He Excels At Running And Thinks A Lot, Too

BERLIN — Eliud Kipchoge, the most decorated marathoner on the planet, is a man of self- discipline. He gets up at 5 a.m. to run. He splits his time between his home in Eldoret, Kenya, where he lives with his wife and three children, and a training camp 2,400 meters above sea level, where he shares chores with teammates. Mr. Kipchoge is a wealthy man, but he still scrubs the toilet.

Since he began to take the sport seriously, he has recorded every workout in a notebook. The thousands of kilometers he has documented have propelled him to the pinnacle of his profession, a runner driven to trim seconds from performances that already stretch comprehension.

But perhaps what is most unusual about Mr. Kipchoge, 33, is the one thing he does not do: overextend himself in training. He estimates that he seldom pushes himself past 80 percent of his maximum effort. Instead, he reserves the best of himself, all 100 percent, for race day — for the marathons he wins, for the records he chases. “I want to run,” he said, “with a relaxed mind.”

Mr. Kipchoge has won 10 of the 11 marathons he has entered. He is the reigning Olympic champion. He just obliterated the world record by more than a minute by winning the Berlin Marathon in 2 hours 1 minute 39 seconds. Before that race he said: “I am just going to try to run my personal best. If it comes as a world record, I would appreciate