Getty Image / Alex Davidson/iStockphoto/PiyapongK
Elite men's distance runner and Half Marathon world record holder Yomif Kejelcha
Ethiopian long distance runner Yomif Kejelcha didn’t just break the Half Marathon world record on Sunday in Buenos Aires, Argentina, he absolutely obliterated the previous record and shaved 29 seconds of Jacob Kiplimo’s previous record. Kejelcha crossed the finish line with a time of 56:51.
To really put into context how fast that is I thought we could break down his half marathon times and splits into chunks that the rest of us mortals can comprehend.
How Fast Was Yomif Kejelcha’s Half Marathon World Record? Let’s Take A Look
As everyone knows, the half marathon distance is 13.1 miles. That breaks down to 21.0975 kilometers or 23,072.5 yards.
That means Yomif Kejelcha was running 6.18 meters per second or 6.76 yards per second. Over the course of the entire 1/2 marathon, he averaged a 5.913 40-yard dash time. For context, Tom Brady ran a 5.28-second 40-yard dash in his NFL Combine and that was his all out sprint effort for only 40 yards. He didn’t then have to do that 577 consecutive times in a row over the course of a half marathon.
Kejelcha’s splits for the race were 13 minutes and 44 seconds for the first 5K, 27 minutes and 18 seconds for the first 10K, 40 minutes and 39 seconds for the first 40K, 54 minutes and 2 seconds for the 20K, and a finishing time of 56:51.
Over the entire half marathon world record, Yomif Kejelcha averaged a 4:20 mile. That sounds INSANE until you learn that his fastest mile time ever was a 3:47.01. He ran that in Boston back in 2019 at the at the Bruce Lehane Invitational and it was a world record at the time. That record is now held by Jakob Ingebrigsten who ran 3:45.14 back in 2025 and Kerr owns the outdoor record as of last month, but I digress.
Averaging 4 minutes and 20 seconds per mile over the course of 13.1 miles is obviously uncharted territory as this is a new world record. To put some of these splits into further context, his 10K time of 27:18 is nearly on par with the 5K time for a 15-year-old novice runner, and faster than the average 10K time of a novice 40-year-old runner, based on this chart of averages from Men’s Health on Instagram.
Yomif Kejelcha is 29-years-old. The average mile time for a 29yo male ranges from 7:30 to 9:30. Running a 6:39 mile puts any 29-year-old male in the top 1% of their age group. He was running 4:20 averages.
Yesterday, I was sitting in a pool in Sarasota, Florida on the Gulf Coast and saw a plane fly over. Someone said ‘I wonder where that came from?’ so I opened the FlightRadar24 app to see it was Southwest flight from Orlando to Sarasota which blew my mind, I didn’t even know they flew that route since it is only a 2 hour drive. But the FlightRadar24 information said the flight had taken off just 15 minutes prior so it is about as quick of a flight as can be. In the time that flight had taken off and passed over us, Yomif Kejelcha had already run a 5K.
Is something in the water?
The average 1-mile time for an Advanced male runner at 30-years-old is 5:45. It’s 5:09 for the Elite runner class. He held a 4:20/mile for 13.1 miles and broke the world record by 29 seconds.
To see the 1/2 Marathon world record broken by Yomif Kejelcha in Buenos Aires within a month of the 1-mile world record being broken by Josh Kerr at 3 minutes and 42.66 seconds, and the Marathon world record broken earlier this Summer in London by Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe at 1:59.30, it truly is surreal. Three of the biggest records in all of running to fall in the same year?! When is the last time this happened??
For those wondering what Yomif Kejelcha was wearing during the race, we’ve got you covered. He wore an Amazfit Cheetah 2 Pro ($449) on his left wrist and the Whoop MG on his right wrist. On his feet, Kejelcha wore the Adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3s, the same shoes that were worn when the men’s and women’s full marathon world records were broken.
Those $500 super shoes are the hottest commodity in running right now, if you can find them in stock anywhere. And to be sure, there are other ‘super shoes’ on the market but for Adidas to own the Men’s 1/2 Marathon, Men’s Full Marathon, and Women’s Full Marathon world records in these shoes is beyond compare.