The World's Fastest Marathon Ever!
Our Fastest Marathon Ever Story
The Nike Breaking2 Campaign
Our inspiration came from the 2017 Nike "Breaking2" campaign. Nike set out to see if a runner, with near perfect training and race conditions, could run a marathon in under 2 hours (they couldn't). The physical feat is daunting - a runner would need to sustain a 4:33/mile pace for the entire 26.2 mile course. Inspired by the project, and seeing that breaking 2 hours solo wasn't possible yet ... the idea to break the 2 hour marathon barrier in relay was born.
The Original Concept Team
In November of 2017, we set out to test the concept of a high-speed relay using 200m legs on a college track. We wanted to break 1 hour in the Half Marathon distance, which we did! Logistics and several key elements were successfully tested and proven that day, and we had a blast running together. All 8 of us alternated for 13 legs of 200m each, with a final time of 0:57:59.10. Our names are all in bold in the runner list below.
The Final Chapter - June 15th, 2018
Confident that a relay team should be able to break the 2 hour barrier, we had to set our sites even higher. The obvious next step would be to set the world record! We recruited 60 top athletes in our bid to break the GUINNESS WORLD RECORD™ for the Fastest marathon distance in relay. The previous record was 1:38:50, but we broke it at 1:30:40.316!
