Kelvin Kiptum’s final run began at an abandoned fluorspar mine on the floor of Kenya’s Great Rift Valley. It was 6am on Sunday February 11th 2024 and he’d already been awake for two hours. He’d left his home while his wife and their two young children were still in bed and climbed into his silver Toyota Premio. He picked up his coach, Gervais Hakizimana, and three training partners, then drove down a rocky dirt road into the valley, stopping outside the gate to the mine. It was still dark, but the countryside was alive with birdsong and the jingling of cowbells.

After limbering up, he embarked on the 35km run back home, trailed by Hakizimana, who was driving Kiptum’s car. It was a punishing route, full of twists and turns, which brought Kiptum from the baobab and mango trees of the tropical valley floor to the cedar and eucalyptus of the cooler climes above. 

This kind of training, which Kiptum did almost every day, had helped him become the fastest marathon runner on the planet. Getting to that point hadn’t been easy. In Kenya’s Rift Valley region, home to some of the world’s best athletes, you have to be pretty special to get noticed. Kiptum had spent most of his career under the radar; he was good at half-marathons, but never a star. Then in December 2022 in Valencia, Spain, he ran his first competitive marathon. Not only did he win the 26.2 mile (42km) race, he ran it in the fourth-fastest time in history, beating his opponents by more than a minute. He’d found his métier, and was about to become more successful than he’d ever imagined.