Russian Marathoner Who Raced Berlin in Crocs Runs the Porto Marathon in Jeans

Anyone who has been caught in a downpour wearing jeans knows how quickly denim turns heavy, stiff and prone to chafing, and that is just on the walk home. Russian marathoner Iskander Yadgarov wore a pair for all 26.2 miles of the Porto Marathon on Sunday, Nov. 8, and finished in 2:28:29, a time he is claiming as the world record for a marathon in jeans.

He averaged around 5:40 per mile (3:31/km) and was the 11th man across the line in Portugal. The women’s winner, Ethiopia’s Ergat Kahsay Heshe, finished only 22 seconds ahead of him in 2:28:07, and Kenya’s Vincent Kipkorir Kigen won the men’s race in 2:11:00.

“the Porto Marathon absolutely destroyed me in the second half. and it wasn’t even about the jeans,” Yadgarov wrote on Instagram the day after the race. He admitted he had gone in without proper preparation, and that from 30K onward he was “feeling every hill, every gust of wind, and especially every bit of cobblestone.” By his own account he reached the finish “with almost no energy left,” and he signed off with an open invitation to anyone who wants a shot at his time: “now try to take it away from me.”

A 2:30 Target in Berlin

Yadgarov’s previous marathon was on Sept. 27, when he raced the Berlin Marathon in Crocs and stopped the clock at 2:30:03. He had been chasing 2:30 that day, and a clip he later shared of the final 600m shows him “giving everything i have left to break 2:30 in crocs.” He missed by three seconds, though the time was still close to half an hour quicker than the 2:58:24 British runner Chris Howett ran in Crocs at the Manchester Marathon.

Within two weeks of Berlin he was already planning the jeans. In an October interview with Sports.ru, Yadgarov said he had seen that “an American runs fast in jeans” and that he ought to take the record off him, and reckoned the jeans would give him less trouble than the Crocs had. He also kept the door open for a return to the clogs. “If someone beats my record, I’ll have to come back,” he told Sports.ru (translated from Russian).

He did not name the American, but Truett Hanes, who has raced several marathons in jeans, ran 2:36:56 in denim at the Austin Marathon in February, placing first in his age group, according to the Houston Chronicle. Yadgarov’s run in Porto was more than eight minutes faster than that.

A Two-Time Moscow Marathon Champion

In regular racing kit, Yadgarov is a 2:14:07 marathoner. World Athletics lists that personal best from Valencia in December 2023, along with a 1:02:35 half-marathon run on the same streets in October 2024, and the 35-year-old has won the Moscow Marathon twice. Measured against that marathon best, the jeans cost him 14 minutes and 22 seconds in Porto, while the Crocs cost him nearly 16 minutes in Berlin, so his hunch about denim being the kinder of the two outfits turned out to be about right.

Yadgarov has not said what he will race in next, and in the October interview he handed that decision to his readers: “Suggest ideas in the comments, we’ll consider them.”