Two Hours: The Quest to Run the Impossible Marathon

“Essential reading for every runner.” —Men’s Fitness

“Compelling…As becomes clear not long after its starting gun, this book transcends the search for a two-hour marathon.” —The Washington Post

Two hours to cover twenty-six miles and 385 yards. It is running’s Everest, a feat once seen as impossible for the human body. But now we can glimpse the mountaintop. The sub-two hour marathon will require an exceptional combination of speed, mental strength, and endurance. The pioneer will have to endure more, live braver, plan better, and be luckier than anyone who has run before. So who will it be?

In this spellbinding book, journalist Ed Caesar takes us into the world of elite marathoners: some of the greatest runners on earth. Through the stories of these rich characters, like Kenyan Geoffrey Mutai, around whom the narrative is built, Caesar traces the history of the marathon as well as the science, physiology, and psychology involved in running so fast for so long. And he shows us why this most democratic of races retains its brutal, enthralling appeal—and why we are drawn to test ourselves to the limit.

Two Hours is a book about a beautiful sport few people understand. It takes us from big-money races in the United States and Europe to remote villages in Kenya. It’s about talent, heroism, and refusing to accept defeat. It is a book about running that is about much more than running. It is a human drama like no other.

"Ed Ceasar's treatment of the near-mythical two-hour marathon is both implacably scientific and wonderfully reverential. As a former marathoner I deeply appreciate both. The prose hums along effortlessly and the topic is one of the most profound there is: the absolute limits of human performance. Reading a book that combines those two things is one of the great pleasures in life." --Sebastian Junger

Compelling . . . Instructive . . . As becomes clear not long after its starting gun, this book transcends the search for a two-hour marathon. The Washington Post"

Essential reading for every runner . . . Caesar s conversational voice grabs your attention instantly, making you feel as if you re running alongside elite marathoners, visiting hometowns of the greats like Mutai and Haile Gebrselassie and ultimately you will think you re reading a fictional story rather than an intensely research-heavy non-fiction book. But that s what it is. . . . Is it possible that things are only impossible when we think they re impossible? That s the question you re left pondering after you put Two Hours back on the shelf. Men s Fitness"

Explores the lives, training routines and ancestry of today s greatest marathoners . . . Caesar, a war correspondent who has reported from Africa, Iran, and Kosovo, can amusingly sketch the marathon s creation myth (the heroic tale of the Greek messenger Pheidippides in 490 B.C., he says, was bunk ), then switch gears and discuss the science of lung and leg capacity and the thorny matter of doping with analytical rigor. There s beautiful imagery here, too: a training group s predawn run in the dusty lanes of the Rift Valley, 50 or 60 Kenyans arranged in single files with the sky still black and buckshot with stars; Geoffrey Mutai pulling away from the lead pack to say nothing of the more than 50,000 other participants to win the 2013 New York City Marathon ( It was just him, alone, on Fifth Avenue. He had become the workings of his own body ). New York Times Book Review"

A zippy, engaging book . . . The writing is stylish and evocative . . . Two Hours centers on the sport s most hotly debated question: will a runner ever clock up their 26 miles and 375 yards in under this time? Caesar follows Geoffrey Mutai, the great Kenyan athlete, in his quest to silence the doubters. In big, confident strides, he also covers marathon history, the science of endurance and the thorny matter of doping. Financial Times"

Entertaining and informative . . . Caesar s winning prose will keep even armchair readers turning pages, perhaps tuning in to watch the next marathon. . . . Wide-ranging and compelling. Kirkus Reviews (starred review)"

Caesar, who has reported widely from Africa, does great work capturing the lives, training routines, and proud ancestry of these amazing runners, not to mention the pitfalls and dangers they face before and after they achieve fame. This strong tale covers the joys of athletic triumph and the pain of missed opportunities, while investigating what it means to be born or bred a champion and what it will take to for someone to make running history. Caesar proves himself an engaging storyteller with a book whose time has come. Publishers Weekly"

Caesar is not the first to explore what it will take to break the two-hour barrier, nor is he the first to go to East Africa in search of what fuels today s great marathoners, but the strength of Two Hours is in combining copious research and emotional human storytelling into a fast-paced narrative. Stephen Kurczy, Vice Sports"

You might think, at first, that you re going for a very long morning run with a small African man through the streets of Berlin. Before you know it, you re chasing the white whale of human endurance the two-hour marathon down every one of its psychological, physiological, geographical, historical, and cultural side streets, running with a tailwind that only great narrative craftsmen like Ed Caesar can exhale. Gary Smith, author of Beyond the Game"

A fascinating insight into the clockwork of what it means to be an elite athlete, always pushing at the edge of possibility. Like a good runner, Caesar carries the story along with grace and ease and generosity. He brings us to Kenya, New York, London, and Berlin, but ultimately allows us to look inside ourselves. It s the human story that shines through. Colum McCann, author of Transatlantic and Let the Great World Spin"