Sunday was a remarkable day in the history of long-distance running. Sabastian Sawe, a 31-year-old Kenyan, won the London Marathon with a staggering time of 1:59:30, making him the first person to run a sanctioned marathon in under two hours. Second-place finisher Yomif Kejelcha of Ethiopia also broke the two-hour barrier, finishing just 11 seconds behind Sawe.
A sub–two-hour marathon has long been the Holy Grail of long distance running, and it got us wondering how Sawe pulled it off—and whether we can expect this to become the new normal among marathoners.
For answers, we turned to Nick Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic and the author of The Running Ground: A Father, a Son, and the Simplest of Sports. Nick, an extraordinary long-distance runner himself, recently set a U.S. record for running 31 miles among men over 50, with a time of 3:10. Our interview has been edited for clarity and length.
