Runner puts in remarkable performance

Early on Saturday morning (October 12), a Kenyan long-distance athlete performed one of the most remarkable feats in recent times: he completed a marathon in less than two hours. At the event taking place in Vienna, Austria, Eliud Kipchoge completed 42.2km in a time of 1:59:40, becoming the first man ever to break the two-hour barrier.

Kipchoge’s time will not be officially recognised by the relevant sporting bodies as a record because the event was not a “normal” marathon. The race was planned months in advance and all aspects had to be perfect, which included the flat track at a park in Vienna, the teams of runners who set the pace and formed an inverse “V” in front of him and even the specialised shoes he wore.

To try and illustrate how remarkable this achievement is, I asked my colleague and fellow publisher, who is himself a fitness fanatic, to compare his time against the performances of the “athletes” who take part in the 5km parkrun every Saturday morning in Rondebult.

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Irrespective of all the assistance Kipchoge received, his feat was remarkable. He averaged 02:50 per kilometre for the full duration of the marathon. That equates to a constant 17 seconds per 100m. The average runner who participates in the parkrun would probably be able to do a 100m dash in below 17 seconds, but to continue with that pace for more than 42km is unbelievable.

One can compare his speed to past achievements in the Rondebult parkrun. The record-holder is Lesetia Papo, who set up a time of 15:28 on September 21 this year. The female record holder is Lyn Parker-Hoare, who completed the race in 17:58 on October 13, 2018.

Had Kipchoge taken part in the same park run early in September, he would have finished the race at 14:11 (and waited more than a minute and 15 seconds for Papo to arrive). Of course, Kipchoge would not have waited – he would have continued at the same pace for another 7.44 parkruns.

To add even more perspective, one needs to look at the averages. The Rondebult parkrun’s average time is 42:33. One must assume Kipchoge can up the pace slightly if he knows that the race is a shorter one, so he probably would complete the course three times before the average runner finished.

Even when we compare South Africa’s best runners of all time against Kipchoge, the Kenyan runner’s performance is still remarkable. Gert Thys holds the record as the fastest South African in the marathon. In 1999 he finished the Tokyo marathon in 2:06:33. The bit more than seven minutes that Kipchoge cut off Thys’s time may not sound like much, but it is massive.

Kipchoge’s time is even impressive when comparing it to the times SA runners achieved in half-marathons. In August this year, Stephen Mokoka broke the one-hour barrier, finishing the Buenos Aires Half-Marathon in Argentina in 59:51. (The record still needs to be officially recognised). Kipchoge, in theory, would have beaten him by a second and then completed another half-marathon, again beating his time by a second.

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Athletes who believe they can be the Kipchoges of the future should consider starting with their training at the parkruns every Saturday morning. No entry fee is charged and the event is organised by volunteers. It also makes provision for the walkers who take more than an hour to finish the 5km (who would have been lapped by Kipchoge at least four times). Be there at 8am!

(This article is a slight adaptation of the article published by the Limpopo Mirror last week. Courtesy Anton van Zyl, Limpopo Mirror)