Chasing sport’s impossible dream

The race is on to become the first marathon runner to break the two-hour mark

The little detail caught Ed Caesar off guard. He came across an account of the death of Sammy Wanjiru, the Kenyan marathon runner, and the revelation he’d apparently fallen from a balcony after being found in bed by his wife with another woman struck Caesar as incongruous.

“The fact that he wasn’t living the monk-like life I assumed all marathon runners had to live made it more interesting. What was he doing living like an on-the-slide Premiership footballer?”