At the finish line, Sawe held up sponsors Adidas’ latest ‘supershoe’ with his time written along the side, acknowledging the technology which had assisted him.
The Adidas Adios Pro 3 shoes, available to purchase for an eye-watering £450, weigh just 97g – 30% lighter than the previous model.
The company claims they deliver an 11% greater forefoot energy return and improve running economy by 1.6% compared to its predecessor. Tigst Assefa also wore the shoes in breaking the women’s record on Sunday.
To benefit from those statistics, however, Sawe runs about 200km per week – averaging almost 30km every day – at altitude, and credited his increase in volume as one of the key factors in his progress.
Developments in fuelling have also aided progress in endurance events. Sawe reportedly took on 115g of carbohydrates per hour during the race, following a breakfast consisting of two slices of bread with honey and tea.
It all combined to allow him to cover 26.2 miles at an average pace of 2:50 mins/km, or 4:33 mins/mile, including a 5km split of 13:42 from 35-40km as he sped up towards the finish.
However, amid the spate of high-profile doping cases involving Kenyan athletes, including women’s marathon world record holder Ruth Chepngetich, he has also had an awareness for the need to instil confidence in these performances.
Determined to prove he is competing clean, Adidas provided $50,000 (£36,900) to the Athletics Integrity Unit, the sport’s anti-doping body, to frequently test Sawe over a 12-month period.
That began with a reported 25 out-of-competition tests in the lead-up to Berlin in September, continuing at a similar rate as he prepared for London.
Sawe said on Monday: “It’s very important to me because it gets out the doubt in my career of athletics and yesterday’s performance.
“It shows Sabastian Sawe is clean. It shows running clean is good, and we can run clean and we can run faster.
“It keeps the awareness that Sabastian Sawe is not to be doubted, and he is a clean athlete.”
Wherever Sawe goes next, with his coach backing his claim that there is more to come, the world will be watching.
