I’m watching the live feed from Mandalen, Norway, where Kilian’s about 8:30 into his 24 hour record attempt. He is ahead of the world record pace, and they’re projecting right now that he’ll go just over 200 miles, which would beat the previous record 188.590 miles, set in ’97 by Yiannis Kouros, but Kilian’s stated that he expects to slow down after 10 hours. I wouldn’t think I’d like watching some guys run around a track so much, but I’m thoroughly enjoying it. It’s both exciting and soothing. His gait is so consistent! He recently stopped to switch his shoes, and I hear things get very exciting every four hours when they change directions.

Yiannis Kouros was 41 when he set that record. He still holds world records for 100 road miles (11:46!) and 1,000 miles (10 days, 10 hours). As well as all the timed records for miles run in 12, 24, 48 hours and six days for both roads and track. Something I thought was a fun fact was that he played Pheidippides in a documentary, The Story of the Marathon: A Hero’s Journey. He was a long jumper in elementary school, but in high school his coach dismissed him, saying he was “a mediocre athlete who just didn’t have the build to go fast.”

After being a junior champion, Yiannis worked as a guard at an athletic stadium. He trained twice a day, then at night he worked on building his own house in Tripoli and claims he only slept 2.5 hours a night. In six years, from age 21 to 27, he raced 25 marathons but only won one. In ’83, he went from marathon to 156 miles when he ran his first ultra at the Spartathalon, (kind of gives some perspective to what we consider an ultra) and won it, beating the previous course record by something like 6 hours to come in under 22 hours. He set another course record in ’84 which still stands, which is also two hours faster than Scott Jurek’s best time at the Spartathalon.

It’s both dark and cold in Norway today. The commentator said he asked Kilian what he thinks about the dark, and Kilian said something like, well I’m used to running in the mountains in the dark, so at the track with the lights, it just doesn’t matter. They’re expecting a low of 32 degrees f, and highs between 44 and 55 f. The runners look pretty chilly to me. As I’m writing this now, it’s almost 8pm in Norway, so they’re about eight hours of where I am in Mtn time.

Unrelated, I’ve just finished my set of R2R2R training plans, you can see them here: