Said it before and I'll say it again: I've never met someone who's a competitive or serious or lifelong runner who is concerned with being seen by others as a 'runner'. It's Dave from accounting who used to be in shape in high school and could get back in shape if he wanted to, that why he started run/walking last week, he's the one who cares if you see him as a 'runner'.

It's the same here. Completing a marathon is really cool. Someone who completes one so they can be athletic-in-name-only for the rest of their life is probably more concerned about the definition of 'running' than the group going for a new PR, regardless of their relative paces.

Well, I had a completely different interpretation of "most consecutive days to run a marathon distance". Not the marathon a day interpretation. But rather how many consecutive days could you stretch it out to cover a marathon distance? As in no days off during the effort.

I think a minimal amount would be running one stride, a yard per day. So after 46,112 days I would complete the marathon. That's gotta be a record :-)

Easy solution.. double winners time and make the cut off there.

Or on a looped course just like in bike racing, get lapped means you are out.

Ah, the John Cage approach

https://www.npr.org/...e-slow-organ-2-aslsp

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

For pure running events that would eliminate a lot of people.

Looking at the 2023 London Marathon, roughly 19K of the 49K runners would have met that standard.

Looking at my local 5K (15:43 winning time...so no elites), 289 of 618 (slightly <1/2) would have.

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
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Just my personal knee jerk opinion, but if you finish 26.2 miles every 24 hours you qualify for this for as many days as you hold the streak. Set your watch on a 24-hour repeating timer and make sure you get your marathon distance volume in before it beep to your heart's content. Walk or run as much of it as you want. I have know some ultra runners who will get crazy and do like 250 miles in a week. They will run for 5-15 hours, take a 2-5 hour break then run another 5-15 hours and repeat. If you want to run for 10 miles, take a 3 hour nap, run another 10 miles, go out for dinner, take some down time for food to digest, then run for another 6.2 miles. I think that counts. I don't think you have to find sanctioned Boston Qualifiers on consecutive calendar days for every attempt and finish all of them in the 6-1/2 hour race cut-off time for this to qualify. Marathon distance is not the same thing as a Marathon. This is a running streak not competitive racing.

This is a running streak not competitive racing.//

But as has been noted, most can walk marathon distance in 8 or 9 hours pretty easily, which you condoned in your opening statement. So is it a running streak or a movement over 26.2 streak? I think that is what the OP is looking for, what would constitute an actual running streak from the movement one?

You are over thinking this. Most people walk in sanctioned Marathons. I run sub-3 hour marathons and even have taken home the prize for first place overall master in one of my last big marathons and I walk through aid stations (and sometime going up hills, etc.). I also have used the run-walk-run pacing plan for many of my multisport events (i.e. run for 4 minutes, walk for 30 seconds, or run a mile walk 60 seconds, etc.) Physically, walking is not much different from running. If you walk for eight hours the stress on your body is about the same as running for 3 hours. It doesn't matter if you finish the marathon distance in 6-1/2 hours of in 10-1/2 hours. The time limit is 24 hours. If you are trying to define it as anything else you have missed the point.

o well! give the runners something to strive for to improve next time. seems cut off times have been getting longer year by year. I remember my first marathon (rotterdam) being 5:30 as cut off. Also carlsbad 5000, only first 250 people get a finisher medal, not true anymore

I would think of this in the opposite way.

If I were to claim to have "walked a marathon a day" then any amount of running would be cheating. Therefore any amount of running would force you to say that you "ran a marathon a day". Could you say "completed a marathon a day?" sure, but I would argue that walking a 9 hour marathon is more challenging than running a 9 hour marathon (I can't even imagine the challenge of crawling a marathon a day), so saying you "ran a marathon a day" is admitting to taking the easier route ;-)

You are over thinking this. Most people walk in sanctioned Marathons.//

I know, I said as much in my earlier post here. I just think that running and walking are two different things, thus two different words and two different definitions. And I think you are a little out there if you think walking an entire marathon distance is the same as running it at 3 hours, balderdash!!!! You could probably take over half the population and folks could walk that distance in a day, but maybe .00001% could run it at 3 hours? Seems like there must be some difference to me, no??


If you are going to call it a "running" event, then there should be some % of running involved. Not all, perhaps not even most, but that is where a time standard comes in and I think what the OP is questioning. Do whatever you like to cover the distance, it just has to be done in so and so time, which would require running a good portion of it. I mean if folks are just walking, then how can it be a running event?


But as is usual with these mostly one off events, folks set up their own rules to suit themselves. But once you venture into the Guinness record world, then there begins to be guidelines and such to try and have apples to apples comparisons, but not always in this new ultra challenge dynamic...


Congratulations on your sub 3 hours after 40, very pointy end there.

Not that they have to be recognized as the authority on how “running a marathon” is defined for you or anybody, but as far as Guinness is concerned, a distance equal to a marathon must be completed within each day. It does not have to be an actual marathon course, it can be on a road/trail/track/treadmill, and can even be spread out over multiple runs during each day. How they go about documenting any or all of it for the purpose of their world records, I have no idea.

I really hate judging things I could never do and wouldn't do.

I often question the longevity records in terms of "streaks" of number of days running, biking, whatever over the years where the boundaries are really loose.

The reason I issue judgement against walking for running "streaks" is that if you allow walking, and a person in a day "walks" as part of their normal day or life...........why is that excluded? I'm sure there are jobs where you walk 3mi/day everyday. Then you don't lay in bed 24hrs in a row either.

I realize this said "marathon" so it defined a distance that's obviously further by a lot. So, maybe looser there to just cover that distance. But otherwise, I do feel there should be a pace requirement.

Run by definition means you have both feet off the ground in a stride. A walk by definition means always having at least one foot on the ground. I say let's go with that.

would you have an issue if the person broke the marathon up into chunks and ran it through the day? Say run 10k at a time and take a two hour break between each 10k? Would that be okay as long as they actually ran each 10k?

Mostly replying to last, and a little bit replying to you :)

I couldn't find where Guinness (or anyone else) sets the conditions for records like this, hence the OP

Records like "fastest marathon dressed like a clown" -could- be set by a walker but will eventually be broken by a runner, so those kind of sort themselves out.

Defining it by amount of walking is a total minefield:
I walk one step in a marathon - does that mean I didn't run it? I think we'd all agree that I ran
I walk a few busy aid stations...I think we'd all still agree that I ran
I walk the entire thing...I think we'd all agree that I walked

So somewhere in the middle, it magically swaps from "I ran it" to "I walked it?" Are we going to say that if I do run/walk 10'/1' that counts as running, but 3'/1' counts as walking? It just gets really ugly really fast. Yuck.

Defining it by chunks gets ugly too:
I have to stop in the middle and take a dump. Is there a time limit where that changes from 1 run to 2 runs? Ugh.
I stop in the middle for something besides taking a dump, maybe taking a business phone call. Does that mean it's 2 chunks? Time limit? Ugh.
I stop after every 10k and refill my water bottle. Is that 4 chunks? Time limit? Ugh.

Pace really seems like the only way. Somewhere there must be a record for the slowest somebody has ever run while maintaining a flight phase for every stride. Let that pace become the maximum allowable time for your daily streak, and you can stop as much as you want, walk/crawl as much as you want, but the elapsed timer keeps on tickin'. That's a lot less yuck.

So I remain curious about Guinness definition, and I remain a bit dubious of any self-proclaimed records where the lack of oversight or definition means that you can just create your own 15' of fame and call it a record.

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Eliot
blog thing - strava thing

tokyo marathon cut off:
https://www.facebook.com/reel/742854087941998