John Korir, the winner of the 2024 Chicago Marathon and the 2025 Boston Marathon, has announced plans to take on the marathon world record.
The Kenyan’s personal best is 2:02:44 from the 2024 Chicago Marathon which ranks him as the eighth fastest man to have ever run the marathon.
In that race, Korir finished with the second-fastest time on the course – only Kelvin Kiptum’s marathon world record of 2:00:35 has been quicker there. It was a 4:25 and then a 4:22 in miles 21 and 22 which led him to an unassailable lead.
In Boston, he dropped a similarly devastating few miles near the end of the race – a 4:41 in mile 20, a 4:40 up Heartbreak HIll, then a 4:24 on the way back down – to push into the lead and win the race in 2:04:45, the third-fastest in Boston’s history.
Korir didn’t start running properly until his early 20s and he’s seen significant recent progression in his form, jumping from 2:05 in the 2022 and 2023 Chicago Marathons, to his breakout 2:02.
Now at 28-years-old, he explained in pre-race interviews how he’s increased his training volume to more than he’s ever run before, pushing from 120-130 miles a week to around 150 miles.
And he thinks this can help him run even faster.
“I am a good runner now and I think I am one of the best, but I need to be the best of the best,” he told Citius Mag.
In an interview with Kofuzi he was more direct with his goals: “What’s next for me is trying to break the world record in Chicago in October. Now we are going to sit down and plan our tactics and see what we can do to break the world record.”
The current men’s world record is Kelvin Kiptum’s 2:00:35, ran at the 2023 Chicago Marathon. To better than will require an improvement in Korir’s personal best by more than two minutes, and an average pace of 4:36 per mile or 2:51 per kilometre throughout the marathon.
“It’s not scary because I know I’m capable of it, so it’s just to make a good strategy and work on it and make it happen,” he told Citius Mag.
After Boston he plans to take a month off to completely rest, and will then return to training with a much bigger goal than ever before.
Image courtesy of Boston Athletic Association.
