To be honest, it’s a natural thing. For example, when Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone reduced her own women’s world 400m hurdles record to 50.68sec in winning last year’s world title in Eugene, it was fairly swiftly established that her time would have won any of the men’s 400m hurdles finals run at the Olympics up to and including the 1952 Games in Helsinki.

It would also have been a men’s world record until July 26, 1934, when Glenn Hardin of the United States ran 50.6sec.

So as soon as I saw the time of 2hr 11min 53sec that Tigist Assefa ran at yesterday’s Berlin Marathon, one of my first thoughts was that that was faster than the second world record set by her illustrious fellow Ethiopian Abebe Bikila in winning his second Olympic title at the Tokyo 1964 Games.

Bikila’s time in Japan was 2:12:11. And actually, Assefa also bettered the world record set at the Polytechnic Marathon in England on June 12, 1965, by Japan’s Morio Shigematsu, who clocked 2:12:00.

In fact, to play the game thoroughly, Assefa - had she had the benefit of time travel - would have been men’s world record holder until December 3, 1967, when Derek Clayton of Australia clocked 2:09:36 at the Fukuoka Marathon.

Now that, by the by, represented a big old chunk off the previous record - 2min 24sec in fact. It was the biggest margin of improvement since June 12, 1952, when Britain’s Jim Peters took almost five minutes off the 1947 mark of 2:25:39 set by Korea’s Suh Yun-bok in clocking 2:20:42 on a Polytechnic Marathon course that was suspected of being "slightly long".

But we digress.

The 29-year-old Ethiopian - a former 800m runner who only took up road running in 2018 and ran her first marathon in March 2022 - had sent ripples through the athletics world by taking 18 minutes off her personal best to win her second marathon - in Berlin - in 2:15:37, then the third best time ever run.

One year on her successful defence of the Berlin title sent a veritable tide through the sport.

Having reached halfway in 66min 20sec she then ran a negative split of 65:33 to simply bypass the sub 2:14 and sub 2:13 benchmarks by running a sub-2:12.

Among the reactions on social media was a post on the site formerly known as Twitter by John Ashworth which said: "I won Berlin in 2:11.43 (1985) I never thought I would see a woman get that close it really is an out of the 'world' performance literally 'out of this world'.

One other measure of the extraordinariness of Assefa’s record is that, according to the World Athletics points system for ranking purposes, it would be equivalent to an 800 metres time of 1min 51.59sec - well inside the women’s world record of 1:53.28 set by the Czech runner Jarmila Kratochvilova in 1983.

Assefa’s time took 2min 11sec off the previous world record of 2:14:04 set by Kenya’s Brigid Kosgei at the 2019 Chicago Marathon.

Kosgei’s mark seemed seismic at the time, taking 1min 21sec off the mind-blowing mark of 2:15:25 set at the 2003 London Marathon by Britain’s Paula Radcliffe.

That mark bettered her own earlier world record of 2:17:18, set at the previous year’s Chicago Marathon, by 1min 53sec, and was a full 3min 22sec faster than the mark of 2:18:47 set by the previous world record holder, Kenya’s Catherine Ndereba.

It took 16 years for Radcliffe’s great leap forward to be bettered. Will we be looking at a similar timespan for Assefa’s landmark effort?

Probably not. Given that she is not yet 30, and that this was only her third marathon, she herself looks capable of improving the mark before she finishes with the distance.

That said, given Berlin’s record of records - this was the 13^th world mark, either male of female, to be set on this flat course in a race whose last week in September staging often sees runners operating in highly comfortable temperatures - she may need to return to the German capital to improve.

And without detracting from this superb run, one other factor which may enable others to challenge it sooner or later is the rapid advance in shoe technology - something Assefa herself was assiduous in crediting before the race.

In a new era established by Nike’s cutting edge shoes, German-based manufacturers Adidas got into the frame in a big way yesterday by sending Assefa onto the course wearing the newly designed Adizero Adios Pro Evo 1 shoe - which we are all free to buy if we happen to have around £400 ($488.9/€459.7) to spare.

In a piece posted on the Athletics Weekly site on September 15 by the magazine's digital editor Jason Henderson, Assefa spoke of the excitement she felt about wearing a 138-gram shoe that is said to weigh 40 per cent less than any previous adidas racing model. It also confirms to the World Athletics rules of a maximum 400-millimetres stack height.

"This is the lightest racing shoe I have ever worn and the feeling of running in them is an incredible experience - like nothing I’ve felt before," she said.

"They enable me to put my full focus on the race, which is exactly what you want as an athlete. I feel ready to defend my title in Berlin and can’t wait to lace up at the start line in these."

The shoes also got a namecheck in the wake of that successful defence.

"Berlin is very special to me and after my win last year I had big plans for today," Assefa said. 

"I trained very hard over the last few months to accomplish the fastest time I have ever run.

"I’m very thankful for the support of the crowd along the race, but also for my partner Adidas equipping me with their lightest racing shoe ever - the Adizero Adios Pro Evo 1 - which gave me that extra boost today to go and achieve a world record time. I could not be happier."

That goes for her shoe supplier too.

Meanwhile harking back to Bikila - while Assefa may have surpassed his best, she will surely never trouble his mark of 2hr 15min 16sec set in winning his first Olympic title at the Rome Games of 1960 - as it is a world record run in bare feet...