But there’s more to it than that.įor those interested in running science, the big question after Breaking2 was how much each of the various refinements and innovations contributed to Kipchoge’s performance. That’s a testament to Kipchoge’s totally unprecedented consistency. Instead, it felt more like watching Simone Biles corkscrewing through the air above the balance beam: you know something could go wrong at any moment, but you also know that it probably won’t. I woke up in the wee hours of Saturday morning expecting either to see Kipchoge struggle, or, if he didn’t, to relive some of the awe I felt when I watched his Breaking2 performance and his subsequent world record in Berlin last year. Kipchoge’s time of 2:00:25 at Breaking2 showed that he was close, and further refinements in logistics, fueling, drafting, and shoes made the barrier seem eminently possible.īut on a deeper, more intuitive level, I still clung to the notion that the marathon distance had some tricks up its sleeve-that just because something was theoretically possible didn’t mean it was probable or even likely.

This time, all the straw polls and online surveys I saw found that about two thirds of respondents thought he’d succeed. Two years ago, when Kipchoge was preparing for the Breaking2 marathon exhibition, fans and experts were nearly unanimous in dismissing his chances of even getting close to two hours. On an intellectual level, I already understood how far the goal posts have moved. The surprise, instead, came the next day in Chicago, when a less heralded Kenyan, Brigid Kosgei, slashed more than a minute off Paula Radcliffe’s 16-year-old marathon world record-a mark some scientists considered intrinsically harder than the two-hour barrier for men. He ran 1:59:40.2 for 26.2 miles, a feat that until a few years ago would have sounded like bad science fiction. The most surprising thing about Eliud Kipchoge’s barrier-smashing, rule-bending performance in Vienna over the weekend was how unsurprising it actually was.

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