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Something of a sports milestone was achieved recently, as Sabastian Sawe (31) of Kenya broke the marathon world record, achieving a sub-2-hour time for the first time in competition. It is difficult to overstate how fast a run this is over 26.2 miles. I know a bit about the subject, having used to do middle-distance running and, back in the day, competed on the school track team.
Here is how the stats break down from the linked Runner's World article:
1:59:30: Sawe’s official time.
4:33 per mile: His average pace.
13.16 mph: His average speed.
14:10: His average 5K pace.
1 minute, 5 seconds: How much time he improved Kiptum’s world record of 2:00:35.
59:01: His second half-marathon split, which is faster than Conner Mantz’s American record of 59:17.
2:02:05: His previous personal best, set at the 2024 Valencia Marathon in his debut.
4: The number of marathons he’s finished.
As a note of comparison, a strong boys' high school mile runner can do 4:33 per mile. Note: I think the record at my high school was 4:14 (an elite time). This guy managed to sustain that 4:33-minute pace 26 consecutive times. So in a hypothetical relay race over the course of a Marathon, the 26 guys doing the relay would have a difficult time beating Sawe.
Kenya and Ethiopia are known as places that breed stellar distance runners. Those two countries have dominated the Marathon world records for the last 20 years. Here, Sawe's case is especially interesting because he is rather new to the marathon scene. At a relatively old sports age of 31, this is only his 4th completed marathon from the stat sheet. His first completed race was in 2024. He was the winner of all the marathons he is listed as completing.
I suppose you could compare breaking the 2-hour marathon mark with the sub-4-minute mile. So there's a bit of PR with this new record. However, the record may not hold for long. The second-place finisher also broke the 2-hour mark. He was the second man to break the 2-hour mark and would have been the first if not for competing with Sawe. I think the tight competition and favorable weather allowed for a pace to be pushed to set this new low benchmark.
Sawe becoming a latecomer to the marathon has a bit of a story, too. He is the nephew of a former National Record holder in the 800m race. The 800m is the fastest and shortest of the middle distance races. If you go up in distance, you have the mile (or 1500m for euros), and if you go down in distance, you have the 400m, a quasi-sprint race in which the runners have some level of pacing. But to run a really fast 800m race is a bit tricky. You have to pace yourself, but you are pushing hard at the same time.
As people tend to do, they follow what their relatives did. Sawe got into middle-distance running like his uncle. Not sure what he was doing prior, but Sawe got a late start, only running his first higher-level competition in 2019. Amusingly enough, he entered the only event available to him at that time, the 5,000m or 5k run. This is an intermediate middle-distance run. He won with a time of 13:56. Pretty quick. His uncle reportedly then got him some additional help for real professional training. Then COVID derailed things, and at one point, he got hurt. But he's obviously bounced back, and currently the standard bearer of the marathon despite being somewhat of a novice. In 2022, he was hired as a rabbit (basically a pace runner to lead the competitive runners for a time to set a good time for the field, but then retire after exhaustion) in a half-marathon race. But funnily enough, as the rabbit, he simply decided to continue running and won the race.
My hunch is that his middle-distance background of trying to push that 800m pacing up through the distances of 5k, to 10k, to half-marathon to full marathon is a key to his success in setting this impressive record. That, and good genes with training.
It's springtime, and maybe you'll be picking a foot race to run in this coming year. Perhaps a local 5k or some big Marathon event with hundreds or thousands of people. If you happen to see Sabastian Sawe there, you may only be running for second place tops, though.
Discussion (27)
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It may be old for just getting started at Marathons, but he's not near his peak yet, is he? Back when I was paying attention to some 24 hour bicycle races that I never did get involved in, it was being said that the male winners of endurance events like that tended to be in their 40s. What about for Marathons?
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Athletes these days for sure have longer potential career windows. It seems that for endurance events this seems to hold more true too. Cross-country skiing seems to fit this as well. Though I would make a distinction between ultra-distance and long distance. The ultra-distance stuff I think has much less competition at an elite level and likely much less money. There are such things as ultra marathons too. Interestingly enough in the ultra distance stuff the delta between women and men appears to decrease. Another sex specific thing I noticed is that women tend to peak earlier and fade more quickly than men in most sports, except endurance events. There are older women who can still compete at high levels. Personally I would classify 24 hour bicycle races as ultra-distance endurance events. For cycling I'd still refer to the big events for the benchmarks.
A quick search claims that elite marathon runners peak at 27-32. The oldest to win a major marathon reported was 41 in the Boston Marathon. So it is certainly possible to have success into early middle age. I think you need to look at the spread in ages too. See if it's spread out a bit or concentrated within a distribution with a few outliers. There's always going to be some exceptions to the norm.
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Also, for certain endurance event it takes longer to build oneself up. Thus you tend to not see boy wonders etc. In cycling there is less impact damage to the joints so it gives an advantage over running.
You may also be interested in the so called "Norwegian Method" which has shown success with certain Norwegian athletes building themselves up in distance running over time. One Norwegian runner in particular has gotten notoriety: Jakob Ingebrigtsen. He was not always the fastest, but steadily increased his performance over time to an elite global level.
athleticsweekly.com
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A 4:33 mile is a 68 second 400 yard dash.
That's cruising. That is not a jog. That's a fast run. Very few human beings can run a 68 second 400.
And that guy just ran over 100 of those in a row. Without stopping.
That's beyond my comprehension. Gosh.
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As a man who specialized in the 400m his entire competitive career, I want to register my strong disagreement with your characterization of that event as a “quasi-sprint”.
I would liken it more to a half-Marathon in terms of my need to conserve my energy and hydration level to just before the finish line.
Sadly my participation in the great sport of Track ended the same year it started, the eighth grade, without me ever really having a good shot at making Junior Varsity. Looking back, I put my lack of success down to having short bowed legs with relatively little muscle mass or strength, combined with the fact that my legs really did not move very fast at all, thus limiting the all-important but under-rated factor, “foot speed”.
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