# Eliud Kipchoge: Two-hour marathon barrier broken by Kenyan in Ineos 1:59 challenge



## MAPK phosphatase (Oct 12, 2019)

https://news.yahoo.com/eliud-kipchoge-two-hour-marathon-062700856.html



Spoiler



Eliud Kipchoge has broken the two-hour marathon barrier at the Ineos 1:59 challenge in Vienna.

The Kenyan ran 1:59:40 to complete the 26.2 mile distance in the fastest time in history.

Utilising a rotating group of pacemakers, thus making the time not an official world record, and wearing the Nike ZoomX Vaporfly shoe, Kipchoge became the first athlete to run the distance in under two hours.

He had previously pushed the mark close in a similar attempt at the Monza Formula One racetrack near MIlan in 2017.

Kipchoge ran 2:00:25 on that occasion, but added extra pacemakers and allowed fans to line the streets for this attempt.

The tweaks worked, with Kipchoge holding a consistent pace throughout the run, consistently tracking at about ten seconds below the two-hour barrier, bettering his previous mark to make history.

Kipchoge is the holder of the official marathon World Record, a time of 2:01:39 set at the Berlin Marathon last year.

He has won eight World Marathon Majors, and took marathon gold in Rio at the 2016 Olympic Games.


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## Immortal Technique (Oct 12, 2019)

Pretty amazing to run a marathon at a constant 13mph clip. He wasn't even tired after the race either, which makes me think he could've done it faster too.


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## Denmark Mafia (Oct 12, 2019)

This is only possible with heavy substance abuse but they all do it, it's still an amazing feat.


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## Cedric_Eff (Oct 13, 2019)

Denmark Mafia said:


> This is only possible with heavy substance abuse but they all do it, it's still an amazing feat.


I guess training your body to run at a higher altitude is like substance abuse.


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## Denmark Mafia (Oct 13, 2019)

Cedric_Eff said:


> I guess training your body to run at a higher altitude is like substance abuse.



Yeah, no athlete has thought of that one before. You should alert them immediately.


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## MidUSA (Oct 15, 2019)

It's not really a proper marathon run since he had paceholders placed along the entire track, a new one each kilometer.

Still very impressive of course and theoretically he could have ran the same time in a real marathon, though in practice it's a lot harder without the rotating paceholders.


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## W00K #17 (Oct 20, 2019)

MidUSA said:


> It's not really a proper marathon run since he had paceholders placed along the entire track, a new one each kilometer.
> 
> Still very impressive of course and theoretically he could have ran the same time in a real marathon, though in practice it's a lot harder without the rotating paceholders.




And the paceholders ran in front of him in a v shape like how geese fly to cut down on his wind resistance, kinda like drafting behind a semi.


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