WTW: Kelvin Kiptum and Sifan Hassan Win London, Noah Lyles Beaten By A HSer, & Katelyn Tuohy Opens Up Outdoors

The Week That Was in Running, April 17-23, 2023

Six days after Evans Chebet punctured Eliud Kipchoge‘s aura of invincibility in Boston, Kelvin Kiptum made Kipchoge’s 2:01:09 world record look extremely vulnerable at the 2023 TCS London Marathon on Sunday. This week I devote most of the WTW to writing about London, a race we spent even more time talking about this week on our Track Talk Podcast. If you missed any of our Boston Marathon coverage, you can find it all here: LRC 2023 Boston Marathon event coverage.

Each week, we try to make the sport more fun to follow by putting the prior week’s action in perspective for you. Past editions of our Week That Was weekly recap can be found here. Got a tip, question or comment? Please call us at 844-LETSRUN (538-7786), email us, or post in our forum.

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What a 2023 London Marathon

If you didn’t get up early and watch the 2023 London Marathon, you missed two entertaining races. When I turned it on around the halfway mark, Sifan Hassan was visibly grimacing on the screen. I then read on the messageboard that Hassan, the world record holder in the mile, had previously stopped to stretch her legs. To see her to continue to run while grimacing was inspiring. But as a former coach, I also wondered if it was smart. At the time, I was thinking, “Wow. Someone so accomplished really loves to compete — isn’t that refreshing? But is this smart? She might injure herself and ruin her track season.”

An hour later, she was your 2023 London Marathon champion.

If you want to be inspired watch this highlight video

If you need a little pickme up here it is. Sifan Hassan The GOAT? Great video via @kmr_dilip https://t.co/vzMOJ4PMj8

— LetsRun.com (@letsrundotcom) April 26, 2023

Once I got a splash page up on LetsRun.com, I turned my attention to the men’s race and suddenly I heard one of the BBC commentators sort of blurt out of nowhere that a world record might be possible. I was like, “How is that possible?” Kiptum was in the final mile so I didn’t have time to go back to see what type of split he needed (and sadly the commentators didn’t provide any context either) so I just watched him run. What a spectacle.

(If you’re in the UK or have NordVPN you can watch the video below)

Kelvin Kiptum sets a NEW COURSE RECORD 🔥

That's the second fastest time in marathon history.

The performance of a lifetime from the Kenyan athlete – another extraordinary race.

Watch all the coverage LIVE now on @BBCOne & @BBCiPlayer: https://t.co/HTxLOtToij #BBCMarathon pic.twitter.com/3qSCGr7GH4

— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) April 23, 2023

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Even though he was in the final mile of a marathon, it looked like he was sprinting. It was beautiful to watch.

Once he crossed the finish line in 2:01:25, he lay down on the ground and rested for a bit. Well deserved.

Now that I’ve had a few days to think about it, my main thought on the race is simple.

At the end of the race, it was stunning how slow the women were running and how fast Kiptum was running

Let’s talk about the women’s race first.

Pure Joy for Hassan in London (Kevin Morris photo)

When Sifan Hassan caught the leaders at 23 miles, I wasn’t expecting her to win. While I did think, “Wow it would be fun right now if I’d bet some money on her at 14/1,” I was fully expecting one of the four other women in the lead pack to throw down the hammer.

Remember, last year en route to a 2:17:26 victory, Yalemzerf Yehualaw ran a 4:59 24th mile and a 5:02 25th mile.

This year, it was the opposite. Mile 25 was an almost-inconceivable 5:39. Mile 26 was reported by race organizers as an even-more-inconceivable 5:56.

When a distance race is coming down to a sprint, commentators shouldn’t ask, “Who has the most speed?” as the question should be, “Who has the most speed left?” But when you are practically jogging to the 26-mile mark, the answer is the mile world record holder. Race organizers said her final 385 yards was run in 62 seconds (70.4 400 pace).

If I told you before the race that after a 68:29 first half, that four women would hit 40k together on 2:18 pace, I don’t think anyone would have believed in their wildest dreams that if you just averaged 5:35 mile pace from 40k to the finish, you’d win by four seconds. That’s what Hassan did on Sunday. It was SUPER fun to watch, and while she slowed down over the second half (68:40-69:53), lucky for her, everyone else slowed down even more. It was stunning how slow everyone else was closing. I kept waiting for maybe a sub-5 mile — certainly a sub-5:15 — and the mile splits were going up close to 6:00.

With the win, the legend of Hassan grew bigger and her case for being labelled as the GOAT — Greatest of All Time — for women’s distance running became a whole lot stronger.

We discussed Hassan’s GOAT status on the podcast. Video highlight below.

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What Kiptum was doing behind the women was mindblowing in the opposite direction. How in the hell was he running so fast?

After going out in 61:40, the pace picked up a little bit to 30k (1:27:23, 2:02:55 pace) when the last rabbit dropped off. Then, apparently free from being slowed down by the rabbit, Kiptum took off and instantly put an end to the race. At 30k, there were seven guys within 10 seconds of the lead. At 40k, only Geoffrey Kamworor was within two minutes of Kiptum. At the finish, Kamworor was the only guy within three minutes of Kiptum.

Between 30k and 40k, Kiptum clocked a 27:50 10k split. Yes, 27:50. Kamworor was the only other guy in the field who could break 30:00 (he ran it in 29:40 after they’d been averaging 29:07 10k pace for the first 30k). World champion Tamirat Tola had the third-fastest split for that segment in 30:36.

Making it all the more impressive is that for most of the time, Kiptum was running into the wind. Weather Underground says the wind was coming out of the southwest/west at 6 mph and the London course from 30k to 40k moves about four miles to the west.

On a cool (temps around 50) and wet day, everyone in the elite men’s and women’s fields were crawling home except for Kiptum, who was flying. When it was all said and done, his second half was the greatest half marathon ever run in a 26.2-mile race, including Eliud Kipchoge’s sub-2 attempts: 59:45.

(The previous fastest half marathon split in an official marathon was the 59:51 by Kipchoge and Andamlak Belihu for their first half in Berlin last year. Kipchoge did not have official half marathon splits when he ran his non-record-eligible 1:59:40 at the INEOS 1:59 Challenge in Vienna in 2019, but he hit 20k in 56:47, which is 59:53 half marathon pace. If Kipchoge ran 59:53 for his first half, his second half in Vienna would have been 59:46 or 59:47).

From 30k to the finish, Kiptum ran that 12.195 km in 34:02 — that’s 58:45 half marathon pace (4:28.9 mile pace).

Ridiculous.

In the end, he DESTROYED Kipchoge’s 2:02:37 course record by more than a minute.

Kelvin Kiptum exhausted after London (Kevin Morris Photo)

Now that it’s over and he’s run two marathons, both in the 2:01s, recording the fastest second halves ever in both races (his second half in Valencia in December was 60:15), there can only be two possible conclusions about Kiptum.

Either Kiptum is the greatest natural talent we’ve ever seen move to the marathon in his prime, or he’s doping.

Many people on the LetsRun.com forum, even before London, were defaulting to the doping accusations (MB: Kelvin Kiptum is Self-Coached?!?!?!?). Others have pointed out that if a past-his-prime Kenenisa Bekele can run 2:01:41 at age 37 — the same age at which Eliud Kipchoge ran his 2:01:09 world record — shouldn’t someone be able to run faster than that in their 20s?

One of the reasons there is more suspicion regarding Kiptum is the perception that he “came out of nowhere.” But that’s not really true.

Unlike Kipchoge and Sammy Wanjiru, the two greatest marathon talents I’ve ever seen, Kiptum just never had a track career of note — he started on the roads. Kiptum ran 59:54 and 59:53 for the half marathon at age 19. In 2020, he ran 58:54 just four days after his 21st birthday. He broke 60 twice each in 2019, 2020, and 2021.

Meanwhile, both Kipchoge and Wanjiru signaled they were all-time talents with major exploits on the track as youngsters. Kipchoge took down both Bekele and Hicham El Guerrouj in the 5000 at Worlds in 2003 at age 18 in 12:52, and ran 12:45 at age 19. Wanjiru, who if he was still alive would be 1.5 years younger than Kipchoge, ran 28:36 for 10,000 at 15, 28:20 at 16, 28:00 at 17, and 26:41 at 18. Yes, 26:41 at age 18.

*Complete 2023 London Marathon Coverage

And while we are writing about crazy performances by 18-year olds…

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Video of the Week / Noah Lyles Loses to a High Schooler 

It’s not every day that you see one of the world’s best athletes lose to a high schooler, but that’s what happened last week when Noah Lyles was smoked by US high schooler Issam Asinga in the 100m at the PURE Athletics Spring Invitational in Clermont, Fla. Asinga ran 9.83 (+2.6) — the fastest time in any conditions by any high schooler — to Lyles’ 9.92. Watch it yourself:

The 18-year-old Asinga, who has a wind-legal pb of 10.10, ran 9.86 (+4.1) in the prelims as well. Last year, as a high school junior in Missouri, he ran times of 10.44a and 20.76a, but this year after moving to sports powerhouse Monteverde Academy in Florida, he’s been at a whole other level. At New Balance Indoor Nationals in March, he tied the 60m high school record (6.57) and destroyed the record in the 200 meters by running 20.48 (Lyles, a previous holder of that record, had a HS pb of 20.63 indoors). Asinga has already run 20.11 in the 200 outdoors.