Well, well. Kenyan marathon runner Sabastian Sawe has officially broken through the fabled \u201csub-2-hour\u201d marathon barrier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On a reportedly perfect Sunday, 26 April 2026 in London, the 31-year-old Sawe ran through the finish gate on the Mall in front of Buckingham Palace\u2019s gilded architectural flourishes in an official marathon time of 1 hour 59 minutes and 30 seconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This betters the marathon world record by a whopping 65 seconds, the largest single improvement since 2018. The previous world record was held by the late Kelvin Kiptum, also of Kenya. Kiptum\u2019s 2 hours and 35 seconds, set in Chicago in 2023, now somehow seems an entire era away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In fact, saying Sawe broke 2 hours is something of an understatement. Such was the brilliance of the moment, that Sawe pushed the second-placed Yomif Kejelcha of Ethiopia below the sub-2-hour mark as well, just 11 seconds behind Sawe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But as we absorb all of this, it\u2019s hard not to wonder, \u201cWhat next?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My interest as a data scientist and economist (and fellow runner) lies in analysing the historical progression of the men\u2019s and women\u2019s world marathon records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If sub-2 was the driving force behind the marathon in the last decade, what\u2019s left to aim for?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Humanity seems obsessed with the limits of human creativity, ingenuity and performance. We award extravagant prizes for world firsts and remember the greatest achievements through bronze statues in prominent squares the world over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But can we actually calculate these limits? Is there a \u201cmaths\u201d of human endeavour?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Back in 2018, the legendary Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya ran 2 hours 1 minute and 9 seconds in the official Berlin Marathon. At the time, many dared to dream Kipchoge could be the one to take the men\u2019s marathon below 2 hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In fact, a year later, Kipchoge appeared to do just that \u2013 running a phenomenal 1 hour 59 minutes and 40 seconds in a tightly orchestrated \u201cbreaking 2\u201d display in Vienna.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However awe-inspiring, the Vienna effort would never make it into the official marathon books. The run was contrived in a number of ways, fully understood and acknowledged by Kipchoge and the organisation around him. This was never about the record, but instead, it was, he said, about proving that limits are there to be broken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Around the same time, I had been working on a statistical approach to modelling the progression of marathon world records over the last few decades. I was intrigued to apply learnings from technological change in economics to the question of human performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are all kinds of factors that feed into a world-record marathon performance. These range from training methods, nutrition, supplementation and biometrics, to performance analysis, and of course, clothing and shoe technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, my approach, drawn from the economics of innovation, is founded on the idea that while performance gains can be made in any of these areas at any time \u2013 providing innovation rates stay steady over time \u2013 then the next world record marathon performance should be somewhat predictable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Back then, I estimated that the official men\u2019s marathon would break the sub-2 barrier around May 2032. That is, assuming a pretty rare 1-in-10 chance on any given marathon day of it happening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since then, we\u2019ve had Kipchoge himself break his own record at Berlin in 2022, then Kiptum in Chicago in 2023, and now Sawe in London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At each point, I\u2019ve adjusted my predictions, since the model can use the new world record marks to improve its accuracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My most recent prediction, made in October 2023 for a runner similar to Kiptum, would be that the official sub-2 would go down in March 2027. From the perspective of a prediction exercise starting with data from the 1960s, Sawe was just a touch early!<\/p>\n\n\n\n