Comment by signorovitch

18 hours ago

Feel a bit bad for Yomif Kejelcha who also broke the 2-hour mark, with this being his first competition marathon, but managed to neither break a record nor win.

15 comments

signorovitch

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darth_avocado  17 hours ago

While I know competitors want to always strive to be the best, as a completely normal human who struggles to complete a half marathon under two hours, I do not feel bad for the guy. He’s still one of the only two people to do it (outside of the very controlled run from Kipchoge). Not a feat to feel bad about at all.

  • cflewis  16 hours ago

    The majority of people in the world cannot complete a half marathon, let alone under two hours. I was pleased to train enough that I managed under three. You're doing great!

    • BrandoElFollito  7 hours ago

      A majority of people won't run 1 km without needing a rest afterwards.

      There were recent tests (in France I think) in schools where 50% or something could not run 1 km (sorry I don't have the details on mobile). These are children who have infinity energy (source: parent).

      A typical adult won't make it to 1km (source: going back to sport and dying on a 2.5 km run)

      2 replies →

    • sayamqazi  11 hours ago

      half marathon is ~20 KM its pretty sad that a large percentage of people cant do that. One can simply walk that much distance wihtout any prior training.

      2 replies →

Aurornis  17 hours ago

I'll admit I'm not familiar with running, but in other sports it's not uncommon for amazing early career athletes to hold back a little bit on their first attempts.

It's easier to draw attention (and therefore sponsorships) if you leave some room to improve on successive attempts. It's riskier to give everything up front and then risk plateauing or regressing in your subsequent attempts.

parsimo2010  17 hours ago

While that seems like a bummer, as long as he doesn't quit he'll have many more chances to set the record himself.