And (in case you haven’t seen the news) that’s exactly what happened. I wanted to experience the transition between wild hypothetical and established truth in real time. I was awake, albeit puffy-eyed, because I knew there was a chance Kipchoge would do something ridiculous, and that if he did and I only found out after the fact, the world would already have changed such that whatever he did would no longer seem impossible.

But instead of wheezing or collapsing to the ground or even breaking stride, he had pounded his chest a couple of times, surged across the line-and then accelerated, pumping his fist and slapping his forehead in disbelief before leaping like an amorous bride into the waiting arms of his longtime coach. Kipchoge, the 33-year-old reigning Olympic champion from Kenya, had just breasted the tape. so that I could watch a grainy live stream of a bunch of bantamweights running a marathon through the streets of Berlin. I had slept restlessly in the basement and set my alarm for 4 a.m. For a few moments on Sunday morning, I wasn’t sure who was more tired, me or Eliud Kipchoge.

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