Even with all the doom and gloom that clouds most of our days, every so often in Africa, we are reminded of our greatness. Today is one of those days. When I was getting ready for the Standard Chartered Nairobi Marathon last year, my good friend and brother, Kamau Kagunye, got me to sit down one sunny Saturday morning over breakfast to watch a Netflix documentary, Breaking 2, Nike’s unofficial trial attempt to break the two-hour marathon barrier. Aided by a cast of Olympic-level pacesetters and optimized hydration intake, Eliud Kipchoge nearly pulled off his most audacious feat to date: run a marathon in less than 2 hours. He finished in 2:00:25. Far from this record, I did a time of 3:30:02, not terribly shabby for a 42 year old middle-aged man running 42.195km! But today, Eliud Kipchoge, the humble and unassuming farmer from Kenya’s rift valley region clocked 2:01:40 in Berlin. The same city where Jesse Owens, the son of a sharecropper and grandson of a slave, achieved what no Olympian before him had accomplished: a stunning four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic games. Just so you understand why Eliud Kipchoge’s win has stopped the world in its tracks, next time you head out the door for a morning jog, imagine running 5km in 14 minutes, 25 seconds. Beat that, my friend! Just goes to show that if we dare breach the mental dams that hold us back, the potential for greatness that lives within each of us is unleashed. There is truly nothing as resilient as the human spirit.