SUB- 2.00

It was one of sport’s great question marks: Is it humanly possible to run 26.2 miles – 42.1km – in under two hours? Then Eliud Kipchoge did it. What followed was international fame – and plenty of controversy. So we flew to Kipchoge’s ultra-rarefied Kenyan training ground to meet the man who pulled off the impossible

- KNOX ROBINSON

In the hills of the Kenyan highlands, among the world’s most spectacular marathon runners, morning comes early, with the 5am ring of a bicycle bell.

It’s December 2019, and Eliud Kipchoge is stirring in the predawn gloom, already thinking about the workout – one of his first hard runs since he made history earlier in October, finishing a marathon course in Vienna in under two hours. That achievement – thought for decades to be impossible – instantly made Kipchoge famous around the world. But it did little to alter the rhythms of his ascetic life at the rural training camp where he lives six days a week, sequestered from even his own family. Here the walls of his room are virtually bare, except for a picture of Paulo Coelho pinned above his bed and a quote from the Brazilian novelist: “If you want to be successful, you must respect one rule: Never lie to yourself.”

Kipchoge slips on his black half tights, his blue half-zip top, his Nike trainers. And then he’s outside, greeting a dozen or so teammates in the blue darkness before sunrise. I’ve been invited to join the workout, something of a rarity for a journalist – and a daunting prospect for a 45-year-old amateur.

The elevation is no small challenge. The camp is perched at nearly 8,000ft, overlooking the Great Rift Valley, in a swath of East Africa regarded as the greatest hotbed of distance runners in the world. Along with Kipchoge, our ranks include Geoffrey Kirui, who won the 2017 Boston Marathon, and the unrelated Abel Kirui, the 2012 Olympic silver medallist. Nearly every man in the group has run a marathon in under two hours and ten minutes – a feat only three American runners managed last year. I’m hoping I can hang for even a few miles in such lofty company.