Kiplimo trains with a smartwatch

One of the world’s fastest distance runners is preparing for the London Marathon with a device most people use to count steps on the way to work. Jacob Kiplimo told Samsung he is using a Galaxy Watch8 and Samsung Health to track pace, heart rate, asymmetry, recovery, and training load ahead of the 2026 race. (samsungmobilepress.com) Kiplimo is not a fringe athlete testing a gadget for fun. World Athletics lists the Ugandan as the men’s road running world No. 1, and London Marathon Events has him in the 2026 elite men’s field with a marathon best of 2:02:23. (worldathletics.org) (londonmarathonevents.co.uk) The watch is doing more than logging miles. Samsung says Kiplimo uses its Running Analysis tools to watch how evenly he moves, how hard his heart is working, and whether a session should stay fast, slow, or be cut back. (samsungmobilepress.com) That kind of training is basically a dashboard for fatigue. If pace is the speedometer, recovery data is the engine temperature gauge, and elite runners now have both on the same wrist instead of waiting for a coach to review notes after practice. (samsungmobilepress.com) (samsung.com) Kiplimo’s results make the experiment hard to dismiss. World Athletics reported that he ran 57:20 at the Lisbon Half Marathon on March 8, 2026, taking 10 seconds off his own world record. (worldathletics.org) That 57:20 came after an even bigger jump the year before. World Athletics said Kiplimo ran 56:42 in Barcelona on February 16, 2025, becoming the first man under 57 minutes for the half marathon and improving the previous record by 48 seconds. (worldathletics.org) The London Marathon is where this gets more interesting. London Marathon Events says Kiplimo is back in the 2026 field after finishing runner-up last year, and he will line up against defending champion Sabastian Sawe and Olympic champion Tamirat Tola. (londonmarathonevents.co.uk 1) (londonmarathonevents.co.uk 2) Marathon training punishes mistakes more than half marathon training does. A runner can survive a slightly hot pace for 21.1 kilometers, but 42.2 kilometers exposes every bad decision, which is why tools that flag overtraining or uneven effort are useful long before race day. (londonmarathonevents.co.uk) (samsungmobilepress.com) Samsung is also using Kiplimo to show that smartwatch coaching has moved upmarket. Its Galaxy Watch8 page pitches features like Running Coach and readiness tracking to ordinary runners, while its mobile press site is now showing the same ecosystem on the wrist of a world-record holder. (samsung.com) (samsungmobilepress.com) The old picture of endurance training was a stopwatch, a paper log, and a coach on a bicycle. The 2026 version is a marathon favorite from Uganda checking his workload on a smartwatch before one of the biggest races on the calendar. (samsungmobilepress.com) (londonmarathonevents.co.uk)