Where is really the limit of the human being?

April 26, 2026 will go down in history: Sabastian Sawe won the London marathon and became the first human being to go under two hours in an approved race. What’s more, in that same race Yomif Kejelcha and Jacob Kiplimo They also had better times than the previous world record (although only Sawe and Kejelcha went under two hours).

Therefore, the key question is no longer When will we be able to get under two hours in the marathon? and it will start to be “where is the physiological limit of the human body really?”

The question is essential, yes; but we cannot approach it naively. There are two factors without which Sawe would not have been able to achieve the record: the sneakers (which, although they are from Adidas, are part of the revolution that promoted Nike a few years ago) and nutrition (worked with Swedish nutrition specialists Maurten for 12 months to design a specific provisioning protocol).

If the contemporary quest to break the two-hour mark has shown anything, it is that running goes far beyond a physiological issue.

What variables rule in the physiological section? Since 1991, the physiology of the marathon is usually understood following a simple model that said Michael Joyner of the Mayo Clinic.. According to Joyner, sustained marathon pace depends on three variables:

• The maximum amount of oxygen that the body can absorb per minute.
• The maximum amount you can sustain for hours without accumulating lactate faster than it is eliminated.
• The energy cost of maintaining a given speed.

Joyner, who lived in a world where the record was 2:06:50, theorized that the limit It should have been around 1:57:58.

That’s not enough. Years later, Andy Jones from the University of Exeter added one more factor: physiological resilience. That is, the ability for these three variables to deteriorate as little as possible during two hours of racing.

For this reason, shoes and supplies are essential: They are two tools that improve efficiency and resilience. In fact, many experts maintain that the 2016 revolution is a break in the series and the records are “technological, not physiological“.

This is important because, using models of the Joyner variables, we can make conjectures of the physiological limit “as long as the same technological conditions are maintained.”

And what is the limit right now? Following the real values ​​of the Breaking2 projectsubtracting resilience and considering technological and nutritional improvements, the realistic limit would be between 1:55 and 1:57. Below 1:55 we would need an athlete with physiological capabilities that we have not seen yet. It’s not impossible, but it’s very unlikely.

Image | Miguel Amutio

In Xataka | More and more people participate in popular marathons. Science knows that being overly optimistic has its risks