Breaking 1:39

In the fifth and final part of the INEOS 1:59 documentary series, Eliud Kipchoge admits that on the morning of his race in Vienna back in October, he doubted whether he would actually be able to break the two-hour barrier for the marathon. I suppose I felt something similar as I cycled downtown to meet Elin and race two loops along the banks of the Ume River for the Göteborgsvarvet Virtual Edition.

After completing the first 10k in 44 minutes, we discovered that someone had cleared away our drinks. With only two Maurten gels as fuel, the second half of the race became a rather dry affair – at least until we crossed the finish line. Yet not only did we meet our agreed goal of setting a new PR by running under 1 hour and 39 minutes, we also significantly moved the goalposts for the future. With Elin surging ahead in the final kilometres, she finished in 1:34:50, while I came in about a minute later at 1:35:48 – still almost ten minutes faster than my previous PR from Stockholm last year.