Who Is Eliud Kipchoge? The World’s Fastest Marathon Runner
The marathon GOAT has done it again. At the 2022 BMW Berlin Marathon on Sunday, Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge ran 2:01:09 to win the race and take 30 seconds off the world record he set on the same course four years ago.
They say the pen is mightier than the sword. In the case of Eluid Kipchoge, the lack of either didn’t stop him from beginning his journey which would eventually lead to him being considered the greatest marathon runner of all time.
When he was 18, he was offered a training plan by prominent coach Patrick Sang, but without a pen, he was forced to improvise: “I just got a stick and wrote the plan for 10 days down on my arm,” Kipchoge says. “Then I just crammed it in my head, rushed home, and got a pen and paper to write down what he had told me while it was fresh in my mind.”
This is the story of how Eliud Kipchoge became the world’s fastest marathon runner.
Kipchoge’s Early Career
He was brought up by a single mother who worked as a teacher and is the youngest of four. Like so many of his fellow East African youngsters, his early experience of running was more as an essential means of transport, where he ran to and from school daily.
For a long time, running was merely a hobby and he enjoyed the freedom of it. Although it was not until he had that chance encounter with Patrick Sang that he started to consider devoting more time to running.
He travelled to Dublin in 2002 to compete in the World Cross Country Championships and competed in the junior men’s race – he finished a solid 5th and helped the Kenyan win team gold. Meanwhile, the Ethiopian athlete, Kenenisa Bekele, completed the double by winning both the 4km and 12km in the Men’s Senior category.
Unbeknown to all was that nearly 20 years later they would be considered the two finest marathon runners on the planet and their long-awaited head-to-head was keeping fans on their tenterhooks.
He returned to the event a year later and won the race outright! This was followed up by a remarkable performance in winning the 5000m at the World Championships in Paris, outsprinted by both Bekele and Hicham El Guerrouj.
He later had considerable success at later World Championships and Olympic Games, winning a total of 1 gold, 2 silvers, and 1 bronze in the 2003-2008 period. Despite this impressive track career, Kipchoge was surprisingly left out of the Kenyan Olympic squad in London in 2012. Perhaps, this then sparked his decision to focus on the marathon event in 2013.
The Simple Life
Despite having made a lot of money from his marathon wins, appearance fees, and sponsorship deals, Kipchoge prefers the simple life. He lives in a modest home and doesn’t shy away from the chores in the training camp, helping with the cleaning like the other athletes. Honest, humble, and hardworking are central to his philosophy.
He has avoided getting too carried away with success and fame and has not fallen into the trap that has affected some other successful Kenyan athletes. Daniel Komen is maybe the best example of this as after setting the world alight in two years between 1996 and 1998 with a WR in the 3000m of 7.20.67, he lost the motivation to train and retired from the sport at the age of 26.
Consistency is something he does best, and it is believed that you could count on one hand the number of training sessions he has missed in 20 years. Also, his former teammate Abel Kirui describes him as a smart, organized, and disciplined person: “If he says dinner is at 7pm, dinner will be at 7pm. If it is time for sleeping, it is time for sleeping. He is always on time.”
Taking On The Marathon
Going into the Berlin marathon on 16 September 2018, Kipchoge had an incredible marathon streak of 8 wins from 9. Amazingly, when Kipchoge crossed the line that day at 2:01:39, he smashed the existing world by an unbelievable 1 minute and 20 seconds.
The time was impressive, but a year before that, Kipchoge had run even quicker. He was part of Nike’s Breaking2 Project, a promotional event showcasing the Nike Vaporfly 4% shoe as the secret weapon in breaking the 2-hour barrier in the marathon.
The race was held on a Formula One track in Italy with a group of world-class athletes acting as pacemakers and Kipchoge narrowly missed dipping under the magical 2-hour mark running a 2:00:25.
Not one to rest on his laurels, Kipchoge announced that he would try again to become the first person to run a sub-two-hour marathon in the INEOS 1:59 Challenge.
The event took place in Vienna on October 12th, 2019 and with the help of a group of excellent pacemakers, advanced technology, and favourable weather conditions, he accomplished the once believed impossible, running 1:59:40.
Eliud Kipchoge finally found his limit, it’s now time for him to run Boston and New York. Even though we’ve seen Kipchoge run almost that fast for the first half of Breaking 2 and the INEOS 1:59 Challenge, it was remarkable to see him do it in a race that actually counted.
Kipchoge later revealed that he was not planning on going out that hard but made the decision to target sub-2:00 after feeling good early. “I was planning to go through in 60:50, 60:40,” Kipchoge said on the race broadcast. “I thought my legs were running actually very fast, and I thought, oh let me just try to run two hours flat.”
Kipchoge is famous for saying “no human is limited” but today he found his limit. He could not manage a sub-2:00 pace for an entire marathon, and while he slowed down way less than any other marathoner would he still slowed, to 61:18 for his second half.
Had Kipchoge even split a 2:01:09 today and looked good doing it, there would have inevitably been some momentum to see if he could break 2:00 in Berlin next year. Instead, Kipchoge went for the sub-2:00 today and did not come particularly close.
But he still succeeded in his pre-race goal, which was to take a hefty chunk off his existing world record. Kipchoge is now 32 seconds faster than the next-fastest human but he’s still 69 seconds away from sub-2:00:00.
There’s no good reason for him to return to Berlin next year. And no good reason not to run Boston and New York – the two marathons remaining in his stated goal to run and win all six World Marathon Majors. And the only two world marathon majors that don’t have rabbits and aren’t flat and fast.
This record could stand for 20 years
Kipchoge is now 32 seconds faster than the #2 man in history, Bekele, and a whopping 1:39 ahead of the #3 man, Birhanu Legese. Considering Kipchoge is the greatest marathoner in history and ran today in near-perfect conditions (53 degrees, cloudy, 2 mph wind, 82% humidity, 48 dew point) on a fast course with the latest shoe technology, this world record could stand for some time.
History says it’s unlikely that Kipchoge (or Keira D’Amato) will ever PR again. As mentioned, Eliud Kipchoge may never take another crack at a PB in his career. But even if he does, history says it’s going to be tough to achieve.
This was the last marathon that both Eliud Kipchoge and Keira D’Amato will run as 37-year-olds. D’Amato (DOB: October 21, 1984) is 15 days older than Kipchoge (DOB: November 5, 1984). Guess how many of the fastest 100 marathoners in history have run their PBS at age 38 or later?
For the men, the answer is zero. For women, the answer is one. Namibia’s Helalia Johannes ran 2:19:52 at age 40 in Valencia in 2020. Of course, Kipchoge’s dedication is legendary and he’s constantly breaking records.
Today, he actually set a new world record of sorts. Of the 100 fastest men in history, he’s older than all of the other men were when they set their PBS. At 37 years, 324 days old, he is 216 days older than when Kenenisa Bekele set his 2:01:41 PB in Berlin in 2019.
Before today, Bekele was the only man in the top 100 who had set his PB at age 37 or later. For the women, two other women besides Johannes have run their PB at age 37 or later. Sara Hall ran 2:20:32 at age 37 at the Marathon Project in 2020. And D’Amato ran 2:19:12 at age 37 in Houston earlier this year.
How Eliud Kipchoge Trains For A Marathon
Training at altitude is a common theme when it comes to East African athletes and it is regarded as one of the key factors behind the continued success of these athletes across endurance events.
Kipchoge bases himself in a training camp in Kaptagat. It is 8,000 feet above sea level. Even though his wife and children live in nearby Eldoret, he chooses to live there with other athletes. The environment suits him, and it allows him to have no distractions so he can focus on the task at hand.
The typical weekly schedule will include a focus on building aerobic endurance – a long run of 30-40 km usually on a Sunday, supplemented with double run days on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, covering distances between 10-18 km.
Tempo runs are an essential part of his preparation for marathons and include both shorter tempos of between 10km and 25km and some long hard tempos of up to 35km.
On Tuesdays, he focuses on quicker workouts at 3k and 5k paces on the track and on Saturdays, a fartlek session would be the norm. As the training progresses over the period, Kipchoge and his fellow athletes will become comfortable covering distances of close to 200 km a week.
In addition to clocking up the mileage, Kipchoge usually fits in 1 Strength and conditioning session and 2 Core sessions each week. The strength, conditioning and core sessions are essential for aiding stabilization and injury prevention.
Moreover, the importance of rest and recovery to Kipchoge is vital for him and it is believed that he has up to three massage and physio sessions a week and uses ice baths after particularly hard runs.
Eliud’s Reasons For Success
There has been a lot written about the advantages that East African athletes have over their competitors. These include the benefits of both living and training at altitude, the building of the aerobic base from a young age as a means of getting to and from school, and other factors such as a diet that is high in complex carbohydrates, vegetables, and low in fat and simple sugars.
Several things make the Kenyan athletes and Kipchoge stand apart from the rest. They don’t stick rigidly to a marathon training plan. You have to be flexible. It’s that adage that you’ve got to listen to your body, but it is true. Kipchoge will change his schedule around if he is feeling particularly tired after a hard session.
You have to get everything else right around training and recovering and you really have to sacrifice a lot. It’s that monk- or nun-like existence that you have to buy into if you’re going to achieve what you’re ultimately capable of in the long term.
They benefit from running on a lot of undulating terrain and hill running. Some of the physios who work with the leading east African runners will tell you when you look at their feet and their lower legs, they are extremely muscular.
Kipchoge has incredible fatigue resistance. His VO2 max and running economy don’t deteriorate much over 2 hours” – he has incredible fatigue resistance.
Then comes his mindset, and his willingness to challenge his limits: He has unwavering, unshakeable confidence in his own ability and coaching, training, and preparation. He dares to think beyond the current limits.
