On Saturday May 6, 2017 an attempt at breaking two hours in a marathon was conducted by Nike.  

Nike selected three elite runners from around the globe to have the opportunity to run the marathon.  The runners were Kenyan, Eliud Kipchoge, Eritrean, Zersenay Tadese, and Ethiopian, Lelisa Desisa.  All of these world class athletes had insane personal records.  

The goal of breaking two hours seemed almost impossible to many running experts.  The marathon was unlike anything ever seen; It was a highly orchestrated attempted to break two hours.  In fact to keep the runners on pace, a Tesla drove ahead and reflected a green laser that the runners had to stay on to break the record.  To put it into perspective on how fast this is, the previous world record before this attempt was 2:02:57.

The race began mostly as planned, with the runners keeping a necessary pace (4:34) for breaking the two hour barrier.  However, by the halfway point Tadese and Desisa had dropped behind the pace group and fallen off the pace.  Eliud Kipchoge somehow stayed with the pace car almost the entire race. He began to slow down slightly at the twenty-one mile mark.  Kipchoge ended up running a blistering 2:00:25.

It was not a sub-2 marathon, but it was very close.  Kipchoge ran the fastest marathon ever ran by a human being.  Tadese and Desisa ran 2:06:51 and 2:14:10, respectively.  To put into perspective on how fast this is, Jason Melendez (Hawthorne High School’s fastest miler in the 2017 spring season) runs a 4:36 mile.  To break two hours in a marathon, a runner has to run 4:34 per mile for 26.2 miles!

So, will the two hour barrier ever be broken?  In my opinion, it will be broken.  Eliud Kipchoge was only 25 seconds off and overtime runners will start to break more and more limits.  I definitely see it as a possibility in the next two years.