1,000 Miles on a Track, Sawe to Berlin, Kejelcha to Valencia, Soweto Pay Scandal & Is Bolt the GOAT?

About this episode

The episode discusses major stories in running, including the Soweto Marathon prize-money scandal and Mason Wright's 1,000-mile track run.

The fall marathon season is already taking shape and Michael Doyle and Jessy Carveth are here to break it all down. On this episode of The Running Story, the team runs through the five biggest stories from the past week in running. In this episode: The Soweto Marathon prize-money scandal — six months after the November 2025 race, the winners are still owed roughly $15,000, runners-up about $7,000, and the South African government is now threatening to step in. We unpack the broken sanctioning process, why the doping-results excuse fell apart, and the criminal charges that could be coming for the organizers. Mason Wright runs 1,000 miles on a Utah high school track — 18 days, 13 hours, 11 minutes, roughly 4,000 laps, and only the third person in history to finish the distance on a track. We talk about the mental load, the nerve damage by halfway, and where this fits next to Yiannis Kouros and Ned Brockman. The fall marathon field is set up early: Sabastian Sawe is officially racing the Berlin Marathon on September 27, Yomif Kejelcha is heading to Valencia on December 2 (with a $1 million-euro world-record bonus on the line), and Jacob Kiplimo is reportedly bound for Chicago. Who…

People in this episode

Hosts: Michael Doyle, Jessy Carveth

Topics covered

• marathon season
• Soweto Marathon scandal
• Mason Wright's 1,000 miles
• fall marathon predictions
• age limits in running

Keywords

• marathon
• Soweto
• Mason Wright
• Berlin Marathon
• Leiden Half Marathon
• doping
• age limits

Mentioned in this episode

Places: Soweto, Berlin, Valencia, Chicago, Utah

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