I won’t write too much write now because David and I got up at 2:30am to watch the live broadcast of the 2014 Berlin Marathon and I’m wiped from a big workout yesterday, but I do want to give a quick thought.

Last night, Dennis Kimetto of Kenya set a new World Record for the marathon in a time of 2’02’57 (and it’s also worth mentioning poor Emmanuel Mutai who ALSO ran under the previous world record of 2’03’23, but finished in 2nd place in 2’03’13).

Dennis Kimetto crosses the line as the fastest marathoner ever (photo courtesy of ABC News)

How fast is 2’02’57?

For me, it’s sometimes hard to wrap my mind around just how fast these guys are running (did you know they SPLIT a 14’03 5km in the middle of this race?). In order for me to understand it, I like to break down the race and look at just how fast they were running at each subsequent distance. In doing that, I’ve compiled the list below:

 

A 2’02’57 marathon is

69.9 per 400m (105 times)
2’19.8 per 800m (52 times)
2’54.8 per 1000m (42 times)
4’41.3 per mile (26 times)
14’34.2 per 5k (8.5 times)
23’26 per 5M (5+ times)
29’08 per 10k (4+ times)
61’28.5 per Half Marathon (2 times)

So, there’s a little food for thought to consider.

One last thought – if you took the times of the ALL-AMERICAN team from Division 3 NCAA nationals in the 5000m and added them together, they’d still be behind Kimetto at 40km…

 

EDIT: September 29, 2014 – With a bit more time to think and look at the splits from the race, here’s a few more cool comparisons that can be taken away from 2’02’57.

 

1. Kimetto’s FASTEST 5km of the day was 14’02 (from 29-34km), where he also had the company of E. Mutai and G. Kamworor. This would have placed him in 7th at the USA 5km pro championships (AHEAD of US Olympian Matt Centrowitz). This is an average of 4’31/mile (2’48/km) and is 1’58’25 marathon pace.

2. Kimetto negative split the race – running the second half faster than the first. This second half was a blazing 61’12. To try to put into perspective just how fast this HALF of the race was, consider this. Only 7 Americans have EVER run faster than 61’12 for HALF MARATHON. And Kimetto did that after running the first half of his marathon.