Running News Daily

Cristhian Pacheco arrived at the Mexico City Marathon with a remarkably simple piece of equipment on his wrist — and left with one of the biggest victories of his career.

The Peruvian Olympian won the 43rd edition of the Mexico City Marathon on August 30 in 2:10:03, defeating Ethiopia’s Anbesa Lencho Tefaye by more than a minute. Balew Yihunie Derseh completed the men’s podium in 2:11:58.

But it was not only Pacheco’s victory that caught attention.

Photographs from the race appeared to show the 33-year-old wearing a Casio F-91W, one of the most basic digital watches on the market. The inexpensive watch is a striking contrast to the sophisticated GPS devices commonly seen on the wrists of elite marathoners.

There was no GPS route, no live pace screen, no heart-rate monitor and no collection of advanced running metrics. The watch essentially provides the basics: timekeeping, an alarm, a backlight and a stopwatch.

And even that stopwatch is hardly designed with a two-hour marathon in mind.

Its stopwatch function runs for less than an hour before resetting — meaning Pacheco’s winning marathon lasted more than twice as long as the watch’s maximum stopwatch display.

Yet none of that mattered.

Pacheco relied on something considerably more valuable than technology: preparation, experience and an understanding of the demanding Mexico City course.

He remained with the leading group through roughly 25 kilometres before making his decisive move. The altitude and undulating terrain eventually began to take their toll, particularly during the closing stages.

Pacheco later explained that the section beyond 32 kilometres was especially difficult, with the combination of slopes and altitude leaving his legs increasingly heavy. His training, however, had prepared him for precisely that moment.

He held his form when others began to fade and powered clear to claim the victory in 2:10:03.

The performance was also significant because Pacheco is no ordinary marathoner. The Huancayo-born athlete is a three-time Olympian and owns a personal best of 2:07:38. He also holds the Pan American marathon record of 2:09:31, set in Lima in 2019, and won Pan American Games marathon gold in Santiago in 2023.

His Mexico City victory added another major title to an already distinguished career.

The race itself attracted around 30,000 runners, with the 42.195-kilometre course taking competitors from the Ciudad Universitaria area through some of the Mexican capital’s most recognisable avenues before finishing at the Zócalo.

Pacheco’s winning time was not fast enough to threaten the course record of 2:08:23, set by Bolivia’s Héctor Garibay in 2023, but the victory was never really about chasing a record. It was about executing a difficult race at altitude and outlasting a strong international field.

And then came the irony.

For winning the race, Pacheco was awarded $50,000 along with a Garmin smartwatch — a sophisticated piece of technology capable of providing exactly the kind of data his humble Casio does not.

So, on a day when elite running technology was everywhere, the marathon champion apparently needed little more than a simple digital watch and years of hard training.

The Casio may not have told Pacheco his pace, heart rate or position on the course.

It did not need to.

Pacheco already knew how to run.