The running world has been celebrating what some are calling a “breakthrough in human achievement” or similar superlative: the first legitimate sub-2-hour marathon. It’s a new world record by more than a minute, and it really was a remarkable race.
I’ll confess, it kinda broke my brain initially.
But the more I thought about it, and the more over-the-top analyses and social media-fuled hot takes I read, I realized a lot of people are missing the real reason Sebastian Sawe and Yomif Kejelcha became the first people to run a legit sub-two-hour marathon in London on April 26, 2026.
I’m going to throw a big bucket of icy cold Maurten 320 energy drink on this whole idea that breaking two hours was something “nobody thought was humanly possible.” (And let’s make it the caffeinated version because I’ve got some energy around this.)
I don’t think we’re in a new paradigm at all. I think we’ve BEEN IN a new paradigm for about 10 years, and this world record is just the natural outcome of that. I’ll go so far as to say, it’s really not surprising that someone broke two hours.
That’s probably not the kind of hot take that will land me on ESPN or sports radio. Most American sports journalism does a shitty job covering running anyway — because they don’t understand it, and because the current media atmosphere doesn’t prioritize depth and reason.
I’m also pushing back hard on the idea that it was “the shoes” or “PEDs” or any other single reason that Sawe broke the two-hour barrier.
Because it wasn’t.
I submit the reason the record fell is this: Community.
“It’s the shoes”
Sure, the shoes help. But it’s not just the shoes.
The “super shoe era” started in 2016, and we’ve seen the world record fall only four times since then. If it were purely the shoes, we’d most likely have seen records falling in a big drop, and then constantly and incrementally. That’s not what has happened.
Eliud Kipchoge dropped the record big in 2018 (2:01:39, down from Dennis Kimmetto’s 2:02:57 in 2014). Kipchoge lowered it again to 2:01:09 in 2022. Kelvin Kiptum cut about 30 seconds off in Chicago in 2023, and we never learned how much faster he could have gone because he died in a car accident a few months later. We’ve actually been hanging around the two-hour barrier for several years. That it finally fell is actually not that surprising when you stop and think about it.
What’s more, we don’t fully understand why super shoes work. If we did, we would see one company with patented technology propelling runners to new world records. In London the top two finishes wore Adidas, third place was Nike. Nike shoes were on about half of the fastest 20 marathons ever run by men, the rest were Adidas- and Asics-shod feet. What we’re seeing is chunks of time lopped off by a variety of different runners and brands scrambling to put their product on the podium.
No, it’s not just the shoes.
Competition
An individual runner runs the race, obviously. But individual athletes don’t achieve goals in a vacuum. They need coaches, sponsors, training partners, race directors, volunteers, competitors, medical experts, and even fans.
Look at the London results, and I repeat, it’s not terribly surprising that Sawe ran under two hours. The second-place finisher was only 11 seconds behind him – ALSO under two hours. Third place finished in 2:00:28, which would have been a world record were it not for Sawe and Kejelcha. Even the fourth place time of 2:01:39, matches Kipchoge’s 2022 record.
There are a fair number of runners who’ve been right around this time for several years.
The second-place finisher, Kejelcha, was in his very first marathon. That’s actually more mind-boggling to me than the record. Obviously, there’s never been a faster marathon debut, and that’s one helluva debut. But the fact that he ran with Sawe all the way to the final mile meant they were pushing each other.
They ran a negative split. Their first half didn’t even indicate sub-2 was in the cards. Typically, going for a record means making a move to drop competitors, then falling off pace when you’re alone. In this case, Kejelcha stayed glued to Sawe the whole time, running the second half faster than the first.
Not only that, Sawe led the race for 10 miles without drafting off anyone. Typically, that would be a recipe for falling off the pace later.
Kejelcha’s effort helped propel Sawe. Without him, sub-2 might not have happened.
It’s worth noting that Sawe also missed a hydration station during the race.
Now imagine if they shared the work of leading the race, or Sawe got all his fluids, or a whole pack was hanging on until the last mile.
“Was it PEDs?”
It’s a sadly understandable question. Sawe’s coach, Claudio Berardelli, has coached athletes who’ve been banned for doping. To be clear, he was never directly connected to those performance enhancing drugs, and was even acquitted in a Kenyan court of having provided them to one athlete. But it’s not hard to see why people wonder.
Sawe’s sponsor, Adidas, put up $50,000 to cover an intense drug-testing regimen. Sawe passed more than two dozen tests leading up to his 2:02 last fall. There are no indications he’s anything but a clean athlete. Until there’s some evidence, and in the absence of sub-2 being so surprising after all, I see no point in doubting he’s clean.
Community
An individual achieves the record. But the community creates the conditions where it’s possible.
The coach. The training partners. The competitors who push you in the race itself. The technology everyone has access to. The sponsors who fund the testing that proves it’s legitimate. The fans who show up.
There’s evidence that people are more likely to achieve their goals when they share them with others. I see no reason why we can’t extend that to the sub-2.
Sawe ran the race. But the community made the record possible.
You’re probably not chasing a sub-2-hour marathon. But you’re chasing something.
Maybe it’s getting faster at any distance. Maybe it’s having difficult conversations without fighting. Maybe it’s examining your own stories before they become resentment. Maybe it’s showing up consistently for something that matters to you.
Whatever it is, you’re more likely to achieve it in community than alone.
The manosphere sells the myth of the lone wolf, the “self-made man” who grinds his way to success through sheer individual willpower. That’s bullshit, and the most successful peddlers of this myth knows it on some level. Even the world’s best marathoner needed someone pushing him from behind to break the barrier.
Find your people. Share your goals. Let them push you. Push them back.
What goal are you currently pursuing alone that would benefit from finding your community? This week, tell one person what you’re working toward. Not to validate you, but for accountability and shared effort.
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