Yet one day it will be us that is dead, and not others. And on days like today, when the young, beautiful, gifted and good meet an early death, we should not draw comfort from this, or even let it pass us by, but we should reflect on it. And of course, we should also reflect on the hope for those of us who have, in the words of Hebrews 12, set our hearts, minds and bodies to run the race of the gospel with the endurance Christ gives us. 

A Race Cut Short

Like so many recreational runners around the world – not to mention the elites – I felt numb this morning reading of the death of marathon world record holder, Kelvin Kiptum. I still can’t believe it.

We all went onto social media, and read the reports and shared our grief. The tweets on X, the Facebook shares, the sports pages, the online forum LetsRun.

When you’re struggling to get your marathon under three hours, it’s insane to think about the pace required to take another hour off that again. And that’s what Kiptum had been planning to do, with his expected April tilt at sub-two hours on the fast Rotterdam course.

The Kenyan superstar died after crashing his car whilst driving late at night in his home country. His coach died with him. And all of this just five days after his 2023 Chicago marathon time of 2:00:35 was ratified by World Athletics, and announced by none other than that superstar from a previous age, the head of World Athletics, Lord Sebastian Coe himself.

Kiptum was 24. He had run three marathons – won them all and had announced himself as the next big thing, after the GOAT – Eliud Kipchoge. His three marathons are three of the seven fastest times in history.

Both he and Kipchoge were both provisionally chosen for the Kenyan Olympics team for Paris later this year. But alas, that Gold/Silver showdown is not to be.

No doubt there will be a moment’s silence at the start of the race, as the beautiful, gifted and good of the road pay their acknowledgements to someone who was destined to be a superstar. He was cut short of the finish line in life.

Often marathoners feel it is tragic if they pull out of a marathon during the race due to injury or illness or not getting to their goal pace at the right time. But this puts all of that into perspective.

Our Destiny

But of course, even raising the idea of our destiny brings in the sobering truth that there is no way to determine that for ourselves. Whatever we say about us, or whatever anyone else says about us, our destiny – because it’s in the future – is out of our hands.

Kiptum trained for insane distances each week – far more than other conventional athletes. Even more than Kipchoge. The worst that could be said about his 200-250km weeks was that he would burnt out early or get badly injured. He was reaching for the sun, and the heat would melt his Icarus-liked winged feet. He would break before he got old.

We didn’t predict that he would die before he got old.

But in a sense, whatever we think our destiny is in the short term – greatness in sport, or achievement or adventure or pleasure, our destiny is death. Like Kiptum we are all destined to die.

The Bible tells us that it is destined for humans to die once and then face judgement (Hebrews 9:27), the grave takes us all. And it takes us so often by surprise.

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