Kenyan runner Eliud Kipchoge nearly breaks marathon’s two-hour barrier

In 1954, Roger Bannister famously ran the first sub-four-minute mile with a time of 3:59.4. Fourteen years later, Jim Hines ran the first sub-ten-second 100 meters, crossing the finish line one hundredth of a second under the then fabled barrier. Fast forward to the present day where one significant time threshold remains unbreached… but barely.

In Berlin last year, Eliud Kipchoge set a new record in the marathon with a time of 2 hours, 1 minute, 39 seconds, breaking the old record set in 2014 by Dennis Kimetto by 1 minute and 18 seconds. Amos Kipruto crossed the finish line nearly five minutes after Kipchoge, to come in second place with a time of 2:06:23.

In 2017, running on a flat 1.5-mile Formula One race track in Monza, Italy, Kipchoge came within half a minute of becoming the first-ever marathoner to break the two-hour barrier. The Kenyan’s time of 2:00:25 was more than a minute faster than his 2018 Berlin Marathon time, but did not qualify for the record book as pacers were employed in the attempt.

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Kipchoge’s run at history was part of Nike’s Breaking2 project, which aims to break the two-hour barrier through optimization of conditions (ideal course and weather), high-tech shoes, and exact pacing.

Kipchoge, who won last the 2015 Berlin Marathon with a time of 2:04:00, managed to maintain the necessary pace for the first 19 miles, before losing steam ever so slightly over the final seven.

The following chart shows the world record progression in the marathon by each breach of a 5-minute barrier. A couple of things stand out; first, the flurry of faster times posted from the first officially recorded time in 1908, to 1913 — by which date 17 minutes had already been shaved from the world record, and second, the span of 27-years (1925 to 1952) between the 2:30 barrier and 2:25 barrier being breached.

*Fastest time ever recorded, but not a world record due to the utilization of pacers.

As daunting as the 2-hour marathon may seem, there is still opportunity to go even faster. Michael J. Joyner, who runs the Human Integrative Physiology Lab at the Mayo Clinic, published a paper in 1991 which calculated that a 1:57:58 marathon was physiologically possible.