But inside the gates, the grass is lush, green and smooth. The bright orange dust roads that surround the camp are bumpy and rutted. We're a long way from the hustle and bustle of city life. It's taken a 24-hour journey from the UK, with three plane rides and multiple taxis, to reach Kipchoge's camp. The first thing that strikes you is the quiet. The setting is the remote Kenyan village of Kaptagat. The life Kipchoge lives is a simple one, as free from distractions as possible. 'Then I just crammed it in my head, rushed home and got a pen and paper to write down what he had told me while it was fresh in my mind.'Įighteen years later, Kipchoge - now 35 and a multi-millionaire thanks to his incredible athletic success, the first person to run the marathon distance in under two hours - has unsurprisingly long since replaced the stick and arm method with a training journal.īut many things have remained the same. 'I just got a stick and wrote the plan for 10 days down on my arm,' Kipchoge says. I expect more people all over the world to run under two hours after today.'You don't know you are running because it is a must,' says Kipchoge.īut in 2002 at the age of 18 his life was changed forever when his now-coach Patrick Sang offered him a training plan to channel his obvious talent. I am the happiest man in the world to be the first human to run under two hours and I can tell people that no human is limited. Now it is 65 years later, I have tried and I got it. It took another 63 years, I tried and I did not get it. “It has taken 65 years for a human being to make history in the sport after Roger Bannister made history in 1954. Photo: Thomas Lovelock for The INEOS 1:59 Challenge

The INEOS 1:59 Challenge, Vienna, Austria. Eliud Kipchoge celebrates as he crosses finish line and makes history to become the first human being to run a marathon in under 2 hours.

Just like Roger Bannister who became the first man to break the four-minute mile barrier against all odds and in defiance of the experts who thought it impossible so to has Eliud Kipchoge become the first human being to break the two-hour marathon barrier coming in at 1:59:40 in Vienna today.

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