How many runners in history have run a sub 4:00 mile and sub 2:15:00 marathon?

99 runners with sub 4 indoor or outdoor full miles and under 2:15 on a "legal" course (removed Kevin Ryan as well):

Outdoor:
Eliud KIPCHOGE of KEN ran 3:50.40 and 2:01:09
Haile GEBRSELASSIE of ETH ran 3:52.39 and 2:03:59
Dawit WOLDE of ETH ran 3:54.51 and 2:04:27
Mo FARAH of GBR ran 3:56.49 and 2:05:11
Galen RUPP of USA ran 3:52.11 and 2:06:07
Vincent RONO of KEN ran 3:59.63 and 2:07:10
Vincent ROUSSEAU of BEL ran 3:54.69 and 2:07:20
Brett ROBINSON of AUS ran 3:58.5h and 2:07:31
Hailu MEKONNEN of ETH ran 3:53.40 and 2:07:35
Benson SEUREI of BRN ran 3:56.78 and 2:07:37
Zane ROBERTSON of NZL ran 3:53.72 and 2:08:19
Girma BEKELE of ETH ran 3:59.41 and 2:08:38
Suleiman Kipses SIMOTWO of KEN ran 3:50.82 and 2:08:49
Mushir Salim JAWHER of KEN ran 3:49.75 and 2:08:53
Yenew ALAMIREW of ETH ran 3:50.43 and 2:08:56
Rod DIXON of NZL ran 3:53.62 and 2:08:59
Geoff SMITH of GBR ran 3:55.8h and 2:09:08
Christoph HERLE of FRG ran 3:57.52 and 2:09:23
Ken MARTIN of USA ran 3:57.84 and 2:09:38
Alan CULPEPPER of USA ran 3:55.12 and 2:09:41
Suleiman NYAMBUI of TAN ran 3:51.94 and 2:09:52
Róbert ŠTEFKO of SVK ran 3:58.20 and 2:09:53
Tiidrek NURME of EST ran 3:59.74 and 2:10:02
Malcolm HICKS of NZL ran 3:59.87 and 2:10:04
Jonathan MELLOR of GBR ran 3:58.76 and 2:10:05
Shaun CREIGHTON of AUS ran 3:59.46 and 2:10:22
Elroy GELANT of RSA ran 3:59.29 and 2:10:31
Abdelaati IGUIDER of MAR ran 3:49.09 and 2:10:42
Dick QUAX of NZL ran 3:56.23 and 2:10:47
Jacques BOXBERGER of FRA ran 3:57.6h and 2:10:49
Eamonn MARTIN of GBR ran 3:59.30 and 2:10:50
Mark CARROLL of IRL ran 3:50.62 and 2:10:54
Juan Luis BARRIOS of MEX ran 3:57.34 and 2:10:55
Collins CHEBOI of KEN ran 3:49.56 and 2:10:56
Andrew BUMBALOUGH of USA ran 3:58.78 and 2:10:56
Patrick TIERNAN of AUS ran 3:57.59 and 2:11:02
John Kemboi KIBOWEN of KEN ran 3:47.88 and 2:11:04
Jack RAYNER of AUS ran 3:58.7h and 2:11:06
Rudy CHAPA of USA ran 3:57.04 and 2:11:13
Bobby CURTIS of USA ran 3:57.20 and 2:11:20
Paul DAVIES-HALE of GBR ran 3:56.5h and 2:11:25
Gary STAINES of GBR ran 3:53.82 and 2:11:25
Paul CUMMINGS of USA ran 3:56.4h and 2:11:31
Dan BROWNE of USA ran 3:59.71 and 2:11:35
Luis FEITEIRA of POR ran 3:59.93 and 2:11:57
Harri HÄNNINEN of FIN ran 3:56.61 and 2:11:58
Ewald BONZET of RSA ran 3:57.3h and 2:12:08
Andrew GREEN of GBR ran 3:57.74 and 2:12:12
Jean-Pierre PAUMEN of BEL ran 3:59.6h and 2:12:15
Andrew COLLEY of USA ran 3:58.17 and 2:12:15
Rui SILVA of POR ran 3:49.50 and 2:12:16
Hailu EBBA of ETH ran 3:57.8h and 2:12:17
Phillip LAGAT of KEN ran 3:57.55 and 2:12:19
Gerry KIERNAN of IRL ran 3:59.12 and 2:12:20
Michał BARTOSZAK of POL ran 3:58.96 and 2:12:21
Richard DOUMA of NED ran 3:57.60 and 2:12:21
Emiel PUTTEMANS of BEL ran 3:56.19 and 2:12:27
Matt TEGENKAMP of USA ran 3:56.38 and 2:12:28
Azat RAKIPOV of BLR ran 3:57.88 and 2:12:32
Tyler PENNEL of USA ran 3:58.99 and 2:12:34
Peter RENNER of NZL ran 3:59.7h and 2:12:35
Salah HISSOU of MAR ran 3:52.54 and 2:12:45
Chris DERRICK of USA ran 3:59.52 and 2:12:50
Steve PLASENCIA of USA ran 3:58.34 and 2:12:51
Alexandre GONZALEZ of FRA ran 3:52.78 and 2:12:52
Ben TRUE of USA ran 3:57.83 and 2:12:53
Paul KORIR of KEN ran 3:48.17 and 2:12:58
Mumin GALA of DJI ran 3:57.82 and 2:13:04
Mark COOGAN of USA ran 3:58.81 and 2:13:05
Duncan MACDONALD of USA ran 3:58.4h and 2:13:07
James MUNYALA of KEN ran 3:59.60 and 2:13:07
Raf WIJNS of BEL ran 3:57.9h and 2:13:17
Alejandro SUÁREZ of MEX ran 3:59.81 and 2:13:33
David CLARKE of GBR ran 3:56.95 and 2:13:34
Mike KEARNS of GBR ran 3:57.86 and 2:13:37
Lee MERRIEN of GBR ran 3:59.18 and 2:13:41
David LEWIS of GBR ran 3:55.96 and 2:13:49
Mark TUCKER of AUS ran 3:58.37 and 2:13:49
Paul WILLIAMS of CAN ran 3:58.6h and 2:13:59
Peter Kipkorir BIWOTT of KEN ran 3:53.16 and 2:14:01
Justin GLODEN of LUX ran 3:59.4h and 2:14:03
Reuben CHESANG of KEN ran 3:58.70 and 2:14:09
Daniel Kipchirchir KOMEN of KEN ran 3:48.28 and 2:14:20
Matthews TEMANE of RSA ran 3:55.4h and 2:14:21
Andrew LLOYD of AUS ran 3:56.52 and 2:14:36
Luke KIPKOSGEI of KEN ran 3:56.97 and 2:14:37
Ray SMEDLEY of GBR ran 3:57.7h and 2:14:45
John Thuo ITATI of KEN ran 3:56.97 and 2:14:47
Indoor:
Dawit WOLDE of ETH ran 3:54.02 and 2:04:27
Mo FARAH of GBR ran 3:57.92 and 2:05:11
Galen RUPP of USA ran 3:50.92 and 2:06:07
Cameron LEVINS of CAN ran 3:54.74 and 2:07:09
Hailu MEKONNEN of ETH ran 3:54.78 and 2:07:35
Mushir Salim JAWHER of KEN ran 3:55.54 and 2:08:53
Rod DIXON of NZL ran 3:56.8h and 2:08:59
Martin HEHIR of USA ran 3:59.81 and 2:08:59
Suleiman NYAMBUI of TAN ran 3:57.89 and 2:09:52
Abdelaati IGUIDER of MAR ran 3:54.41 and 2:10:42
Dick QUAX of NZL ran 3:58.9h and 2:10:47
Mark CARROLL of IRL ran 3:54.5h and 2:10:54
Scott OVERALL of GBR ran 3:58.61 and 2:10:55
Andrew BUMBALOUGH of USA ran 3:58.46 and 2:10:56
Greg MEYER of USA ran 3:59.1h and 2:11:00
Paul CUMMINGS of USA ran 3:57.6h and 2:11:31
Dan BROWNE of USA ran 3:59.19 and 2:11:35
Reid BUCHANAN of USA ran 3:59.24 and 2:11:38
Ross MILLINGTON of GBR ran 3:59.86 and 2:11:38
Thom HUNT of USA ran 3:57.88 and 2:12:14
Rui SILVA of POR ran 3:52.18 and 2:12:16
Michał BARTOSZAK of POL ran 3:58.39 and 2:12:21
Michael BUCHLEITNER of AUT ran 3:54.28 and 2:12:43
Ben TRUE of USA ran 3:57.31 and 2:12:53
Paul KORIR of KEN ran 3:53.26 and 2:12:58
James MUNYALA of KEN ran 3:59.8h and 2:13:07
Brian SHRADER of USA ran 3:59.41 and 2:13:27
Steve BOLT of USA ran 3:59.4h and 2:14:06
Daniel Kipchirchir KOMEN of KEN ran 3:53.93 and 2:14:20
Tim RITCHIE of USA ran 3:58.49 and 2:14:50

Still don't buy it.

Paul Cummings mentioned yet? 3:54 and 2:11 years ago. First US miler I was aware of.

Not seeing any dispute that he's the 🐐

It's generally accepted at this point, apparently. When he run those two sub 60s, that clinched it.

Malmo you may not buy it but you once wrote it yourself and I have seen several references to Halberstadt running 3:59.

It is in post #11 in the above linked thread. I am not taking a stand on whether Halberstadt broke 4 (as I do not know), but just stating that there is some indication that he did.

Okay, but you should have. Halberstadt ran 3:59.9 on May 4, 1974. Here's a link to an alphabetical list of everyone to run under sub 4:00.

Bekele ran a sub 4 (3:57.01 1600m), but he did have a >2mi running start.

The consensus was that it could not be done, and then you had Dixon catching Smith in New York. Both were not plodders. It was a shock amongst most New Zealanders despite success at the half Marathon that Dixon would go sub 2:10 in New York in the most memorable finish there of all time.

I have a very good memory of that. There was a lot of excitement around it. Say what you want but I was in Central Park to witness that.

Steve Bolt already knew it was possible.

Good catch. On this thread I didnt approach with my usual diligence. Rather than look it up on the often bantered sub-4 chronological list, I simply relied on my own fetid memory, which is usually reliable.

"Measure twice, cut once.".

And so did many others before NYCM 1983.

My mistake was using the word "nobody."

Other than that my recollection is not off.

Adding on to Running_Shoe_Collector, I looked at the World Athletics data, but included 1500m equivalents since many sub-2:15 marathoners (especially outside the USA) have probably raced 1500s but never the mile. I also included “non-legal” marathon courses such as Boston and NYC, and oversized indoor tracks. Finally, I checked that the date of birth matched for mile and marathon performances, as there were about a dozen cases in my search where two different athletes had the same name.

There are 273 athletes, including 38 Americans, who have run under 4:00/3:42.2 and 2:15:00. If we remove the 1500m equivalents, these numbers drop to 106 and 30, respectively. I’m sure the true numbers are slightly higher if World Athletics is missing some results.

Filtering this group further, we have:
Sub 4:00/3:42.2 and 2:10: 90 including 25 Americans
Sub 4:00/3:42.2 and 2:05: 8 (Haile Gebrselassie, Kenenisa Bekele, Eliud Kipchoge, Dawit Wolde, Markos Geneti, Bashir Abdi, Gabriel Geay, Abdi Nageeye)
Sub 3:55/3:37.6 and 2:15: 55 including 5 Americans (Galen Rupp, Andrew Bumbalough, Bernard Lagat, Matt Tegenkamp, Ben True)
Sub 3:55/3:37.6 and 2:10: 24 including 1 American (Galen Rupp)
Sub 3:55/3:37.6 and 2:05: 6 (Haile Gebrselassie, Kenenisa Bekele, Eliud Kipchoge, Dawit Wolde, Markos Geneti, Bashir Abdi)
Sub 3:50/3:33.0 and 2:15: 13 including 1 American (Bernard Lagat)
Sub 3:50/3:33.0 and 2:10: 6 (Haile Gebrselassie, Kenenisa Bekele, Mushir Salim Jawher, Suleiman Simotwo, Mo Farah, Benson Seurei)
Sub 3:50/3:33.0 and 2:05: 2 (Haile Gebrselassie, Kenenisa Bekele)

Paul Davis hale did it in 7 days

Great post.

Can you please explain how you can do such a search at the worldathletics site?

There is no way to go such a search on the website itself, but it would be a cool feature.

I scraped the data from the all time top lists and exported into an Excel workbook. Alternatively, you could just copy-paste directly into Excel, but that would be extremely tedious in this case since there are many pages.

In Excel, I have three sheets for marathon/mile/1500 top lists, sorted by time (regardless of indoor/outdoor). I used the vlookup function to find the mile and 1500m pbs of everybody on the marathon list.

Yes. 2:09.

it’s just a matter of having more 4 minute types train got the marathon in their prime. The marathon times are skewed bc of weak participation and post prime competition.

look at a dude like Bekele, ran 2:01 well past prime.

Malindi Elmore