Running News Daily

The marathon has undergone one of the most extraordinary transformations in sporting history, and two landmark performances separated by 118 years offer a remarkable illustration of just how far human endurance has advanced.

In 1908, American distance runner Johnny Hayes won the Olympic marathon in London in 2:55:18, producing one of the defining performances of the early modern era of distance running. On April 26, 2026, the same city witnessed another historic moment when Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe stormed to victory at the London Marathon in 1:59:30, becoming the first man to complete the marathon in under two hours in a record-eligible race.

Although their achievements belong to different eras, the contrast between the two performances captures more than a century of progress in athletics.

Hayes’s victory at the 1908 London Olympics came in a race that helped shape the modern marathon. His winning time of 2:55:18 was an Olympic milestone, although it was not an officially ratified marathon world record under the standards used today. Marathon world records were formally recognised much later.

More than a century later, Sawe rewrote the limits of what was considered possible over the classic 42.195-kilometre distance. His sensational 1:59:30 performance at the 2026 London Marathon broke the recognised men’s world record by 65 seconds, becoming the first officially eligible sub-two-hour marathon in history.

The difference between Hayes’s finishing time and Sawe’s is a staggering 55 minutes and 48 seconds.

Put another way, Sawe completed the marathon almost an hour faster than Hayes, despite both athletes tackling the same fundamental challenge: covering 42.195 kilometres on foot.

The pace comparison makes the scale of that evolution even more striking. Hayes averaged approximately 4:09 per kilometre, while Sawe maintained an astonishing average of about 2:50 per kilometre.

That means Sawe ran each kilometre roughly 79 seconds faster than Hayes’s average pace. Sustaining that difference over the entire marathon adds up to an extraordinary gap between two generations of distance running.

Imagine placing the two performances side by side. At Hayes’s average pace, Sawe would already have crossed the finish line while Hayes still had approximately 13.4 kilometres left to cover.

Such a comparison would have been almost unimaginable in the early days of Olympic marathon running.

The evolution of the sport has been driven by numerous advances. Modern athletes benefit from more sophisticated training methods, scientific approaches to recovery, carefully planned race strategies and increasingly precise nutritional support. Advances in footwear, particularly lightweight racing shoes incorporating carbon-fibre plates and advanced foams, have also changed the landscape of elite marathon running.

Pacing strategies have become more refined, while sports science has helped athletes understand how to distribute their energy, maintain efficiency and sustain demanding speeds over longer periods.

Sawe’s performance demonstrated what can happen when exceptional natural ability, meticulous preparation, modern technology and near-perfect race execution come together. His achievement was not simply a victory over the clock; it was a breakthrough that pushed the perceived boundaries of human endurance into new territory.

Yet, amid all these changes, one essential element has remained constant.

The marathon is still 42.195 kilometres long.

From Hayes’s triumph in London in 1908 to Sawe’s historic sub-two-hour performance in the British capital in 2026, the distance has remained unchanged while the speed at which the world’s finest athletes cover it has evolved dramatically.

One performance belongs to the formative years of modern marathon running. The other represents a new frontier in a sport that continues to redefine its limits.

London has now witnessed both ends of this remarkable historical comparison: an Olympic champion completing the marathon in 2:55:18 and a Kenyan world-record holder conquering it in 1:59:30.

The distance stayed the same. The shoes, science, training and understanding of human performance changed. And the clock tells the story of just how far marathon running has come.