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In the countryside of western Kenya, Eliud Kipchoge runs in uninterrupted silence. His hot pink Nikes slap against a rain-soaked road one cloudy Thursday morning in May, flicking water onto his knee-high white socks.
Capped in a white hat to shield his honey brown eyes from the morning drizzle, he appears concentrated and composed as he runs sandwiched among two dozen training partners. Some are members of the training camp Kipchoge belongs to, Global Sports Communication, in the village of Kaptagat, while the others are self-supported aspiring elites who live within walking distance.
At 6:23 A.M., they’ve convened into a wordless cluster of uniform strides, a morning anthem of sorts, to tackle 18 miles as their lungs negotiate with the thin air 8,000 feet above sea level. Heavy rain from the night prior has saturated the dirt roads they would otherwise train on, leaving the ground a sticky pudding.
It is three months before the start of the August 10 men’s Olympic marathon in Paris. This workout will be a mere note in Kipchoge’s running journal. He’s Type-A like that, cataloging every training session, every day, every year. The habit formed as a teen, the day he approached his longtime neighbor Patrick Sang, who was coaching on a dirt field at the time. Kipchoge asked him for a training plan.
Sang had no idea who the mild-mannered young athlete was, but he offered him a 10-day training plan, scribbled on his own arm with a stick. Kipchoge memorized it, then rushed home to write it down on paper. He would go on to record every training session of his career. The self-contained anthology is now nearly two dozen volumes.
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Prepping for Paris
Tucked into the running pack this morning, Kipchoge’s forward lean, relaxed shoulders, and mid-foot strike are easily recognizable. In the moment, he feels release. “Running makes me feel free,” Kipchoge says later.
The champion’s signature form, routinely analyzed and described by endurance-science experts as flawless and efficient, is part innate, part learned from 21 years as a professional under the guidance of Sang, who soon after offering that first training plan continued to mentor Kipchoge for his entire career.
The two share a particular history: born and raised in the same village, Kapsisiywa, and belonging to not only the Kalenjin tribe, but also the same subtribe, the Talai clan, among the most respected in Kenya. Kipchoge’s mother was also Sang’s teacher during his youth.
When Kipchoge speaks about Sang, whom he simply refers to as “Patrick,” he is certain his career wouldn’t have developed the way it has—into a world-record-breaking multi-marathon champion, widely considered the greatest distance runner of all time—without his tutelage.
As Kipchoge puts it, Sang has guided him in nearly every aspect of life the way a father would his own kids. The youngest of four siblings, Kipchoge was raised by a single mother, a kindergarten teacher. Kipchoge only knew his father from photos. He died before Kipchoge was born.
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Sang’s guidance over the years—himself a two-time Olympian and one of the world’s best steeplechasers in the late 1980s until he retired in the mid-90s—has no doubt contributed to Kipchoge’s remarkable consistency. His career is a grand canvas stroked with unmatched achievements after he transitioned from the track to road racing in 2012. Kipchoge had suffered a hamstring injury in 2012 that hadn’t fully healed when he entered Kenya’s Olympic trials for track and field. After he finished seventh in the 5000 meters, failing to qualify for the 2012 London Olympic Games, Sang and Kipchoge contemplated the next direction and ultimately decided segueing to the marathon.
The decision would lead to a fruitful outcome. To Kipchoge’s name: 10 consecutive marathon victories spanning 2014 to 2019; the only person to ever break the two-hour barrier for the marathon (he ran 1:59:40 in October 2019 in a highly-orchestrated exhibition on a non-record eligible course in an event known as the Ineos 1:59 Challenge). Kipchoge has twice set the official world record in the distance, in 2018 and 2022, both at the Berlin Marathon (the record stood until the late Kelvin Kiptum of Kenya broke it in 2023). And Kipchoge is only the third man in history to clinch two Olympic marathon titles (in Rio in 2016 and Tokyo in 2021). The other two include Waldemar Cierpinski of then East Germany (1976 Montreal, 1980 Moscow), and Ethiopian Abebe Bikila (1960 Rome, 1964 Tokyo).
Kipchoge, 39, has shown glimmers of vulnerability over the last year, finishing sixth at the 2023 Boston Marathon, winning the Berlin Marathon five months later, and taking 10th in Tokyo in March—his worst marathon finish ever. But he insists he has more to give to the sport before his clock strikes retirement. Winning all six World Marathon Majors races remains one objective (he has won four of the six titles, with Boston and New York City remaining). The other, of course, will play out in Paris on August 10. On the topic of the Olympics, which Kipchoge confirmed will most likely be his last, he is concrete about his intention to win a third consecutive title.
“That’s why I’m going. The moment I lose confidence, [there’s] no need to go,” Kipchoge says one afternoon while sitting on a bench at his training camp in Kaptagat, his home away from home six days a week.
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The Quest for an Unprecedented Third Gold
The day prior, on May 1, Athletics Kenya unveiled its marathon squad for the Paris Olympics. Kipchoge, of course, headlined the team, alongside Alexander Mutiso, who won this year’s London Marathon, and world leader Benson Kipruto, a two-time Boston Marathon champion who some consider to be Kipchoge’s kryptonite.
Unlike his teammates, who will make their Olympic debut, Paris will be Kipchoge’s fifth appearance at an Olympic Games. His Olympic journey began at the 2004 Athens Games, when he won a bronze medal in 5,000 meters. In Beijing in 2008, Kipchoge graduated to silver in the same event. By the time he was on the starting line at the 2016 Rio Olympics, Kipchoge had transitioned to a champion road runner who had won six of the seven marathons he’d entered since his first in 2013, all in the 2:03-2:06 range. Rio would catapult him onto the trajectory of marathon stardom.
Kipchoge’s longtime counterpart, 42-year-old Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia, will also toe the line in Paris. He, too, will be aiming to snatch gold as the end of his career beckons.
“I think it will be a good race for us to compete and tell the world that longevity is the key,” Kipchoge says about the vis-à-vis Bekele, a five-time Olympic medalist and the third-fastest marathoner in history.
If Kipchoge is successful in his bid for a third gold medal in the marathon, the unicorn feat will likely remain untouched for generations. It would, perhaps, pacify hard-hitting doubters that have questioned if he has aged out of the sport after his two lackluster marathons in the past year. As much as Kipchoge has been the subject of public highs, he hasn’t been immune to public lows.
“[The] general public has a lot of expectations,” he says. “I have my own expectations. I try my best. I respect the outcome. That’s the only way to live.”
Kipchoge, who is described as having a Yoda-like sensibility, doesn’t subscribe to Buddhist philosophy. But when he speaks about his mentality of moving on, moving up, it’s often coupled with the Buddhist mindset of non-attachment. If a goal doesn’t work out, he says simply, “forget about it, get another goal, and move on.”
Rising Above
Earlier this year, however, Kipchoge struggled to move on, particularly leading into the Tokyo Marathon. He smiled through the media attention as he sat on a stage in Japan’s capital answering trivial questions about running and his favorite sushi. All the while, his mind was consumed with private concerns he’d been having for weeks. Is his family safe? Is his house on fire? Are his children protected at school?
The root of his quiet unraveling was kept tight-lipped as his reputation began to fracture online. Though Kenya’s official marathon team was still undetermined at that time, the Paris Olympics were anticipated to be a match-up between Kipchoge and rising marathon star Kiptum, 24, who was in a fatal car crash in February, just four months after setting the marathon world record of 2:00:35 in Chicago. A toxicology analysis investigated whether Kiptum, the driver of the vehicle, was intoxicated at the time of the accident. The results have not been publicly released.
After the tragic car crash, during which Kiptum’s Rwandese coach Garvais Hakizimana also died, conspiracies proliferated on social media speculating that Kipchoge was connected to the accident. Months later, in May, Kipchoge broke down and disclosed on camera during an exclusive interview with the BBC that the accusation relating to Kiptum was the worst moment of his entire life. For the champion runner, who is widely known for his indomitable spirit, the admission was an exceptionally rare display of vulnerability.
“Nobody is always at the bottom,” Sang says. “If things push you in life to the bottom, you’ll always find a natural way of coming back. I’m seeing that he’s found a natural way of coming back, all things considered, especially putting what happened into perspective.”
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Moving Forward Through Giving Back
Kipchoge, at least, appears less fazed as he prepares for the Paris Olympics, his voice assertive when he speaks about his nostalgia for the city where his career jump-started. In 2003—one year after he finished fifth among juniors at the World Cross Country Championships in Ireland—the then 18-year-old Kipchoge competed in the 5,000 meters at the World Championships in Paris. He overtook world record holder Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco for a surprise victory.
“That’s a huge memory,” Kipchoge reflects, “where my life started.” Returning to Paris is like coming full circle, an exclamation point on his storied career.
Just as he did then, Kipchoge has continued to understand his direction, and the why of his goals can transcend his competitive desires. His eyes light up on the topic of the afterlife. While Kipchoge is not quite ready to segue into retirement, he has thought extensively about his post-competitive career trajectory. Through the Eliud Kipchoge Foundation, launched in 2021, he plans to plant indigenous trees in all 47 counties in Kenya. He hopes to convince each county to conserve a portion of forest, fence it, and plant trees. Eventually, he wants to spread the idea around East Africa, and one day across the continent.
An advocate for environmental conservation, in November 2021, Kipchoge attended the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, where more than 100 world leaders pledged to reduce the impact of climate change. That included declaring to end and reverse deforestation by 2030. Kipchoge, alongside then Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, spoke on behalf of Kenya, representing Africa’s voice on the climate crisis.
Kenya is centered on the equator, and the country experiences its seasons in periods of long and short rains. Climate change is making such periods increasingly unpredictable, at times flooding farmland and ruining crops. This is particularly problematic as agriculture is the backbone of the country’s economy.
“I trust the world is listening to me. I hope as we continue, we’ll get more people to give me their eyes and their ears,” Kipchoge says.
An avid reader since childhood, Kipchoge is adamant about giving youth more access to books, which he believes are powerful tools that can help improve communities. Through his foundation, he wants to build libraries across the country—and all over the world—in all schools so youth can hopefully develop an appreciation for education.
“He’s at the level where he’s thinking about legacy,” Sang says. “I don’t know any athlete that has not dreamed to represent their country. So when you move from that level, you come to the world of commercial, the business world. You realize, besides [wearing] the national colors, there are opportunities. From there, you go to another level. You see through the sport I can influence people.”
Running has afforded Kipchoge this platform. This, too, is part of his legacy, giving back not only to the sport, but to the world. This is, he has admitted, something he contemplates when he runs.
Running is about getting everybody into the sport, Kipchoge says. “That person who is running a marathon in eight hours, he’s critically important like that person who is running [a] marathon in two hours two minutes. They are the same. They’re covering the same distance, feeling that freedom together. It’s not about speed, but it’s about the direction.”
The Paris Olympics—the apex of his career—are a major milestone and yet a stepping stone in his master plan to move runners and non-runners forward together in the same direction.
“After the Olympics, I still want to run big city marathons. I mean [in] other cities. I want to go to Asia, South America, North America. I want to run in Antarctica,” Kipchoge says. “I want to reach those people … and try to bring the sport up.”
By Kipchoge’s standard, that would be his definition of success—a priceless victory that no amount of gold medals can match.
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