We had to wait until 2001 before the 2:20-barrier was eventually broken in the women’s marathon but Norway’s Ingrid Kristiansen brought this time clearly into view on this day (21) in 1985 with a barrier-breaking performance in the London Marathon.
Kristiansen crossed the finish-line on Westminster Bridge in 2:21:06 to slice a significant margin from the world record - or the world best as marathon records were still referred to in 1985 - held by Joan Benoit from the United States at 2:22:43. Kristiansen’s performance remained the standard bearer in the event for just under 13 years until Kenya’s Tegla Loroupe improved the record to 2:20:47 in the 1998 Rotterdam Marathon.
“I was looking at my watch all the way. I wanted to break it [Benoit’s mark] from the start,” said Kristiansen, who won the London Marathon for the first time one year prior but was a disappointed fourth behind Benoit in the inaugural Olympic marathon in Los Angeles in 1984.
Kristiansen rued her tactical naïveté on that day when she allowed Benoit - whose 2:22:43 was set in the 1983 Boston Marathon - to amass a runaway lead but the Norwegian was an improved athlete in 1985 and didn’t make any mistakes on her return to the British capital in what was essentially a race against the clock.
“I was aiming for a time between 2:20-2:22:40. The plan was to reach halfway in 69:30 and then take it easier in the second half. In 1984, I experienced the stretch from the Docks at halfway to 35 kilometres as very hard - psychologically hard. I was mentally prepared for this, and was going to do better this year,” Kristiansen said in an interview with Athletics Weekly.
A halfway split of 69:30 would have put Kristiansen on course for a sub-2:20 performance, a feat achieved for the first time by Japan’s Naoko Takahashi in 2001. After tearing through five kilometres in 15:25 and ten kilometres in 32:52, Kristiansen instead settled for a slightly more conservative opening of 70:09 which was still comfortably inside world record schedule and a sub-2:20 clocking was still within reach if Kristiansen could raise her rhythm. With assistance from her second designated pacemaker Helge Knutsen, she succeeded in doing so.
“But in the last seven kilometres, I slowed down and lost one minute,” reflected Kristiansen, whose glances at her watch were all the more frequent and anguished in the last two kilometres.
Kristiansen’s time of 2:21:06 from the 1985 London Marathon remained the course record until Paula Radcliffe clocked 2:18:56 on her debut seventeen years later and only Radcliffe’s time of 2:15:25 set in the 2003 London Marathon has spent longer on the record books. Not bad for someone who barely did any sessions on the roads until one month prior to race day itself!
While the current generation of Norwegian distance runners escape en masse to Flagstaff, Arizona or Dullstroom, South Africa to avoid the dark and bitter Norwegian winters, Kristiansen was renowned for doing most of her hard workouts on her trusty treadmill in Oslo where the temperatures plummeted to minus 30C at the end of 1984.
On her preparation for the 1985 London Marathon, Kristiansen said: “I got hold of a treadmill in the middle of December and from then until barely a month before London I did nearly all my running on that - from 80 to 200 kilometres per week.
“In addition to running, I put in four sessions of one to four hours of cross country skiing per week, preferably on slow skis to make me work hard. Skiing is very easy on the muscles and sinews and it’s great fun - and mentally very refreshing. I would much rather do two-and-a-half hours of skiing on newly-fallen snow than run on it,” she said.
Along with treadmill sessions and cross country skiing, Kristiansen also did faster workouts on a nearby indoor track as well as 5x2000m interval sessions with her clubmates in a park in Oslo before increasing her volume of training on the roads in the build-up to race day.
This preparation might be unorthodox by modern day standards but her performance in the London Marathon on that day - as well as her best times on the track from 3000m upwards - would by no means see her outclassed or outmatched against the current crop of Kenyan or Ethiopian distance runners. At a continental level, Kristiansen is still third on the European all-time list over 10,000m (30:13.74) and fifth in the marathon with 2:21:06.
The dynamics of the 1985 London Marathon were slightly different with the elite women starting at the same time as the masses but Kristiansen believes she would have run nearly just as fast in a women-only race.
“I was so motivated that I don’t think my time would have been that much slower [if we started separately]. I’d prepared for this race for six months. You have to dare to try. I could have played it safe and gone for 2:25 but I took the chance of going for 2:20-2:20:40 and maybe not finishing,” she said.
Ingrid Kristiansen’s lifetime bests:
3000m 8:34.10
5000m 14:37.33
10,000m 30:13.74
10km 30:59
Half marathon 66:40
Marathon 2:21:06
World marathon record progression:
2:22:43 Joan Benoit (1983)2:21:06 Ingrid Kristiansen (1985)
2:20:47 Tegla Loroupe (1998)
2:20:43 Tegla Loroupe (1999)
2:19:46 Naoko Takahashi (2001)
2:18:47 Catherine Ndereba (2001)
2:17:18 Paula Radcliffe (2002)
2:15:25 Paula Radcliffe (2003)
2:14:04 Brigid Kosgei (2019)