Nike and 41-Year-Old Kipchoge Aim to Shave Entire Hour off Marathon Record

After two Adidas runners shattered the 2-hour barrier at the London Marathon, Nike has announced that 41-year-old Eliud Kipchoge will attempt to cut a full hour off the record and run a sub-1-hour marathon as part of its Breaking1 project.

Nine years and millions of dollars after Nike’s unsuccessful Breaking2, Breaking1 will see Kipchoge come out of retirement to try and maintain a 2:17/mile pace for 26.2 miles.

To run 59:59 or faster, Kipchoge will be surrounded by pacers arranged in the shape of Nike’s logo, encircled by a second pacing group running loops around them. The three dozen runners will follow a pacing vehicle with a truck bed Kipchoge can hop into at any time should he need a boost, innovations that would disqualify the performance from IAAF marathon record recognition should Kipchoge run under an hour, let alone two.

“As Kipchoge firmly believes, no human is limited, and we can’t think of any feat that would better validate that conviction than running a marathon under an hour,” said a Nike spokesperson.

“Breaking1 is the ultimate embodiment of Nike’s mission: to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete on Earth. Breaking the one-hour marathon challenges the perception of what is possible, resets the expectations of product and enables Nike to gather incredible athlete insight. These lessons can be applied across everything Nike does to ultimately serve all runners. The only real failure would be to not attempt such an audacious goal.”

Nike will contribute $36 million to the event to be held on the same Formula 1 track of Breaking2, Autodromo Nazionale di Monza. Similar to Breaking2, a documentary titled Breaking1 will be produced with National Geographic. No event date has been announced.

At press time, Kipchoge was reportedly attempting to persuade Nike to change the event to Breaking1:59.