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The 2 Hour Marathon
I’m sitting in the lobby for Kenyas to go to aspirations, his eyes
of the Parkview Hotel Japan because when you glisten in anticipation.
in Melbourne on come from Kenya you “I got the gold medal
the eve of the Great don’t know anything last year [in Beijing].
Australian Run. Next but in Japan you learn Now in the future I
to me are two other many things: how to think about breaking
journalists. Opposite us, run, about technology,” the world record for
the Olympic marathon said Wanjiru. the marathon. After
champion, Samuel “It was a good that one, maybe I can
Wanjiru. experience for my life.” try again for the half
The first thing that Despite Wanjiru’s quiet marathon,” he says as
strikes you about the nature and slighly if such achievements
1.63m Kenyan is his downwards glance, are merely items to be
quiet demeanour. It is a when he looks up and ticked off a list.
cross between the usual you look into the whites The obvious question
African modesty and the of his eyes he has the is then asked: can he
polite reverence of the trademark confidence break two hours for the
Japanese, where Wanjiru and determination in marathon?
spent four years from his gaze of a champion “Many people ask me
the age of 16 on a high athlete. And when about that one because
school scholarship. conversation moves that is my aim,” he says.
“It is a good experience to his future “But first, to run 2:02 - I
think it is possible if I
get a good pacemaker
and a good course.”
Later, when discussing
the necessary conditions
(a pacemaker through
to 35km) he qualifies his
ambition.
“First I would like to
break the world record.
After that I will think
about 2:02. But my aim
is to break the record,
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even if by one second.”
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