41 PACEMAKERS AND LASHINGS OF PORRIDGE... SECRETS OF THE FARMER’S SON
41 pacemakers, £240 trainers, lashings of porridge – and help from a British billionaire
IT WAS always considered an impossible athletic feat but yesterday, on a misty Vienna morning, Eliud Kipchoge, the son of a Kenyan farmer, stunned the world by running a marathon in under two hours. Remarkably, the one hour, 59 minutes and 40 seconds triumph of endurance barely registered on Kipchoge’s slender 5ft 6in frame as he crossed the line and was delivered into the arms of his family. In fact, onlookers were left with the distinct impression that he could have gone round again just as quickly.
Kipchoge, though, i s no ordinary runner. At 34, he is a four-time London Marathon winner and Olympic record holder. Sadly for him, his extraordinary accomplishment will not count as a world record because it was not classed as an official race. And, it must be said, he did achieve it with a little help from his friends – 41 pacemakers (among them Olympic and world champions) who ran in rolling teams.
Kipchoge, whose feat has drawn comparisons to Roger Bannister running a mile in under four minutes for the first time – in Oxford in 1954 – said it was ‘the best moment in my life,’ adding: ‘I am the happiest man to run under two hours, to inspire people, to tell people that no human being is limited… Together when we run, we can make it a beautiful world.’
But it was not just about the sheer physical brilliance of Kipchoge – it was also an amazing feat of technology and science funded by a British billionaire.
A 26- MILE JOURNEY – I N SELF- PROPELLING SHOES
THE Kenyan’s day began with a 4.50am alarm call before a breakfast of oatmeal and plenty of time to prepare mind and body for the task ahead. A day earlier, the president of Kenya had called to wish him well.
Arriving at the course, Kipchoge would have noted the perfect conditions with some satisfaction. Nothing had been left to chance. Meteorologists narrowed down an eight- day window to a precise 8.15am start time.
And so it was that Kipchoge and his pacemakers, enveloped in a soft autumnal mist, lined up at the start on the Reichsbrucke, a major bridge crossing the Danube, with temperatures at a perfect 9C.
There was barely a breath of wind, and in any event, stewards had been deployed to sweep away any fallen leaves that might induce a slip that would cost vital seconds. At this point spectators caught a glimpse of Kipchoge’s controversial £240 trainers. The clumsilynamed Nike Zoomx Vaporfly Next% is a prototype shoe, not yet available in shops, which feature a carbon-fibre plate that helps propel the wearer forward while reducing pressure on the calf muscles.
Some critics say they provide such an advantage that without them Kipchoge would be a ‘routine’ performer, achieving times of around two hours, three minutes.
41 PACEMAKERS… I N TOUR DE FRANCE- STYLE
THE starting gun produced roars of excitement from the thousands watching in Prater Park. It was immediately apparent that this oneman mission would also involve a battalion of 41 black-shirted pacemakers, among them the 2016 Olympic 1,500m gold medallist Matthew Centrowitz from the US, and Selemon Barega who won a world 5,000m silver medal last week.
They ran in rolling teams of seven, swapping every three miles, purposely contravening the rules of the IAAF, the world athletics body, which state the pacemakers must run the full course.
Like a cycling team, the pacemakers deployed an aerodynamic arrowhead formation to deflect any wind resistance in the hope of shaving every split- second possible. Indeed, much of the planning for Kipchoge’s challenge was overseen by Dave Brailsford and Fran Millar, who run the Team Ineos cycling team which won last year’s Tour de France.
TIMING WITH LASER ACCURACY
AMONG the most remarkable features of the challenge was an electric Audi car fitted with a fluorescent green laser beam trained on the road in front of the athletes. It marked out exactly where Kipchoge needed to be to secure his place in sporting history. The Audi e-Tron was chosen so that the runners would not breathe in any emissions.
THE PERFECT COURSE FOR A RECORD RUN
KIPCHOGE, keeping metronome time, ran the first half of the marathon in 59 minutes, 50 seconds. His pace of 13.16mph was almost t wice t he average speed of traffic in London. Clearly he was responding well to the course – as well he might. Prater Park was picked after scouts used computer software to find the optimum running location. It is located at low altitude (just 540ft above sea level) meaning oxygen l evels would have been much higher than at the high altitudes Kipchoge trains in at home in Kenya.
The route was a 2.6-mile straight, looping around roundabouts at each end, and was repeated four and a half times to complete the distance. The road was relaid to ensure a perfect surface and a roundabout was resurfaced with a camber to maximize Kipchoge’s efficiency as he circled it.
HIS DIET SECRET? STODGY PORRIDGE
IN the build-up, Kipchoge ran 140 miles a week at his high-altitude training camp in Kaptagat in the western highlands of Kenya. Millions watching on TV may have noticed that Kipchoge was grinning endlessly. In fact, he forces himself to do so because it induces the brain to release chemicals that provide natural pain relief. Kipchoge has described his basic diet as ‘incredibly simple’. Every day he eats a super-stodgy type of Kenyan porridge called ugali, along with plenty of fruit and vegetables and a cabbage- l i ke brassica called sukuma-wiki.
He usually eschews trendy protein shakes and instead drinks copious amounts of sugary tea but during this race it was a different matter. Like other top marathon runners, he has switched to using a Swedish drink called Maurten, which is richer in carbohydrates than other energy drinks. It also contains an algae extract and pectin – the naturally occurring fruit enzyme that helps jam set – which turns Maurten into a gel when it hits the stomach.
These features are said to increase the rate at which carbohydrates can be absorbed into the bloodstream and cut the risk of stomach upsets. However, sports scientists are still awaiting results of clinical trials.
During the race, the drinks and gels were hand-delivered by support teams members riding bicycles – another deliberate breach of IAAF rules which say drinks must be collected from tables.
Every time Kipchoge took a drink from a bottle and discarded it, it was picked up and weighed to measure exactly how much was
consumed so his team could be sure his fuel levels remained at the optimum level throughout.
HE’S A BILLIONAIRE ( I N KENYAN SHILLINGS)
CROSSING the finishing line, Kipchoge twice beat his chest and ran into the arms of his wife Grace, the childhood sweetheart he married 13 years ago, before being swallowed up in a mob of his jubilant pacemakers.
The couple have three children – Lynne, Griffin and Jordan – and live in a modest farmhouse in Eldoret, a city in the Rift Valley, Western Kenya. The marathon champion’s motto is ‘No human is limited’, and he is often referred to as ‘the philosopher’ by friends due to his love of reading.
This weekend, Kenyan media speculated that Kipchoge will now become a billionaire in Kenyan shillings terms – the equivalent of £7million – a long way from his humble roots as a farmer’s son.
POWERED BY A BRITISH ENERGY TYCOON
BEHIND it all was British billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who funded Kipchoge’s bid through his energy company Ineos, which supplies one in ten British homes with gas.
Sir Jim, 66, a sports enthusiast, rode to the rescue of British cycling t hi s year when he promised £40 million a year for the former Team Sky, which he renamed Team Ineos. He also owns a sailing team Ineos Team UK and French football team Nantes.
Sir Jim is a fitness fanatic who runs six miles a day, and reportedly spent £ 15million on yesterday’s record attempt.
He said: ‘That was sensational. That l ast kilometre where he accelerated and came through on his own was superhuman. I can’t believe he did it.’