margin for more than half a century in an era of supposedly diminishing returns. After watching Kipchoge sprint around in celebration for a few minutes, I flicked off the iPad to get a few more hours of sleep before my kids kicked into gear. But I found that, like the man himself, I was too wired to slow down, so I lay there with my mind spinning about the new world we鈥檙e living in.
Last year, Kipchoge participated in Nike鈥檚 controversial marathon-slash-marketing-stunt-slash-science-experiment, Breaking2. After years of preparations and millions of dollars, : the course (a Formula One racetrack in Italy), the weather (the date of the race was only finalized a few days in advance, once good conditions were assured), the footwear (a new shoe that, according to Nike鈥檚 testing, makes runners 4 percent more efficient), and so on. Perhaps the most crucial detail: Kipchoge and two other runners were sheltered for the entire race by six pacemakers running in a tight arrowhead formation鈥攁 violation of world record rules, since fresh pacemakers joined the race partway through.
Under these hyper-optimized conditions, Kipchoge ended up running 2:00:25, which was short of the sub-two-hour goal, but well clear of the official record of 2:02:57 and miles ahead of what most pundits was possible. That set off two debates, one obvious and one less so. The obvious debate focused on what Kipchoge鈥檚 2:00:25 equated to under legitimate record-eligible conditions. How much was the drafting worth? The shoes? The myriad other details that Nike had finessed? But the more subtle debate looked instead to the future. What, if anything, would the Breaking2 performance mean for future runners in regular marathons? Had Kipchoge鈥檚 stunning run somehow altered the horizons?
The latter possibility was, in fact, one of the stated aims of the Breaking2 team. Seeing a human run under two hours (or, as it turned out, just over two hours), they said, would change our perspective and break down mental barriers, allowing subsequent runners to go faster under normal conditions. I initially found this argument unconvincing, but the more I spoke with Kipchoge, the more I started to believe it. 鈥淭he difference only is thinking,鈥 he told one reporter. 鈥淵ou think it鈥檚 impossible, I think it鈥檚 possible.鈥 And then, standing trackside at the Formula One circuit in Monza in May 2017 and watching Kipchoge flirt with the two-hour barrier, it began to seem real to me.
Last September, I wrote an for the New York Times in which I argued that the 2017 Berlin Marathon, Kipchoge鈥檚 first post-Breaking2 race, would be 鈥渁 real-life test of the 鈥榤ental barriers鈥 theory of human endeavor.鈥 Having run 2:00:25 in Breaking2, Kipchoge would sweep aside the old world record with ease. My prediction at the end of the article: 鈥淚 think he鈥檚 going to run 2:01-something.鈥
Then it rained. Kipchoge鈥檚 sodden winning time of 2:03:32 was still the seventh-fastest of all-time, a stunning performance but not a record. Seven months later (elite marathoners can rarely manage more than two supreme efforts a year), he tried again at the London Marathon. This time it was the heat, with temperatures of up to 75 degrees making it the . Again, Kipchoge won handily but fell short of the record. And as the months ticked by, I worried that the sands of time might be running low for Kipchoge, who will officially turn 34 in November聽but is to be several years older.
This year, when Michael Joyner, the man whose presaged the possibility of a two-hour marathon, called for predictions a few days before the Berlin race, I was circumspect. , just a few seconds under the old record鈥攚hich, as it turns out, was the most popular range of predictions鈥攁nd I thought I was being optimistic. Only seven of the 70 respondents to Joyner鈥檚 poll predicted sub-2:02.
On Sunday morning, Kipchoge had just passed the 10-mile mark when my alarm roused me. I鈥檇 gambled that nothing interesting would happen in the first 10 miles, but I was wrong. Already, two of Kipchoge鈥檚 three pacemakers had unexpectedly dropped out, leaving him with very little opportunity to draft鈥攐ne of the key advantages thought to have made his Breaking2 run possible. The third pacemaker lasted only until 25K, at which point Kipchoge was left to fend for himself for the last 17 kilometers (just over 10 miles) of the race. The commentators on the race broadcast worried that Kipchoge might accidentally accelerate once the last pacemaker dropped out, burning up precious reserves that would force him to slow down in the final miles. They were half right.
From 25 to 30K, Kipchoge did indeed accelerate, running 14:21, seven seconds faster than his previous 5K split. But instead of slowing, he then got even faster, running 14:18 for the next 5K. It became increasingly clear that he wasn鈥檛 going to hit the wall. He鈥檇 passed the halfway point in 1:01:06, very close to his seemingly suicidal pre-race plan of 1:01:00. He ended up running the second half, mostly by himself, in 1:00:33鈥攁 half-marathon time that . Superlatives are inadequate to express how crazily incomprehensible this is.
Here鈥檚 what sticks with me, now that I鈥檝e had a full night鈥檚 sleep to mull it. First, I think you can draw a direct line between 2:00:25 at Breaking2 and 2:01:39 in Berlin. This is not to claim that marathon performance is 鈥渁ll in your head,鈥 or that we鈥檇 all be capable of running 2:01 if we had Kipchoge鈥檚 self-belief. Far from it. But I have a hard time imagining Kipchoge requesting that his pacemakers hit the first half in 1:01:00 without having, in some artificial sense, been there before.
But can anyone surpass this mark? Right now, Kipchoge is the only human on the planet who can honestly tell himself that he鈥檚 capable of running in the 2:01s. But history tells us that others will come, and Kipchoge鈥檚 trailblazing will make it easier for them to follow. In fact, the failure of the pacemakers suggests that the new time isn鈥檛 even the full measure of Kipchoge鈥檚 own potential. Various attempts to quantify the benefits of perfect drafting have pegged the time saved as over the course of a two-hour marathon. Even if that estimate is too generous by a factor of two, having multiple pacemakers to 35K instead of a single pacemaker to 25K might subtract another 30 seconds or more.
I take that estimate with a big grain of salt, though, because you could also imagine that having more pacemakers might somehow have messed with Kipchoge鈥檚 rhythm or held him back. Maybe Sunday鈥檚 race was as perfect as it gets for Eliud Kipchoge. And maybe this record will stand for 10, or 20, or 50 years.
But I wouldn鈥檛 count on it. Now that we鈥檙e this close to the two-hour barrier, I鈥檓 guessing its allure will exert a steadily stronger gravitational pull, sucking more and more money, effort, and attention toward the chase for immortality. Breaking2 showed what can happen when all the variables are optimized; some of those lessons can be repurposed for a marathon held under record-eligible conditions. Maybe there are faster places than Berlin for a marathon (Joyner suggests the ); maybe money can buy better pacemakers than the ones who faltered on Sunday. Maybe there are more ways of optimizing the weather, the clothing, the drinks, and everything else.
I鈥檓 excited about that prospect; it鈥檒l be fun to watch. Still, I have one nagging doubt. What if it was all Kipchoge? What if, despite all the tweaks and innovations, the marathon hasn鈥檛 changed at all? In a way, that would be the best聽outcome, because it would give us the unique generational bragging rights of having had the opportunity to watch the greatest of all time at his peak. That possibility, in the end, will keep waking me up before dawn a few mornings a year for as long as Kipchoge keeps running.
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