Ethiopia-born Dutch distance-running champion Sifan Hassan had four runners ahead of her as she crossed the London Eye, her feet pounding the rain-washed tarmac. There were 2 km to go to the finish line at the 2023 London Marathon on April 23. Under most circumstances, Hassan should not have been in the position she was in, shoulder to shoulder in the lead pack. This was her first marathon ever. She had not really prepared for it because of Ramadan, a month of fasting for Muslims: “For marathon training you need lots of mileage, which is hard to do if you can’t eat or drink through the day,” she had told journalists before the race. She had woken up on the morning of the race and asked herself if she was crazy to be even attempting it. Halfway through, it seemed like the race was over for Hassan when she pulled up with a cramp and lost half a minute standing and stretching while others passed by. Then it happened again and she stopped again for a quick stretch, her face twisted in pain. At around the same time she abruptly tried to cross the road to get a bottle of water and almost collided with a race bike. Then she missed grabbing a bottle at another station. It was more than evident that the double Olympic track champion was no marathon runner, and no surprise that she was struggling.
Then, ever so gradually, Hassan began to find her stride. The long legs hit a metronymic cadence. Signs of pain ebbed away from her face. She gently went past runner after runner, till she was with the lead pack. The pack rounded Parliament Square, past London’s important buildings—the Palace of Westminster, the Westminster Abbey—and Hassan had overtaken two more runners, including the defending champion Yalemzerf Yehualaw of Ethiopia. Now, her cadence rock-solid and tempo high, she was behind only two: the Tokyo Olympic champion Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya and Ethiopia’s Alemu Megertu in the lead.
With 500 metres to go, all three runners shifted gears, racing at, what seemed like, the limits of their capabilities. Yet, you had to wonder, what chance did Jepchirchir and Megertu, two classical distance runners, have against a track star like Hassan who sprints for a living? But then again, the other two had marathon-sized lung capacities, and Hassan had never done 42.2 km distance before, not even in training. When the three runners took the last bend to the 200m home stretch, Hassan kicked off. She cruised past the others like it was nothing, opening a yawning chasm of a lead in a fraction of a second, before running through the tape with her arms outstretched, laughing.
“I can’t believe it!” She screamed at no one, as she went down on her knees.
With that, one of the most extraordinary marathons in recent history came to an end. One in which a woman intent on pushing the boundaries of running and exploring the extraordinary, did exactly that to win her debut marathon, and where the Kenyan runner Kelvin Kiptum set the second fastest men’s marathon time ever.
The 30-year-old Hassan is burnishing her reputation as one of the greatest runners in history. She holds the 5k and Mile world records, and held the 10,000 m record too, but it was her decision to do the “triple” 5,000 m, 10,000m and 1,500 m races at the Tokyo Olympics, something no woman had done before, that marked her out as truly special. When she ended up with three medals—winning the 5,000 and 10,000 and third in the 1,500—something no athlete had ever done before, her status as a once-in-a-generation runner became clear.
Hassan, who was born in Ethiopia before she sought asylum in Netherlands at the age of 15, never let go of her love for running. She ran in school in Ethiopia, and even though she came to Europe with almost nothing except the clothes on her back, running remained a constant in her life. She became serious about the sport once she left school and joined a training college for nurses in Netherlands, and there was no looking back.
Her answer when asked by a journalist at the end of the London Olympics about why she attempts such extraordinary feats? “Because I’m a curious athlete,” she said, “I want to challenge myself, see where it takes me. I did not know anything about running a marathon before this, but now I know a little more.”
Now that’s an ominous answer.
Kelvin Kiptum sets the second fastest men’s marathon time ever
While Hassan was burning through to the finish line, another Kenyan legend-in-the-making, Kiptum was speeding through the second half of the London Marathon like a man possessed. It seemed like the 23-year-old, who had made his marathon debut just months ago at the Valencia Marathon in December 2022, was set to break Eliud Kipchoge’s incredible 2:01:09 marathon record in just his second race. Kiptum had set the fourth-fastest marathon time ever in his debut race, running the quickest ever second-half at just 15 seconds more than an hour, in Valencia.
In London, though he missed Kipchoge’s mark, Kiptum went one better than his debut, running the second-half at a blistering 59:45, to set the second-fastest marathon finish ever with a 2:01:25 finish. Just 16 seconds separate the world record and Kiptum. And, to make that point again, just because it seems quite difficult to believe—this was only his second ever marathon!
Kiptum is also 23, which is not even peak age for marathoners. Kipchoge, unofficially, holds a sub two-hour marathon time. Unofficial, because it was a running challenge specifically meant for him to try and break the mythical two-hour barrier, so it had things like a vehicle moving in front of him to protect him from drag and a laser guide that showed him how fast he should be running, things that are not allowed in official races. The running circle has been awash with debates about whether the two-hour barrier can ever be broken officially, and whether Kipchoge, the greatest ever marathon runner, will be the one to do it. Now it seems like Kiptum, the upstart, may just beat Kipchoge to it.
These are all crazy speeds we are talking about, and still crazier feats of speed-endurance. Kipchoge’s current world record is the equivalent of running a 100m sprint in 18 seconds, 422 times without a break or drop in pace. Put another way, Kipchoge manages to keep an average time of 3 minutes per kilometre for 42 km at a stretch.
Next time you have access to a treadmill, and someone who can spot you and help you (don’t do it alone), try running a km in 3 minutes just to get a feel of what that speed is like. Then imagine someone doing that for 42km. Then imagine someone trying to do better than that. That’s what a marathon at the elite level is like.
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