“One hour and 59 minutes is fast in a way that’s difficult to comprehend. Despite the formidable distance, Kipchoge ripped through each mile of his run in about four and a half minutes. This speed would feel like an all-out sprint to almost anyone who could keep up with him in the first place. To sustain this blistering pace, Kipchoge ran under conditions that had been painstakingly and exclusively arranged to push him beyond the two-hour barrier.” It wasn’t quite an official marathon. Every detail was arranged to help the runner break the two hour barrier. But the fact that Eliud Kipchoge actually did it is nothing short of astonishing. The Greatest, Fakest World Record. (If you can sprint for two hours straight, it’s pretty damn real.)

+ In real world record news, “Kenya’s Brigid Kosgei won the Chicago Marathon on Sunday with a time of 2 hours 14 minutes 4 seconds,” obliterating the previous world record by 81 seconds.

+ For some perspective, check out this Quora answer: “World class pace is like running a 70-second lap around a standard track, and then maintaining that for 104 more laps. The high-end treadmills at your gym on their maxed-out, highest speed setting are still significantly slower than world-class marathon pace. Most regular people could keep up with an elite marathon pace for maybe 200 meters if they exercise regularly.”