Career
A two-time silver medallist at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships, he made his marathon debut in 2005 and had his first major victory at the Chicago Marathon in 2007. However, he was plagued by injuries during much of the early part of this decade. He also competed at the 2000 Summer Olympics and finished fourth in the 10,000 metres.
Ivuti made his debut over the marathon distance at the 2005 Chicago Marathon.
He has broken the hour mark several times since running a time of 59:31 in Lisbon 2000. He set his new half marathon personal record of 59:27 at the Rotterdam Half Marathon on September 9, 2007.
The race was the closest Chicago Marathon ever and a photo finish culmination of a shoulder to shoulder final 300 meter stretch run with Jaouad Gharib down Columbus Drive on a day of record-setting 88 °F (31 °C) temperatures. He also repeated the Honolulu Marathon victory.
He had a disappointing run in Prague in 2010, coming nineteenth, but he rebounded at the 2011 Vienna City Marathon by recording his third career sub-2:10 time to take second place behind John Kiprotich.
He returned to Honolulu but was beaten to the title by Nicholas Chelimo by a margin of three seconds.