Eliud Kipchoge remains marathon's big boss after world record showing in Berlin

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  • For a man who is considered the greatest marathon runner of all time, Eliud Kipchoge is not your typical celebrity.

    At his training base on the outskirts of Eldoret in Western Kenya, he scrubs toilets, draws water from the local well and helps clean the dusty athletics track where he trains with his friends daily.

    His fellow athletes call him ‘the boss’, and he certainly lived up to that billing when breaking the world record at the Berlin Marathon on Sunday in sensational fashion.

    His time of 2hr 01min 39sec was enough to shave 78 seconds off the previous best time set by Dennis Kimetto at the same venue four years ago.

    But the fact that he ran the last 17 kilometres on his own, without pacemakers who dropped off and could’t keep up with his speed, was even more scintillating.

    Nevertheless, the Kenyan has proved under intense spotlight and media attention that nothing is impossible when it comes to marathon running.

    Last year, he attempted to break the two-hour marathon barrier as part of Nike’s Breaking2 project in Monza. Although his time of 2:00:25 was not an official record because of the pacing and hydration strategies employed during the race, his finish that day proved Kimetto’s record was beatable.

    In Germany at the weekend, his splits were breathtaking: his average speed was 13mph and the average pace was 2.83 minutes-per-km for each kilometre of the 42.195km race.

    To break that down further, he ran every 400m in 68.8 seconds and covered 30km in 1:26:45, the fastest time ever recorded for that distance.

    Of course, there will be some onlookers who will be suspicious of his achievements, and that is understandable due to the various problems that exist across athletics. But no negativity has ever been drawn towards Kipchoge and his coach Patrick Sang because of their openness over the years.

    In fact, this outstanding achievement has been nearly 15 years in the making. The 33-year-old claimed gold at the world championships over 5,000m in 2003, and went on to seal silver and bronze at the 2004 and 2008 Olympics. In 2012, he moved up to marathon distance and clinched Olympic gold four years later in Rio de Janeiro.

    Since turning to the 42.195km distance, Kipchoge has notched up 10 wins from the 11 marathons he has raced, winning three times in Berlin and London, as well as victory in Hamburg, Rotterdam and Chicago.

    But what now for the Kenyan after breaking the world record? He still has time on his side to attempt to dip under two hours, but he will need to beat the mark soon before he slows up. He turns 34 in November.

    Finding a pacemaker to stay with him further into the race would be a massive help, pushing him to the maximum in order to squeeze every ounce of energy from his legs. Very few people in the world can keep up with him beyond 15 miles.

    When he crossed the finish line on Sunday, he looked fresh and didn’t appear to have run to the absolute brink of his limitations.

    And, the significant question will be whether his coach Sang opts to change his race schedule or training programme over the next year to cope with the various commitments that being the best in the world brings.

    In a famous research paper in 1991, Dr. Michael Joyner predicted the absolute human limit to be 1hr 58mins. Then, with the record at 2:06:50 – that seemed a ridiculous prediction to make.

    The record has been broken 10 times since then, with over four minutes being shaved off the previous time of 2:06:05 set that year.

    Two hours may seem a surreal target, but Kipchoge’s heroics in Berlin has certainly given hope to a younger generation of athletes to continue to push the boundaries in their quest to achieve the inhumane.

    It’s clear that this time will be challenged, but thanks to Kipchoge, it can really open the eyes of the running community that this is possible.

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