Gosh. The average marathon timings seem to be getting lower and lower. The Africans are really taking marathon running to a whole new level. Geoffrey Mutai, won Boston in 2:03:02 last spring. He won in the recently concluded New York Marathon in a time of 2:05:06. 2nd and 3rd place were fast too- both went under Tsefaye Jiffar’s 2001 course record of 2:07:43 — Emmanuel Mutai in 2:06:28 and Tsegaye Kebede in 2:07:14. The gulf as it is between the professional runners and mere mortals like us is already extremely wide; these guys are aiming to take it even further away. Unless of course, we, the mere mortals decide to run 250km per week at altitude for the rest of our lives.