What does it take to run a marathon in under 2 hours?
What does it take to run a marathon in under 2 hours?
This incredible feat was run at an average pace of 2:50 per kilometre (4:34 per mile).
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To give some context to how fast that is, at his average pace, this is how long it would take to cover the following common race distances:
| Distance | Time |
|---|---|
| 100 Metres | 00:17 |
| 200 Metres | 00:34 |
| 400 Metres | 01:08 |
| 800 Metres | 02:16 |
| 1500 Metres | 04:15 |
| 1 Mile | 04:34 |
| 2 Miles | 09:07 |
| 5k | 14:10 |
| 5 Miles | 22:48 |
| 10k | 28:20 |
| 10 Miles | 45:36 |
| Half Marathon | 59:47 |
That means a 2-hour marathon is like running over eight 5k’s, back to back, in 14 minutes and 10 seconds each. That's a fast 5k in itself without it being just a small part of the run.
Related: Pace Converter.
This tweet from parkrun helps put Kipchoge's effort into perspective, of those eight 5k's he ran today, only five parkruns have ever been faster!
💡 To put Eliud Kipchoge's sub 2 hour marathon into perspective:
— parkrun 🌳 (@parkrun) October 12, 2019
Only FIVE of the 51,363,611 parkruns completed have been faster than Eliud's pace 😵
Official 5k Splits
| Distance | Time | Split |
|---|---|---|
| 5km | 00:14:10 | 14:10 |
| 10km | 00:28:20 | 14:10 |
| 15km | 00:42:34 | 14:14 |
| 20km | 00:56:47 | 14:13 |
| 25km | 01:10:59 | 14:12 |
| 30km | 01:25:11 | 14:12 |
| 35km | 01:39:23 | 14:12 |
There was a pace car driving throughout the run until the last 2km that was marking the target pace on the road via a laser so it’s no surprise that split times were as consistent as just 4 seconds difference per 5k between fastest and slowest splits, but keeping up with it on foot is an incredible achievement and is truly a landmark moment in distance running.
Not a record
But this isn’t considered a world record for a few reasons, firstly it wasn’t run in an officially sanctioned race, this event was staged for this record attempt and a race with a single participant isn’t eligible for records. Other operational reasons it can’t be a record are due to pacemaker groups switching in and out and drinks being handed to Eliud from bike riders rather than them being picked up from a table.
But this was never about records, it was about proving that running a marathon in under two hours is humanly possible right now.
So, the official marathon world record stays with Eliud’s own run of 2:01:39 at the Berlin Marathon in 2018.
If you put any value in age grading tables and scores, this would be an age graded score of 103.2% which isn’t that surprising really as this was run at above world record pace.
Related: Age grade calculator.
Read More: Age grading.
The question now becomes when will someone manage this during a race?
