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32 year old Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya, has just completed the world’s fastest run of a full marathon. Kipchoge completed the 42.2 kilometers in an incredible 2 hours and 25 seconds. He beat the former record holder, Dennis Kimetto who is also from Kenya, by just over 2 and a half minutes. Kimetto finished the marathon in 2 hours and 3 minutes in 2014.

By doing this, Kipchoge is living proof that even the toughest barriers can still be broken. Kipchoge was overjoyed when he found out he had successfully beaten the previous world record, saying “We are human, I am happy that I’ve reduced by 2 and a half minutes the world record.” Kipchoge also added, “ We are going up the tree...I have lifted a branch and I am going onto the next one. This is not the end of the attempt of runners on two hours.” Kipchoge, who is considered amongst many to be one of, if not the greatest marathon runner in the world, even broke his own personal record, which was 2 hours and 3 and a half minutes, at the London marathon last year. This year’s event that Kipchoge competed in, which was called ‘Breaking2’ was completely sponsored by Nike.

“I rank this as the highest-ever performance in my life,” said Kipchoge while being interviewed. “The aim of ‘Breaking2’ was to pass the message that running less than two-hour marathon is possible. That message is really special to me.” However, this marathon seemed more like a publicity stunt by Nike rather than an actual sporting event. It seemed to have been just a coincidence that Nike released a brand new line of running shoes onto the market, only weeks after Breaking2 took place. “I believe that this has everything to do with shoe sales and very little to do with marathoning,” Kevin Hanson told Runner’s World just this week (Hanson is an elite marathon coach).

Unfortunately, Kipchoge’s record breaking time will not be instituted or considered an actual record that has been broken, because of small, very specific rules. Since, during the event, many runners started the marathon half way through, and many were given water while running, not everyone was participating in the same activities, therefore no records cantechnically be broken at this event.