Kipchoge against reason

Patrick Sang, his coach, once said that he knew many more talented athletes than Eliud Kipchoge.

Marc Roig, his physiotherapist, once said that he had not seen anyone with the talent of Eliud Kipchoge.

Sang wanted to highlight other virtues, besides talent, of Kipchoge, for example his mental strength.

Roig, a Catalan who emigrated to Kenya for love and who has ended up taking care of the muscles of several athletes there, believes that no one of his talent can go faster than him.

Kipchoge runs fast for 42 kilometers and 195 meters, the distance of the marathon.

And he has said that he does not believe in limits: that they do not exist, a necessary faith if one is dedicated to what he is dedicated to: beaten his rivals, the only thing left for a champion is the definitive fight, which is against himself , or against time.

His is an interesting statement ("My only goal is to leave the message that no human being has limits. And the only way to do that is by running the marathon under two hours").

How far can that time go?

Can a human being, in 100, 200, 500 years, run a marathon in one hour?

Can he do 700 meters per minute during that hour?

Would someone capable of running the 100-meter dash in four seconds still be a human being?

More information

Kipchoge sets a new marathon world record

Retired Usain Bolt, Kipchoge is the great active legend of athletics.

This Sunday he has broken the marathon world record again: 2h 1m 9s.

Years ago, after seeing him train in Kenya, people from Nike, his sponsor, asked him why he used to train in tights and yet competed in shorts.

"Because that's what you send me with the kit," he said.

There was in the answer a frank resignation that had echoes of that, more desolate, that contained the answer of Gabriel García Márquez's father when they asked him why, when he went by train, he always traveled in third class: "Because there is no fourth."

Tights were made for Kipchoge, and with him they worked on sports shoes that are also responsible for scratching time to a barrier that years ago was believed impossible.

The story, told by Marc Roig on the Runedia portal of

, is part of the mystique of the African athlete taking refuge in reading (Aristotle) ​​and a religious devotion to athletics that he cultivates with complete austerity: he needs fields, land, roads to run every day.

“Breakfast, lunch and dinner are always the same, 365 days a year,” Roig told Efe.

“Rice with beans for lunch and ugali (maize dough very common in Kenya) with meat or vegetables at night.

It is pure and simple monotony that it would be very difficult for us to put up with, but that for them are conditions similar to those they had at home.”

The marathon began like journalism: with a story.

The one that Phidipedes wanted to give, in 490 BC, running from Marathon to Athens to announce the Athenian victory shouting "Nike", who is the Greek goddess of victory.

From that war and that supposed feat, about which there are various versions, several myths are born, the first of them the very distance of the marathon and its successive great champions.

From the goddess, the famous sportswear brand (the logo is one of her wings).

From the famous Nike slogan,

(“just do it” or “just do it”), Modesto García recounts his curious origin in Brandemia: he was inspired by the last words of Gary Gilmore, a murderer sentenced to death in 1976 for killing two people who, when they were going to execute him and were asked if he had anything to say, he said to his executioner: “

”.

The word that Kipchoge, in less traumatic circumstances, has been repeating successfully for 20 years.

You can follow EL PAÍS Deportes on

Subscribe to continue reading

read without limits

Keep reading

I'm already a subscriber