Marathon World Record List: How Has the Fastest Time Evolved?

There was a huge outpouring of emotion when it was announced that Kelvin Kiptum and his coach had tragically lost their lives in a road accident.

As well as the human loss to his family, friends and fans, there was a feeling that Kiptum was in the prime of his marathon running career at the age of 24 – he was expected to be the first athlete to smash the two-hour ceiling for the 26.2 mile slog.

The Kenyan’s story is one of remarkable strength and determination in the face of adversity. Aged 18, Kiptum was still running either barefooted or in second-hand shoes – he simply could not afford to buy a new pair, even on the cusp of his first competitive race.

Kiptum didn’t run his first marathon until 2022, when he the fourth fastest time on record in Valencia, and in 2023 the records would continue to fall. In April he smashed the course record when winning the London Marathon, and by the end of the year he was the new world-record holder – his winning time at the Chicago Marathon just 35 seconds shy of breaking the two-hour mark, which still hasn’t been achieved in a race officially verified by a recognised authority.

The athlete himself had praised the work of his coach, Gervais Hakizimana, who would go above and beyond to help nurture Kiptum’s talent, noting early on that there was something particularly special about the 24-year-old in a sport where runners don’t tend to peak until their late twenties or early thirties. Tragically, Hakizimana was travelling with Kiptum that fateful day and also sadly lost his life.

So there’s a sense of immense human loss in the deaths of two people who leave their families behind, but also a feeling that an incredible, once-in-a-generation athlete – and his doting coach – has been taken before he’d even hit his stride.

When Did Marathon Running Start?

It would be fair to say that the thought of running 26.2 miles is an alien concept to most, and even those that do complete the distance – either competitively or for charity – have a rather tortured look about them at the finishing line.

So it perhaps won’t come as a surprise to learn that the first ‘marathon’ was run out of necessity, rather than pleasure.

It all dates back to Ancient Greece. When the Persians invaded the country way back in 490 BC, they used the town of Marathon as a launchpad for their bid to conquer Athens. But they were thwarted by the rallying Greek Army, and so they began to retreat.

Pheidippides was a messenger for the army, and keen for his countrymen to assert their authority on the shaken Persians, he ran a distance of around 25 miles from marathon to Athens to tell the Athenian Assembly of the victory.

He discarded his heavy battle armour, his weapons and even his clothes, running the whole way before bursting into the Assembly, declaring ‘we have won!’ before promptly dropping down dead on the spot – likely due to the exhaustion of running a marathon in the Greek summer without suitable hydration.

The story of Pheidippides’ bravery stood the test of time in Greek legend – so much so that generations to come would make the same journey from Marathon to Athens to walk (run) a mile (25) in his shoes.

When the Summer Olympics were founded in their modern guise in 1896, the event in Athens featured a 25-mile marathon race to celebrate this unique slice of Greek history – it has remained at the Games ever since.

Why Is a Marathon 26.2 Miles?

Marathons were, for hundreds of years, 25-mile races in a celebration of Pheidippides’ brave endeavour.

But the extra mile-and-a-bit was added in 1908, thanks to the – shall we say – rather laconic bidding of the British royal family.

London was chosen at the host of the Summer Olympics in 1908, and as the city was being configured to host the Games and its various events, a problem emerged.

Queen Alexandra, the legend goes, didn’t want to have to mix the general public at the event. So she ordered that the marathon race started on the lawns of Windsor Castle, enabling her to watch from her balcony without having to mix with the great unwashed.

To accommodate her wishes, the distance of the race had to be extended to 26.2 miles – a length that ultimately stuck and which was formally recognised as the new standardised marathon distance in 1921.

The Fastest Marathon: An Evolution

In essence, the first marathon world record was set at the 1896 Olympic Games by Spyridon Louis, who completed the track in 2:58 – although, of course, this was in the era of the 25-mile distance.

But ground zero came with the 1908 Olympics, the first time that the marathon was run over the 26.2 mile that we know to this day. The gold medallist, Johnny Hayes of the United States, effectively became the first true world record holder too at 2:55:18.

With marathon running now a fixture of the Olympic regimen, long-distance races began to enjoy an explosion of popularity – the Boston Marathon, perhaps the oldest such race outside of the Olympics, was held for the first time in the early 1900s.

So the world record was soon being improved regularly, with seconds shaved off the best time. Some 20 years separated Robert Fowler’s time of 2:52:45 and the 2:30:57 mark set by Harry Payne in 1929.

Time continued to be shaved off the record until Jim Peters, one of the great marathon runners of any era, came along. The Englishman would break the marathon world record three years in a row at the very same race – the Polytechnic Marathon – between 1952 and 1954.

Peters’ latter time of 2:17:39 would stand for more than two years, before an African trailblazer came along and helped to shape the entire landscape of marathon running for years to come. Abebe Bikila won Africa’s first ever Olympic gold medal in 1960, running 2:15:16 in bare feet in Rome.

Four years later, Bikila would strike gold again at the Tokyo Games – this time posting a remarkable time of 2:12:11.

From Bikila’s 1964 mark to 1974, the marathon world record was broken three more times:

• Morio Shigematsu – 2:12:00 (June 1965)
• Derek Clayton – 2:09:36 (December 1967)
• Derek Clayton – 2:08:33 (May 1969)

The Fastest Marathon: Modern Times

Many of the great marathon runners from around the world have broken the record over the past 50 years.

Khalid Khannouchi, Ronaldo de Costa and Belayneh Dinsamo were just some of those to lower the mark in the 1980s and nineties, although it was Paul Tergat who shepherded in a new era of dominance for African long-distance runners when he won the Berlin Marathon in September 2003. He was the first to break the 2:05 window – a time few thought humanly possible – with 2:04:55.

It was felt that we were reaching the absolute limit of human endeavour when it came to marathon running – the time cannot keep getting quicker, can it, because there are limits to what the body can achieve?

Nobody told Haile Gebrselassie, who would twice better Tergat’s time at the Berlin Marathon – a seemingly agreeable-route that has been the scene of many world records over the years. By 2008, Gebrselassie had shaved the record time down to 2:03:59 in the German city.

Soon, Kenyan runners would come to the fore once more – acting as pacemakers, competition and inspiration to one another throughout the 2010s. Patrick Makau, Wilson Kipsang, Dennis Kimeto and Eliud Kipchoge (twice) have all set new marathon world records at the Berlin Marathon over the past decade or so.

Kipchoge, the first person to run a sub two-hour marathon (albeit in controlled conditions, more on that later), broke the world record in 2018 (2:01:39) and again in 2022 (2:01:09).

But then along came Kelvin Kiptum, who shifted the landscape of marathon running once again….

What is the Marathon World Record?

As of February 2024, the men’s marathon world record was the 2:00:35 set by Kiptum at the 2023 Chicago Marathon.

Conditions were perfect for a show of fast running in the Windy City, although it’s worth remembering that this would only be Kiptum’s third-ever competitive marathon outing.

If you thought that was impressive, wait until you see the split times for Kiptum’s miraculous effort – he actually ran the final 7km of the slog faster than at any other point of the race!

Kelvin Kiptum’s 2023 World Record Split Times

As displays of supreme physical performance go, it doesn’t get much better than pacing yourself through a marathon so that you’re effectively sprinting over the final five miles or so.

At the time of writing, the women’s marathon world record stands at 2:11:53, set by Tigist Assefa at the ever-reliable Berlin Marathon in 2023. For context, that shaved around three minutes off the previous best mark set by Brigid Kosgei – a truly peerless achievement in women’s long-distance running.

Has There Been a Marathon Under Two Hours?

If you check back to the history books, you’ll notice that – without fail – around two minutes has been shaved off the marathon world record decade upon decade.

So, by that logic, we can expect the marathon world record to reach 01:58 by the year 2034, which really would be an astonishing feat of physical excellence.

As we’ve learned, the marathon world record set by Kiptum was a shade over two hours – 35 seconds, to be exact. So you might think there’s never been a marathon time of under two hours….that’s not actually the case.

Eliud Kipchoge, who you’ll remember twice broke the world record before Kiptum, was considered the most likely athlete back in 2019 to break the two-hour barrier – something that nobody had done before.

So Ineos, the chemicals company that has broadened its horizons into performance cycling at the behest of its owner, the major Manchester United shareholder Sir Jim Ratcliffe, came up with a plan to help Kipchoge in his quest.

They sourced the ideal course – a park in the Austrian town of Prater, near Vienna, which was picked because it ticked a number of the key boxes: it was in the right time zone to maximise Kipchoge’s chances, while the weather conditions, defence from the wind and low altitude were also considered to be conducive to speedy long-distance running. The layout was also noticeably flat, with a total incline of just 2.4 metres, which of course aids the ambitions of the marathon runner.

To keep Kipchoge marching forward, a veritable army of 41 pacemakers was selected, each of whom rotated to ensure they were fresh when it was their turn to push the Kenyan on towards his target.

With such perfect conditions, the scene was set for records to be smashed – and Kipchoge duly obliged, completing the track in 1:59:40 to become the first athlete to crack that two-hour mark.

Sadly for him, this wasn’t a competitive race and the ‘artificial’ environment, designed to maximise performance, was such that none of the relevant athletic authorities have recognised Kipchoge’s time as official.

A previous attempt to break two hours, set up by Nike, did not go quite as well. Their Breaking 2 mission saw them employ Kipchoge, Zersenay Tadese and Lelisa Desisa as their athletes of choice for the 2016 concept, with a crack team of scientists, nutritionists and engineers brought on board to help the trio along.

Nike also chose the venue – the Monza racetrack in Italy, which of course is best known for hosting F1 speeds. The circuit is renowned for helping the drivers hit breakneck speeds, so the logic was that it would assist fast marathon times as well – 17.5 laps of the track was what the trio would be running.

Years of research and development went into this day. Now all that’s left to do is run. #Breaking2

— Nike (@Nike) May 6, 2017

With a team of six pacemakers keeping them on course for the sub two-hour time, both Tadese and Desisa found the going too tough and dropped out prematurely.

That left Kipchoge fighting on alone, and while the Kenyan got remarkably close to the target, he would ultimately lose time on the gruelling last lap and have to settle for a time of 2:00:25. That was still, in essence, a world record time – beating the 2014 mark set by Dennis Kimeto, but again World Athletics would not ratify it due to the use of ‘interchangeable’ pacemakers.

Kipchoge would have the last laugh a few years later alongside Ineos, but the wait goes on for the first official sub two-hour marathon run.

What Is a Super Shoe?

There is no doubt that Kiptum, Kipchoge and co are extraordinary athletes, blessed with natural ability and willing to make sacrifices physically to maximise their potential – aided by a climate and coaching regimen in a number of African countries that is conducive to elite long-distance running.

But in recent years, there’s been another asset that the greats of marathon running have taken full advantage of – the trainers on their feet.

Gone are the days of Bikila’s barefoot efforts – today, the best athletes are wearing the latest technologies that are able to enhance their performance and shave seconds off personal bests.

Nike’s AlphaFly series have drawn the ire of some pundits, who believe that the shoes give the wearers too much of an advantage – the carbon plates and cushioning designed to boost speed and allow runners to go faster for longer. A study by Nike themselves found that AlphaFly running shoes can improve pace by up to 4%, so it’s little wonder that Kipchoge chose them for his successful Ineos 1:59 challenge.

So controversial was the trainer that World Athletics actually banned it from competition, claiming that its dimensions were contrary to their rules. Nike created a sibling, the VaporFly, which does conform to World Athletics standards – the great and the good of marathon running have worn the VaporFly at one time or another.

Other manufacturers, including Adidas – Assefa wore their Adizero Adios range when smashing the women’s world record, Asics and Under Armour, also began to adopt some of Nike’s innovations into their new designs, so before long all of the finest marathon runners on the planet were wearing ‘super shoes’ – and times keep falling as a result.

With these firms continuing to innovate, surely it’s only a matter of time before we see a sub two-hour marathon for real?