Kiplimo uses Watch data

Jacob Kiplimo is training for the 2026 London Marathon with a Samsung Galaxy Watch8 on his wrist, and Samsung says he is using the watch’s health data to decide when to push harder and when to back off. The detail that stands out is not the gadget itself but the idea that a marathon build can now be adjusted day by day from wrist data instead of by feel alone. (samsungmobilepress.com) That kind of data starts with heart rate, which is simply how many times the heart beats in a minute during rest, workouts, and recovery. For distance runners, heart rate works like a dashboard gauge because the same pace can feel easy on one day and expensive on another. (samsungmobilepress.com) The next layer is recovery, which is the body’s bounce-back time after hard training. Kiplimo told Samsung that rest is part of the formula behind his recent performances, and the watch data helps him see when recovery is good enough to handle another demanding session. (news.samsung.com) Samsung says Kiplimo also watches running-form metrics such as asymmetry, which measures whether the left and right sides of the body are working evenly. That matters over marathon training because a small imbalance repeated over 100 kilometers in a week can turn into wasted energy or an injury warning. (news.samsung.com) This is landing at a moment when Kiplimo is already running at a historic level. World Athletics says he won the Lisbon Half Marathon on March 8, 2026 in 57 minutes 20 seconds, a world record for 13.1 miles. (worldathletics.org) Samsung’s interview says that same training block included more than 100 kilometers in one week, with even a rest day sometimes including a 3 kilometer run. When a runner is stacking that much volume, the difference between “slightly tired” and “not ready” is exactly the kind of gap continuous watch data is supposed to catch. (news.samsung.com) The London Marathon is the next big test. Reporting from Uganda’s The Independent says Kiplimo is entered for the 2026 London Marathon on April 26, 2026, which means the watch data is being used in the final weeks before one of the biggest races on the calendar. (independent.co.ug) There is also a bigger shift here in what “consumer” wearables are doing in elite sport. Samsung says Kiplimo uses the same Samsung Health ecosystem sold to ordinary runners, but in his case the numbers are feeding decisions around pace, form, and recovery at world-record speed. (samsungmobilepress.com) That does not mean a watch creates a champion. Kiplimo is 25, already owns a half-marathon world record, and has won at the highest level for years, but this story shows how top runners are treating wearable data the way Formula One teams treat telemetry: not as the engine, but as the instrument panel. (worldathletics.org)