IF YOU'VE EVER watched Eliud Kipchoge run on TV, it is possible that your brain has thought, you know, he actually doesn't look like he's going all that fast.
Your brain is wrong. If you cheer at his next marathon, he will seem to blow by. If he passed you on a running path, he'd be gone faster than your dignity after eating a pre-group-run burrito. But because the motorbike-mounted camera is keeping that same incredible 13mph pace, our gray matter fails us. Our visual perception of motion relies on our brain's ability to compute how fast something is moving relative to objects around it. So if you've never witnessed Kipchoge in person, rest assured, he is going very, very fast.
At his marathon pace, he could literally run around the world in-wait for it-just under 80 days. He could run to the moon in 18,233 hours and 12 minutes. And he could kick it down Route 66 in just over a week.
It's not like Kipchoge is the only fast marathoner on the planet. In a Kipchoge-less world (perish the thought), we could be writing here about the world's second fastest marathoner ever, Kenenisa Bekele. His 2:01:41 from Berlin 2019 is not quite 0.4 percent slower-just 32 seconds-than Kipchoge's official 2:01:09 world record. But it's in that sliver of seconds where Kipchoge becomes a legend. It's why he was chosen to break the two-hour barrier-and why he pulled it off.
Slapping GOAT on every athlete having a moment isn't particularly scientific-or accurate. Superlatives unanchored by context tend to just float toward hyperbole. The greatest show on earth? Says who? The country's best yogurt? Using what metric? We wanted to understand that line between great and greatness-both what defines it statistically and creates it physically.
Denne historien er fra Issue 03, 2023-utgaven av Runner's World US.
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Denne historien er fra Issue 03, 2023-utgaven av Runner's World US.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
TO RUN 26.2 IS TO FEEL ALIVE
THE SUN IS rising from the east, and the waves of the Pacific crash below to the west.
LEAVE IT UP TO A PIECE OF PAPER TO TEACH YOU TO RUN EASY
BEFORE I FELL for running, I thought the hardest thing about the sport was the fast stuff: the speedwork, the sprints, and the intervals.
WHY-AND HOW-YOU SHOULD RUN DOUBLES
Those are just a few of the titles entered into my training log for the second run of a day.
FIND YOUR RUNNING COMMUNITY, ONLINE OR IN PERSON
I SIGNED UP for my first marathon while sobbing in the back of a rideshare, on my way to the airport to fly to my uncle's funeral.
FUEL WITH WHAT YOU WANT TO EAT
AS AN ULTRARUNNER, I'm all too familiar with the saying that long-distance running is an \"eating contest with a running component.\"
AT THE FERTILITY CLINIC, MY PAST CAUGHT UP WITH ME
I SAT IN the fertility doctor's office white walls, bare wooden desk, opaque window-alone.
THIS IS NOT AN ESCAPE STORY
AT 15, DARLENE STUBBS WALKED AWAY FROM A POLYGAMOUS CULT-THEN DISCOVERED A NEW LIFE AND COMMUNITY THROUGH RUNNING.
RUNNING WITH HANK
How my daughter's rambunctious mutt saved my sanity while she was lost to the darkness.
WHEN I FOUND OUT I HAD MS.I THOUGHT I'D NEVER RUN AGAIN.
I checked the pins on my bib, shimmied my spandex shorts into place, and teed up the stopwatch on my wrist.
A RUNNER'S GUIDE to sleep
Nike rocked the running world in 2018 when it released the Vaporfly 4%, claiming that the shoe could boost a runner's efficiency by that amount.
