The Mythic 2-Hour Marathon Mark Has Been Shattered. Here’s How Kenya’s Sebastian Sawe Made History.

Kenya’s Sebastian Sawe Makes Marathon HistoryAlex Davidson - Getty Images

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THE MYTHICAL TWO-HOUR marathon mark has been broken. And it wasn’t even close.

Kenyan runner Sebastian Sawe obliterated the world record at the London Marathon on Sunday with a scorching-fast time of 1:59:30, reseting the limits of human endurance and speed. He became the first person to break the two-hour barrier in an official race and ran the fastest marathon time in recorded history, besting Kelvin Kiptum’s 2023 world record of 2:00:35 by over a minute and Eliud Kipchoge’s INEOS exhibition from 2019, the only other instance of anyone running under two hours at the distance conducted under controlled conditions, by 10 seconds.

Sawe wasn’t the only runner to make history in London. He was followed by Ethiopia’s Yomif Kejelcha, who crossed the line in 1:59:41. The third-place finisher, Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo, also bested the previous world-record time at 2:00:28.

The numbers behind the run are astounding, even to the most seasoned endurance athletes (like our friends at Runner’s World). Sawe ran the race at a 4:33 per mile average pace, at an average speed of 13.16 mph. When you split that out to 5Ks, he ran an average of14:10. As previously mentioned, he bested the previous record by 1 minute, 5 seconds, and even broke Kipchoge’s highly-controlled sub-two effort by a full 10 seconds. Sawe even negative split the back half of the race, running 1:00:29: over his first half marathon split, the dropping nearly a full minute for the final 13.1 miles in 59:01.