Two hours down the track

Of the great sporting imponderables that have come into clearer view over the past few days — will The Archers’ Lily Pargetter ever score any runs for Ambridge and herald a bold new world for women’s cricket? Will we see the first sub-two-hour marathon? — only one can be answered with clarity. As for hapless Lily, heaven knows, but unquestionably we will soon find the holy grail of distance running. By soon, I mean I hope it will happen in my lifetime, and I am knocking on a bit.

It came tantalisingly close last weekend in an extraordinary project bringing together the millions and the marketing whizz of Nike with the endurance genius of African distance runners. Before sunrise on the flat, gentle course of the Monza motor racing circuit in Italy, three elite runners set off with the aim of breaking two hours. They were shepherded by a squad of equally elite pacemakers who came in and out, running in an arrowhead formation to protect the runners from wind resistance. Just ahead was a Tesla electric car with a giant timer showing the athletes what they had to do. The runners were fuelled by a new sports drink brought to them on mopeds so they didn’t have to slow down. Nike was also trying out a new shoe, the Zoom Vaporfly. There was a lot riding on this race: it wasn’t just any old run.

In the end the great Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge finished in two hours, 25 seconds, more than two-and-a-half minutes inside Dennis Kimetto’s 2014 world record. The time will not count as a record because of the rotating pacemakers and all the other factors. But Kipchoge is said to have been paid a million dollars to skip the Berlin and London marathons for this project, and he certainly earned his corn.