🏃‍♂️ The 2-Hour Run That Changed It All

Eliud Kipchoge ran the fastest marathon in history. His legacy will be the runners he inspired. [View in browser]( [FOX SPORTS INSIDER WITH MARTIN ROGERS] In today’s FOX Sports Insider: How achieving the impossible can inspire the whole world ... the Nationals clinched the pennant and gave us a truly bizarre celebration ... and just how strong are the Yankees’ odds to still win it all? You can spend a lot of money on a top-of-the-line treadmill these days, with the finest machines offering everything from synchronized routes that replicate a jog through the Icelandic woods to automatic elevation control, WiFi connection and automatic result recording. What most of them don’t do, however, is go any faster than 12 m.p.h. — assuming, mostly correctly, that any sane human would either be unwilling or unable to travel at such a speed for very long (if at all). If you’re so inclined, check out the “12” setting next time you’re at the gym. For the vast majority of the population, it feels like a flat-out sprint. Last Saturday, Eliud Kipchoge set off running at 13.1 m.p.h., and kept it up for the entire 26.2-mile distance of a marathon. In the process, he sparked a flurry of social media astonishment, became the first man to dip under the mythical two-hour mark and maybe, just maybe, kicked off distance running’s latest surge in mainstream popularity. “I am feeling good,” Kipchoge said, in an interview moments after his epic run. “I want to inspire many people, to tell them that no human is limited.” There’s something about extraordinary feats of running endurance that capture the public’s imagination like nothing else and provide inspiration at all levels, whether it be in persuading a recreational runner to enter a race and train for a marathon, or for a couch potato to set down the Doritos and jog around the block. Everyone must start somewhere. “The most profound part of it all was the celebration,” Christopher McDougall, author of the award-winning 2009 book Born to Run, told me in a telephone conversation. “Kipchoge did more with the way he crossed the finish line than with the running he did before it. The way he was pounding his chest and raising his arms in the air. This was not a jaded professional, this was a guy taking flight. That’s what I think people found so inspiring and exciting. That will stick in people’s hearts.” [STORY IMAGE 1] The first marathon craze came in the wake of the 1908 London Olympics, when diminutive Italian Dorando Pietri entered the stadium for the final lap barely conscious, turned the wrong way, fell four times and was virtually carried over the line by officials. That assistance saw him disqualified, but his bravery earned him a silver cup from the British royal family and international stardom. In the United States, Frank Shorter’s victory in the 1972 Olympics sparked another boom, with a huge increase in races throughout the remainder of that decade. The Boston Marathon did not have more than 1,000 runners until 1968, but by 1979 was at nearly 9,000 participants, and topped out at more than 35,000 in 2014. Amid the financial crisis, McDougall’s majestically-crafted book Born to Run opened up the world of ultra-distance running, with the writer chronicling the story of the Tarahumara, a native Mexican tribe for whom running for pleasure is part of their very way of life. Originally, McDougall was a non-runner, but has become one of the most passionate disciples of how the activity can lead to fulfillment. His latest book, Running with Sherman, is a hysterical yet moving tale of how he rehabilitated a neglected, lame donkey and trained it to run with him at the pack burro racing world championships. “I was a skeptic of Kipchoge’s run at first,” McDougall admits. “But that happiness he showed taps into the secret of the craft; this idea of joyfulness. Sadly, a lot of us are struggling to find the joy, running turns into a punishment for eating too much pizza. The ultimate inspiration isn’t to go fast, it is the path to happiness. That’s what Kipchoge showed us. Not that we can beat two hours. But that we can run hard and have fun.” He was a skeptic initially because this wasn’t a typical marathon. Kipchoge wasn’t trying to break the official world record and his effort won’t enter the IAAF charts. He was simply trying to do the unthinkable by smashing two hours and demonstrating what is humanly possible. Already the holder of the official marathon mark of 2:01:39, last weekend he received help from an extensive team backed by British plastics company INEOS to cut off that remaining time and slip under the threshold many thought was impossible to break. It was a blend of pure running ability, remarkable preparation, and integration of modern technologies and tactics. [STORY IMAGE 2] Kipchoge’s course, along the Prater in Vienna, was selected for its perfectly flat and smooth roads, with a sweeping turn at each end to allow for continued momentum. He was paced by a car that flashed a green laser beam onto the road in front of him to show him the ideal pace needed, and a crew of elite world-class runners who lined up in front of him to maximize aerodynamic efficiency. His specialty sports drinks were brought to him by motorcycle instead of needing to be snatched from a table. Like McDougall at first, it is easy to be cynical of such things. But Kipchoge was so engaging, so devoid of pretense, that it’s hard not to get swept up in it. Plenty of people already have been. “When I woke up on Saturday, it was across all of my friends Facebooks,” Bella Martinez, a school administrator from Los Angeles, told me. “I was up early. I went and watched the YouTube highlights and I literally went out and signed up for a local race, where you can enter (the same) day.” Thanksgiving Turkey Trots could get busy this year. Amy Porters, 44, a California homemaker, stayed up into the night to watch Kipchoge’s run. She usually runs a 3.2-mile loop near her Irvine, Calif. house on Sundays. This week, inspired by Kipchoge’s effort, she did the same path — three times. Running numbers are hard to quantify. Apart from a tiny minority, America’s runners aren’t part of a club and don’t get measured in any census or poll. It’s a massive community of individuals doing their own thing, on their own time, at their own pace. But there are more of them today than there were last week, you can be sure of that. Whether it be before the sun has come up or a midnight jog after a late shift, they are all doing the same thing: pulling on a pair of shoes and putting in the miles — on a trail, a track, pavement, or a treadmill. Hopefully with a smile on their face. And not, of course, at 13.1 m.p.h. [STORY IMAGE 3] Here’s what others have said ... Rebekah Kuschmider, Your Tango: “For many people, simply completing a marathon is a bucket list accomplishment. More serious runners will run more than one marathon and try to beat their own personal records. Elite runners strive for gold medals and world records. One man has now broken every record ever and stretched the definition of what is humanly possible in running.” Martin Fritz Huber, Outside: “In the wake of an athletics world championships that spoke to a legacy of corruption, and the doping ban of one of the sport’s most high-profile coaches, Kipchoge’s triumph comes as a welcome reprieve. Whether one regards the two-hour barrier as officially broken or not, one can’t help but enjoy seeing history’s greatest marathoner set a colossal goal and achieve it. This sport is so often defined by all that can go wrong. It’s a rare and beautiful thing to witness distance running perfection.” Ed Caesar, The New Yorker: “Saturday’s run was one of the most extraordinary feats of athleticism I have ever witnessed. I wrote a book about the quest to run the first sub-two-hour marathon, and I thought I would have to wait many years to see what I saw in Vienna. Twenty-six miles and three hundred and eighty-five yards is a brutal test, and it hurts everyone who runs it—even those with prodigious talent. Bill Rodgers, the American running phenomenon of the nineteen-seventies, once said that ‘the marathon can humble you.’ On Saturday, Eliud Kipchoge humbled the marathon.” [IN OTHER WORDS] - Off to the World Series for the first time in franchise history, these Nationals have proved everyone wrong, [writes Thomas Boswell at]( [The Washington Post](. - [Marcus Thompson II at]( [The Athletic]( [notes]( that Warriors star Stephen Curry doesn’t share your concerns about his workload — he’s got everything he needs to endure, including a new-age Chase Center geared toward enhanced performance. - The new faces of MLB are brash and fun — just what the league needs as it tries to raise the public profiles of its stars, [writes Ben Lindbergh at]( [The Ringer](. [THE INTERNET IS UNDEFEATED] [THE INTERNET IS UNDEFEATED]( If you’re already familiar (or far too familiar) with the “Baby Shark” song/trend/phenomenon, we apologize in advance. If you’re not familiar ... we apologize after the fact. But regardless how you feel about the children’s song that has taken the universe by storm, you have to admit the above video is strangely (perhaps eerily) compelling. The Washington Nationals have adopted “Baby Shark” — of all things — as their rally anthem for 2019. The players kiss a small plush baby shark after home runs, and the song is played in their stadium to inspire rallies. Enjoy this video of an entire stadium of people singing and doing “shark chomping” motions ... you have to admit, it’s better than the Wave. [VIEWER'S GUIDE] Golden State Warriors at Los Angeles Lakers (ESPN, 10:30 p.m. ET) Game 4 of the ALCS between the Astros and the Yankees has been officially postponed, so how about basketball? Whet your appetite for hoops with this lovely preseason offering between two of the presumptive favorites in the Western Conference. While the superstar starters for both teams aren’t likely to get many minutes, it’s never a bad time for Warriors vs. Lakers. WWE NXT (USA Network, 8 p.m. ET) Former NXT champion Tomasso Ciampa has his first match back since undergoing neck surgery in March, as he takes on rising star Angel Garza. Tegan Nox will also have her first match since being injured last year, and Keith Lee and Dominik Dijakovic will have the rubber match in their mind-blowing big man feud. [BET OF THE DAY] [BET OF THE DAY] Odds provided by [FOX Bet]( 2019 World Series Champion Houston Astros: +100 Washington Nationals: +150 New York Yankees: +500 First of all, congratulations to the Nationals on reaching their first ever World Series! They’ve moved all the way from +1800 to be crowned champions before the season to +150 as kings of the National League. On the flip side, with Washington locked into one of the championship berths and the Astros up 2-1 in the ALCS, the Yankees haven’t been this big of a long shot to win it all since the first month of the season. [WHAT THEY SAID] “The miracle isn’t that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start.” — John Bingham [FOLLOW FOX SPORTS] [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [YouTube]( [Instagram]( Download the FOX Sports app for live scores and streaming [App Store]( [Google Play]( Available on: [tvOS] [Roku] [fireTV] [androidtv] [XBOX] [Google chromecast] [tvOS] [Roku] [fireTV] [androidtv] [XBOX] [Google chromecast] Forwarded this message? [Sign up](. Trademark & Copyright Notice: ™ and © 2019 FOX Media LLC and FOX Sports Interactive Media, LLC. All rights reserved. Please do not reply to this message. If you do not wish to receive emails like this in the future, please [unsubscribe](. FOX Sports respects your privacy. Click [here]( to view our Privacy Policy. 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