The Kenyan runner Eliud Kipchoge has become the first person to run the marathon in under two hours. He did this a few days ago at an event in Austria, which other runners thought was the greatest exploit in their sport. Commentators, who were former distance runners themselves, said this feat was akin to the man landing on the moon. I thought at first that this was stretching it, but perhaps it isn’t.
Kipchoge ran the event by himself in full, but there were pacers helping him along. This was a phalanx of half a dozen men who were positioned just