The numbers speak for themselves: 15 victories in 17 starts. Two world records. Two Olympic gold medals. The first human to run 26.2 miles in under two hours. Give me a break. In the decade since Eliud Kipchoge made his debut at the 2013 Hamburg Marathon, the now 38-year-old Kenyan has demolished the grading curve for marathon mastery. In most other sports, the question of who deserves to be called the GOAT is reliable fodder for bar-side bickering. In the marathon, there is no debate.
If anything, Kipchoge’s dominance has created the opposite problem for the running commentariat: What more can be said about someone who seems to win every race, in an event where that kind of consistency isn’t supposed to be possible? Fortunately, Kipchoge’s outsize aura means that every detail of his existence has the potential to become supercharged with significance. In September, after he won the Berlin Marathon in 2:01:09, slicing 30 seconds off his own world record, The New York Times and Runner’s World both published articles on his water-bottle guy.
“My number one achievement is running under two hours,” he told me…
