A Deeper Look At Yomif Kejelcha’s World Record and Agnes Ngetich’s Near World Record in Valencia

Over the last five years, it has become clear that if you want to run a fast half marathon — like, really fast — you need to go to Valencia. On Sunday, Ethiopia’s Yomif Kejelcha became the latest athlete to taste magic in the “Ciudad del Running,” clocking 57:30 to break the world record at the Valencia Half Marathon Trinidad Alfonso.

Kejelcha’s run was the fifth half marathon world record set in Valencia in the last seven years — six if you count Abraham Kiptum‘s 58:18 in 2018, which was subsequently negated for a doping violation. Valencia is now home to both the men’s and women’s half marathon world records and eight of the top nine performances in history on the men’s side.

The 10 fastest men’s half marathon performances ever

Kejelcha’s performance in Valencia was the most impressive yet in what has been a very fast year for the 27-year-old Ethiopian. Prior to Sunday, he had already run personal bests of 12:38.95 for 5,000 meters in Oslo in May and 26:31.01 for 10,000 meters in Nerja, Spain, in June. Add in his world record in the indoor mile from 2019 (3:47.01) and he has one of the greatest ranges of any distance runner in history, though he has struggled to translate those pbs into medals at outdoor championships. He was only 6th in the 10,000 at the Olympics this summer and his only outdoor medal is a silver in the 10,000 from the 2019 World Championships (though he did win gold in the indoor 3,000 in 2016 and 2018).

Making his Valencia run even more impressive, Kejelcha set the world record largely without the help of rabbits. By the 9-minute mark, he’d already run ahead of the rabbits.

Yomif Kejelcha’s personal bests

*Includes indoors and outdoors

Those distance times mean Kejelcha is ranked in the top seven in world history at 3,000 (#5), 5,000 (#4), 10,000 (#7) and the half marathon (#1).

Ngetich goes out CRAZY fast

The women’s winner at the Valencia Half, Kenya’s Agnes Ngetich, also gave the world record a scare on Sunday.

The 23-year-old Ngetich, who became the first woman in history to go sub-29 in the 10k in Valencia in January (28:46), hit 10k on Sunday in a staggering 29:18 after running each of her first two 5k segments in 14:39. That’s 61:49 pace!

She slowed slightly to 14:57 for her next 5k, but her 15k split of 44:15 was actually five seconds faster than Letesenbet Gidey‘s 44:20 world record from 2019. At that point, Ngetich was on 62:14 pace — well under Gidey’s 62:52 world record pace — but faded to 15:27 for her fourth 5k and had to settle for the victory in 63:04, the second-fastest time ever run by a woman.

Times were very fast behind Ngetich as Ethiopia’s Fotyen Tesfay , the Ethiopian 10,000 Trials champ this year (29:47), and Kenya’s Lilian Rengeruk (29:26 at Prefontaine this year) ran the #3 and #4 times in history at 63:21 and 63:32. There have only ever been five sub-64:00 women’s marathons, and all five were run in Valencia.

The women’s race in Valencia did not garner the same sort of hype as the men’s race, which was billed as a world record attempt at Friday’s pre-event press conference. In part, that was because Ngetich was making her half marathon debut while Kejelcha had come close to breaking the record before, clocking 57:41 in Valencia last year. The other reason was that Ngetich had not raced in exactly six months.

Courtesy Valencia Half Marathon

Ngetich announced herself as a global superstar with that 10k road world record of 28:46 in January, which remains the fastest 10k time ever between roads and the track. Ngetich followed that race by finishing 5th at the World Cross Country Championships in March before running 30:03 to win the 10k at the Adizero: Road to Records event in Germany on April 27. Since then, however, she had been notably absent from the circuit.

On Monday, Ngetich’s agent Davor Savija explained the reason for her absence to LetsRun.com. He said that ahead of the Road to Records event, she felt discomfort in her tibia but, after going back and forth, decided to run the race. Afterwards, she underwent an MRI that revealed a bone marrow edema — a painful buildup of fluid in the bone marrow. Ngetich still flew to Eugene for the Kenyan Olympic Trials 10,000 on May 25, but ultimately she and her team determined the risk of a fracture was too great and she did not run.

With her Olympic dreams dashed, Savija said Ngetich took some time off and began running easily around June 25 while logging quality workouts on a bike or elliptical. She resumed track workouts on July 15 and slowly began doing more and more of her workouts on solid ground.

“[We had] weekly MRIs, then monthly ones,” Savija wrote in a message to LetsRun.com. “Rehab was guided by imaging and pace of healing.”

Savija said that Ngetich may run another road race in the winter but that the track will be her focus in 2025. Ngetich has only competed at one global championship on the track, finishing 6th in the 10,000 at the 2023 World Championships in Budapest, a race in which she dealt with severe menstrual cramping.