ARLINGTON, Va. — Since organized sports have been put on hold across America, athletes are getting creative, and that goes for marathon runners too.
Right now, Michael Wardian would be training for the Boston Marathon that was supposed to take place in a few weeks. Instead, he’s running marathons in his neighborhood, and virtually competing against thousands all over the world.
Wardian has been running marathons since 1996 and holds numerous world records including the fastest to run 10 marathons in 10 consecutive days.
“I did that last year, and seven of those marathons were on seven different continents, so I tacked on the 10 at the end.”
But traveling to other continents is out of the question these days, ao Mike is running in his Arlington, Virginia neighborhood. And this past weekend was part of the Quarantine Backyard Ultramarathon, a virtual race with about 2,400 runners from 55 different countries, all connected online via ZOOM.
The challenge? To run 4.16 miles every hour, starting exactly on the hour.
“This is the longest distance I’ve ever run in a single push, so for me, it was kind of a good chance to find my boundaries and test my limits.”
Mike was the last man standing having run 262 miles, for 63 hours, with no sleep. He says, he could’ve kept going!
"I was surprised, I had some bad patches here and there, but mostly felt pretty strong throughout.”
Winning wasn’t the best part.
For Mike, it was seeing the support from his neighbors and bringing a community together when we all could use a little encouragement.
“I thought it would be fun for people to be able to support the event, definitely keeping in mind safe distancing, and it was fun. We had little old ladies cheering at like 2:00 a.m. and kids setting their alarms until 4:00 a.m. in the morning. It was awesome, it really brought together our community.”
The prize for winning this quarantine backyard ultra marathon? A golden roll of toilet paper.