Eli­ud Kip­choge recent­ly won the Tokyo Marathon in 2:02:40, not much slow­er than his cur­rent world record for the fastest marathon ever, set dur­ing the Berlin Marathon in 2018 with a time of 2:01:39. But what does that time mean? Mark Lewis, who describes him­self as an aver­age run­ner who is «not too bad» at any dis­tance, thought about this ques­tion a lit­tle longer. «It’s a 2 minute 54 per km pace for 42 km; stu­pid­ly quick,» he says. But: «I can’t com­pre­hend what he’s doing, not properly.»