I did break a Guinness World Record this last week but I’m not ready to publish the video yet so I’m doing a throwback to never-before-seen footage of my 50th Guinness World Record for the fastest half marathon balancing a pool cue on the finger.
The MC announced at the beginning of the race some of the exciting marks being attempted at the race. There was one gal attempting her 33rd half marathon. She was 11… . Then there was the man attempting his 100th marathon.
It was a chilly morning in the 50s and felt colder with a strong, gusty wind. There was a false start countdown at 7 AM when the race was supposed to start since there were 2 busses of runners that hadn’t yet arrived. Fifteen minutes later the race began for real. I waited until the 1,100 runners from the half and full marathon all crossed the start line and then waited another minute and a half to start so the crowd could spread out before I needed to start passing them. I had to pass over 700 runners during the race but I still think it’s easier to weave through them during the race than fight with so many at the beginning and risk a serious pileup/injuty at the beginning.
I took off at about 7:16 AM and immediately ran into trouble. Gusts of over 35 MPH hit me from the side and it was all I could do to stretch my right hand all the way over to the left side of my body and have the cue lean right into the wind. I made it several steps but then lost the handle and the cue fell off. I slowed, retraced my steps, rebalanced the cue and took off again. Less than a minute later another strong gust knocked the cue off and the process repeated. In all I would lose the balance or hit a tree well over a dozen times and have to go back to restart where the incident occurred.
My splits were about 8:15-8:30 for the first 6 miles, then 9:30 for the 7th since I stopped for food and had a camera malfunction that took some time. I finished at sub 7:30 pace for the last 3 miles.
My finishing chip time was: 1:49:37. I broke my stretch goal of sub 1:50.
Big shout out to Patrick Harper and Kevin Everett who accompanied me the whole way as official witnesses and videographers. They were extremely helpful not only for making the record attempt official but letting me know about low-hanging tree branches (and especially the time I hit some pine needles I didn’t feel).
