While the rest of us spent our Sunday devouring lemon pepper chicken wings and wishing we could run a marathon, 28-year-old Peres Jepchirchir was preoccupied with actually winning the New York City Marathon, per CNN.
For those of you who refuse to get off of the couch and only run to the bathroom (or from child support payments), the New York City Marathon is kind of a big goddamn deal—as evidenced by the fact that Jepchirchir somehow ran all 26.2 miles (yes, you read that correctly) through every borough of NYC in exactly 2 hours, 22 minutes, and 39 seconds—which is almost as long the music video for Michael Jackson’s “You Rock My World.”
But what makes this feat particularly impressive is that after finishing the race, Jepchirchir became the first runner to win both Olympic gold and the New York City Marathon. This summer, the Kenyan runner showed out in the women’s marathon at the 2020 Summer Olympics with a time of 2:27.20.
“It’s not easy,” she said of the challenging New York course. “Toward the finishing line, I felt something I’ve never felt before to finish a marathon.”
Fellow Kenyan Albert Korir held it down for the men, finishing in first place with a time of 2:08:22. In 2019, he was the runner-up, and he was unable to compete in 2020 due to the event being canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It was not an easy race,” Korir admitted afterward. “But I enjoyed it.”
Congratulations to both Peres Jepchirchir and Albert Korir for bringing an abundance of Black excellence to the New York Marathon. Now if you’ll excuse me, let me get back to these chicken wings.