Eliud Kipchoge broke the 2-hour mark in a 2019 exhibition

Watch Kipchoge break 2 hours in the marathon

The feat was once considered impossible, but one of the world's greatest marathoners got to work (with the help of a team of scientists and some of the world's most elite distance runners) to break that boundary in Vienna in 2019. The final stretch of the run is an emotional moment for Kipchoge, who doesn't even appear to be winded.

Sabastian Sawe holds the world record for the marathon after running the world's first official sub-2-hour marathon.

The Adidas shoes that helped break the marathon's 2-hour barrier

Two men broke the two-hour mark at the 2026 London Marathon, a feat previously unofficially achieved only by Eliud Kipchoge, thanks to a number of aides not permitted in an official race. Both men who broke the two-hour barrier in London wore the same shoe, the Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3, a new model that weighs just over three ounces.

Some Nike shoes are actually making runners too fast

In 2018, Kenyan runner Eliud Kipchoge lowered the world marathon record to 2:01:39 in a pair of Nike Vaporflys. The unusually thick running shoes sparked controversy around the shoe regulations for professional runners.

Roger Bannister was the first person to break the 4-minute mile, a feat he accomplished while he was enrolled in medical school.

One ethnic minority in Kenya, called the Kalenjins, is responsible for 73% of the country's Olympic gold medals in running.

Ultrarunning has grown exponentially in the 21st century

Ultrarunning, generally defined as races 50k and longer, has exploded in the past few decades. In 2000, there were 89 official races; in 2023, there were nearly 760. That's a 753% increase.

An impostor convinced Frank Shorter he’d lost the gold

The 1972 marathon at the Munich Games featured a dramatic finish, thanks to someone posing as a competitor entering the stadium before Shorter. The stunt confused Shorter and the crowd (and enraged the American television announcers) as he entered the final stretch.

Frank Shorter was the first American to win the 26.2-mile Olympic marathon

The running legend became the first American to win the 26.2-mile Olympic marathon in 1972 at 2:21:19. The televised race contributed to a nationwide running boom and helped popularize the event.

Why Guinness stopped giving these world records

It's all fun until someone gets hurt. Here's an explainer on why Guinness, the world's official purveyor of superlative records, won't officiate certain events.

In 1980, a woman cheated her way to a Boston Marathon win

Rosie Ruiz, an unknown runner, finished first in the Boston Marathon, cutting her qualifying New York time by over 20 minutes. The world would soon learn, though, that Ruiz hadn't run the entirety of either race, something that her first interviewer seems to piece together by her strange answers to basic questions.

Chris Nikic is the first person with Down syndrome to complete several marathons

In March 2024, Chris Nikic finished the Tokyo Marathon in 5:39:41. That was the final step towards his ultimate goal of earning the Abbott World Marathon Majors Six Star Finisher distinction. It recognizes runners who have finished Tokyo, Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago and New York.

A deep dive into the lives of Guinness World Record addicts

Most people don't hold any world records. Then, there's this group of adventurers, who are racing to own the most. A look at the ambitious world record pursuers racking up hundreds of accomplishments.

Kathrine Switzer was the first official female finisher in the Boston Marathon

A year after Bobbi Gibb’s unofficial finish, Kathrine Switzer registered under an androgynous name to avoid suspicion. Race officials unsuccessfully tried to remove her from the race while she was competing (pictured below), but she ultimately became the first woman to officially finish the race. In 1972, the Boston Marathon changed its rules to allow women to register.

Read about the longest wheelchair wheelie and other feats in the Guinness Book of World Record's adaptive section.

Dangers of a record-breaking, sleep-skipping stunt

In 1963, 17-year-old Randy Gardner decided to stay awake for as long as it took to break the current world record. He managed to stay awake for 11 days. In 2017, the then-71-year-old Gardner told NPR that his experience had come back to haunt him as insomnia. The challenge has since been removed from the Guinness Book of World Records due to its dangerous consequences.

Lee Spencer, a single-leg amputee, broke the world record when he rowed solo and unsupported across the Atlantic Ocean in 2019.

Double world record holder Hunter Ewen helped conquer his fear of balloons, called globophobia, by training to win Guinness World Record titles for balloon inflation.

An ‘ultramarathon’ is any race longer than a marathon

The event is a catchall for any event longer than a marathon, with some races hundreds of miles long. Despite the inherent risks, including death, the sport has exploded in recent years.

Joan Benoit was the first woman to win Olympic marathon gold

Benoit was the first woman to win Olympic gold in the 1984 Los Angeles Games marathon, running 2:24:52. She also won the Boston Marathon twice and held the Chicago Marathon record for 32 years. She’s still going, too, running Boston in a blistering 3:04 at age 61 in 2019.

View the 18 vehicles that broke the land speed record

The battery-powered "La Jamais Contente" was the first car to exceed 100 kilometers (62.1 miles) per hour, achieving the feat in 1899. By 1997, advancements in aerodynamic understanding and engineering led to the Thrust Supersonic Car, a jet-powered vehicle that reached a speed of 1,223.6 kilometers (760.3 miles) per hour.

The 1904 Olympic marathon was a bizarre spectacle

When the Olympics first came to the US, the race was still a fringe event with few established rules. That led to an absurd comedy, with competitors ingesting poison, hitchhiking 11 miles of the course, and occasionally sipping brandy.

The marathon is only getting more popular

The marathon has become a part of popular culture, with races in nearly every major city. The largest is the New York City Marathon, which started in 1970. Over 55,000 runners participated in the 2024 race. Its popularity doesn’t appear to be slowing, with younger generations increasingly lacing up their shoes for the race of a lifetime.

The oldest marathoner was 100

Fauja Singh was 100 when he completed the Toronto Waterfront Marathon in 2011 at 8:11:06. Incredibly Singh didn't start running until the age of 89.

The beer mile blends running and drinking

The event requires competitors to drink a 12-ounce beer for every lap around the track. It may sound like fun (or a nightmare, depending on your disposition), but for some it's a serious business, with an annual world championship.

Explore a guide to the most challenging marathons in the world, including races up Mount Everest Marathon, Mount Kilimanjaro, and the Inca Trail.

Nike couldn’t sign legendary distance runner Steve Prefontaine due to regulations

Because of amateur running regulations, Prefontaine—who held every American running record from 2,000 to 10,000 meters at the time—couldn’t do a paid endorsement for Nike. So Nike’s Phil Knight decided to give him a $5K yearly stipend and print business cards that said Prefontaine was the “National Director of Public Affairs.” When asked what that meant, Knight said, “it means he can run fast.”

That time two journalists raced around the world in 80 days

In 1889, Journalist Nellie Bly, née Elizabeth Jane Cochran, set sail on a journey around the world to compete with Phileas Fogg, the protagonist of the 1872 fiction novel "Around the World in Eighty Days." This short video explains how competing...

The first modern marathon was at the 1896 Olympic Games

The modern marathon was created for the revived Olympic Games in 1896, with the course starting in Marathon and ending in Athens. The race was won by Spiridon Louis, a Greek water carrier who surged in the last stretch to the delight of the hometown crowd.

There are over 800 annual marathons, but only seven deemed World Marathon Majors

The races—Tokyo, Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago, Sydney, and New York City—are on some of the best-known courses in the world and are run by some of the sport’s top athletes.

The modern marathon’s arbitrary distance is thanks to the British royal family

In 1908, the London Games set the marathon distance to 26.2 miles to meet the British royal family’s request that the race start at Windsor Castle and end at their royal box. In 1921, that arbitrary distance became the official length for the marathon.

The top 10 most unbreakable Winter Olympics records

Some athletes and teams dominate a sport or an era. This video compiles the records least likely to be surpassed (and excludes those that are impossible due to rule changes). From the Dutch sweep of four podiums in speed skating to Eric Heiden's five individual gold medals at Lake Placed in 1980, watch this list of the Games' most enduring feats.

Watch Secretariat's legendary 1973 Belmont race

When the 1973 Kentucky Derby came around, it had been 25 years since a horse had won the Triple Crown. And then Secretariat laid down the fastest Derby, a record that stands today. Then he won a sloppy Preakness, setting up a chance at a Triple Crown. This video is the wire-to-wire coverage of the 1973 Belmont showing Secretariat winning by a record 31 lengths, and the after-race celebration.

The marathon was not an event in the ancient form of the Olympics

The ancient Olympics started with just one footrace, a roughly 3-mile jaunt dubbed the "dolichos." Over the centuries, it blossomed into multiple running events, field events, combat sports, and equestrian events—all performed in the nude. This list showcases eight more lesser-known facts about the ancient Games.

The longest official chess game lasted 269 moves and over 20 hours

In 1989, Ivan Nikolić and Goran Arsović played a marathon 269-move match in Belgrade. Lasting more than 20 hours, the game ended in a draw.

One man lived with a gene-edited pig kidney for 271 days, setting a record, before he received a human kidney.

Women were prohibited from the Boston Marathon, so Bobbi Gibb snuck in

Race directors assumed women could not handle the physical demands of the race. In 1966, Bobbi Gibb hid in the bushes near the starting line, then hopped in the race after it began, and became the first woman to finish the Boston Marathon, albeit unofficially.

The marathon’s roots can be traced back to a Greek myth

Legend has it that the first marathon took place in 490 BCE, when Pheidippides, an ancient Greek soldier, ran from the Battle of Marathon back to Athens—approximately 25 miles—to inform his people they’d defeated the Persians. The story is likely apocryphal: No Greek historian mentioned it until over 500 years later.

Computer pioneer Alan Turing was also an elite runner

Alan Turing is credited with helping to found modern computer science, in addition to cracking the Nazi code known as Enigma. Beyond these world-historical achievements, the British mathematician also nearly represented his country in the Olympics in the marathon, running just 11 minutes slower than the eventual gold recipient at the 1948 games. Read more on this lesser-known aspect of the man here.

Robert Browning memorialized the marathon myth in a 19th-century poem

The story of Pheidippides is not likely true, but that hasn’t stopped the story from spreading. Much of that is thanks to Robert Browning, who enshrined the myth for a new generation in a 1879 poem that described the man dying after delivering word of the victory.

The tragic story of Jim Peters

At the 1954 Commonwealth Games, Jim Peters, then one of England's best marathoners, was just steps away from victory. He then fell to the ground and staggered about for 11 minutes until medical services took him out of the race. He'd entered the stadium 17 minutes ahead of the pack, but ultimately never finished. It was the last race of his career.

World records are often broken later in the day—and scientists wonder if muscle clocks explain the difference.

Purdue students' robot solves a Rubik's cube faster than most people can blink

The solution time of 0.103 seconds is a Guinness World Record. A robot created by Mitsubishi Electric engineers held the previous record of 0.305 seconds.

Olympic track runner Jesse Owens recounts his win in Hitler's Germany in 1936

Jesse Owens won four gold medals at these Games, but nearly failed to qualify for the long jump event. Despite the polarizing political climate, German athlete Luz Long offered advice and encouragement to Owens—his direct competitor—resulting in a lasting friendship Owens later called his "greatest Olympic prize."

Why marathons are 26.2 miles (not 26)

Over 1,100 marathons are run every year, and they all share one oddly specific distance: 26.2 miles. From ancient Greece to a British queen's request, here's the surprising story behind the marathon's decimal.

One of Henry Ford's early vehicle prototypes broke an all-time speed record and got him the money to start Ford Motor Company

In 1904, Henry Ford raced the "999" across a frozen lake and reached an average speed of more than 90 miles per hour, beating the then-record for fastest land speed. Ford's success attracted the eyes of the earliest investors in the Henry Ford Company, Ford's company before he started Ford Motor Company.

Gen Z is increasingly interested in running marathons

The race has become a popular event for young people. Over 12,000 20-somethings signed up for the New York Marathon in 2024. That's a significant increase from 2023 (9.987) and 2022 (8,039).

A day in the life of a Guinness World Record judge

Philip Robertson travels the world each week to see another ambitious person set a record. Here's a behind-the-scenes look at being one of Guinness World Record's adjudicators.

A 14-year-old "human calculator" shatters six mathematical world records in one day

A teenage prodigy from Maharashtra, India named Aaryan Shukla set the record for the fastest time to mentally add 50 five-digit numbers. He did so in just 25.19 seconds–roughly equivalent to one addition every 0.5 seconds. The math whiz said he practices calculations for around five to six hours a day.

'The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win.'

- Roger Bannister (1929-2018)