Okay, so the number is 2:14:04, and you have to sit with the shape of it — roughly 1:07 out, roughly 1:07 back, she ran the two halves of a marathon like she was copying homework off herself. 81 seconds off the record! Not a nibble. A chunk. Twenty-four years old in 2019, and behind her that day more than 45,000 people also finished that race, which I love.
And the mark she took down was Paula Radcliffe's 2:15:25, which had stood sixteen years, longer than some of the runners in that field had been running at all. Radcliffe was in Chicago at the finish. Stood there and watched her own number go. That's a hard afternoon and she took it like a sport, which is the whole thing, really.
Radcliffe standing there applauding is the bit a session player would recognise — you hold the record, somebody comes in and cuts a better take, and you clap because the song got better. Sixteen years of holding it, and she let it go standing up. Toby, that's a good afternoon to have been in the room for.