Historic feet: London Marathon runner is first person to finish in under 2 hours

It was a historic feat — on a pair of historic feet.

Sabastian Sawe of Kenya became the first man in history to run an official marathon in under two hours, breaking the elusive mark in the London Marathon Sunday after it had eluded runners for decades.

Sawe, 31, ran the 26.2-mile course in the British capital in one hour, 59 minutes and 30 seconds, astonishingly one of two runners to cross the finish line under the historic mark — Yomif Kejelcha of Ethiopia finished just 11 seconds behind him, according to reports.

“I’m feeling good,” Sawe told the BBC after the historic run. “I am happy, it’s a day to remember for me.”

He held his running shoes for the cameras — with the letters “WR” and “sub-2” written in black marker.

“We started the race well,” he told the outlet. “Approaching finishing the race, I was feeling strong. Finally reaching the finish line, I saw the time, and I was so excited.”

The third-place finisher in the men’s race Sunday came in at two hours and 28 seconds, also enough to best the previous marathon record of two hours and 35 seconds set by the late Kelvin Kiptum of Kenya at the Chicago Marathon in 2023.

In the women’s race, Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa, 29, broke her own world record with a time of two hours, 15 minutes and 50 seconds at the London race.

“I’m so happy to win again,” she told the BBC. “I want to thank God for giving me this victory, to repeat my victory from last year means even more. And so the happiness I feel is just welling up inside me.”

One footnote to the sub-two runs on Sunday is the it’s the first officially sanction marathon under that mark, although Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge did it in 2019 at an unsanctioned corporate sponsored event.

In addition, while all official marathons are a strict 26.2 miles in distance, the difficulty can differ greatly because of differences in geography depending on the location. For example, the Yonkers Marathon is considered one of the most challenging because of the suburban city’s hilly terrain.