-Everything remains the same, friend. Why am I going to change anything if my strategy has worked so far? –Asks Eliud Kipchoge (36), Zoom in between, and in the background the interior of his home is outlined, in Eldoret, a forty-minute drive from the NN Running Team training center in Kaptagat.
White walls, a portrait of him in action, several books stacked on a shelf.
Kipchoge loves books, loves his family and loves running, a magical conjunction that oscillates around him, giving him a mystical aura, an image of a Spartan philosopher determined to make this world a better place.
The philosopher, they call him.
The philosopher.
Eliud Kipchoge, on a farm in Eldoret, weeks ago
Kipchoge, eleven victories in thirteen marathons, including his Olympic gold in Rio 2016 and his world record (2h01m39, in 2018), flies on his magic slippers, now Nike’s AlphaFly, as the world of athletics asks:
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-Even when?
The question is pertinent, especially after his slip in the last London marathon, a pandemic test in a closed circuit, a 2-kilometer wheel around Saint James’s Park, in the autumn rain, which had relegated him to eighth place (2h06m49s ), episode that would give life to the augurs.
“Kipchoge is over,” he told himself then.
And now, Kipchoge smiles.
“I’m still hungry,” he tells me.
And you have to take it seriously.
– How hungry?
Defeat in london
“I’m still hungry, I’ve forgotten what happened in London; the marathon is life, and life goes on “
– Right now I am thinking of Hamburg (it is held on April 11, in a closed circuit and barely a hundred invited athletes). And in the pack of the year include the Tokyo Games, in summer.
It is no small thing.
Both dates have a sentimental component.
For Kipchoge, from a marathon perspective, it all started in Hamburg.
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There he had collected the first of his eleven victories, eight years ago (2h05m30s).
Nobody, not even himself, could get an idea of everything that was to come.
– Ten years ago, if you had been proposed to break the two-hour barrier in the marathon, what would you have thought? I ask him.
Kipchoge leans back, crosses his arms and smiles:
-I can not know it. Ten years ago, that was implantable. We were very far from that goal (in 2011, the world record was held by Patrick Makau, in 2h03m38s). That idea was not on anyone’s mind. Even four or five years ago, when it was first brought up to me, it seemed unthinkable. And look…
Eliud Kipchoge in Berlin in 2018, shortly before he broke the marathon world record
In 2017, in Nike’s Breaking2 project, Kipchoge cherished the milestone: he clocked 2h00m25s on the Monza circuit.
And in autumn 2019, at the Ineos 1:59 Challenge in Vienna, he broke the barrier: 1h59m40s, the consequence of a magnificent laboratory exercise never approved, with dozens of hares entering and leaving and designing a diamond-shaped alignment that kept the Kipchoge in a watertight compartment. Sheltered from winds and slipstreams, the formation traced a monotone rhythm, always around 2m51s per kilometer.
Tens of Youtubers They have tried that milestone: they intend to film themselves signing a kilometer in 2m51s.
Kipchoge Challenge, they call it.
For the most part, they have failed.
–As a track athlete, he has been world champion (5,000 m in Paris 2003). As a marathoner, Olympic gold. And right now he is the only human being who has run the 42,195 kms in less than two hours. After the upset of London, what motivates you now?
– What happened in London (in autumn) is not in my mind. The marathon is life, and life goes on. I have forgotten, I look forward. I seek inspiration.
The two hours
“Four years ago, when they asked me to lower than two hours, it seemed impossible; and look now … “
“And where do you find it?”
“In the mere act of running.” My family (he has a wife and three children) support me in all my challenges. I respect my philosophy: once I have achieved a challenge, I go for another. I know that I have achieved what no one has done. But what I want to do is inspire others, make the world run. Running allows you to control your life, it is freedom, it makes the world better. It allows you to enjoy your freedom.
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