Haile Gebrselassie won the Berlin Marathon this weekend in a world record time of 2:04:26! He surpassed Paul Tergat‘s time of 2:04:55 from 4 years ago at the same race. With his win, he moves into second place in the world marathon majors for the 2006/2007 scoring year, and is tied for first place in the 2007/2008 standings. The conditions were near perfect, reaching a high in the low 60s at the end of the race and with very little wind.

Gete Wami moved into 1^st place after her win in the women’s race in 2:23:17.

I thought that Gebrselassie was going to break Paul Tergat’s record, but I did not expect to see it until next year or the year after. It turns out that he was able to break the record much earlier than I had given him credit for. While it is not likely, I hope that this record spurs on a series of world record runs in the next couple of years, because I would like to see the record get down below 2 hours. I do not know if anybody will ever be able to do that, but it would be something to see!

(Source: World Marathon Majors)