Unbelievable! Former Comrades Champ Shatters 48-Hour World Record
Camille Herron destroyed the world record for 48 hours of running, covering 435.336 kilometres (270.5 miles) around a 400-metre track in Bruce, Australia.
The previous record, 411.5 kilometres (255 miles), was set by Jo Zakrzewski of Great Britain in February. Herron exceeded that by 24 kilometres. She bested the previous record about 45 hours into the event — and kept running for almost another 3 hours after that.
She averaged 6:36 per kilometre pace, which included at least one 40-minute nap, according to her Instagram, so her actual moving pace was faster.
Herron, 41, ran marathons in the early part of her career, recording a personal best of 2:37:14 in 2012 in Houston. She began running ultra distances in 2015 and found immediate success. She won the 2017 Comrades Marathon, and she’s also the world record holder for 100 miles (160km), 12 hours, and 24 hours.
In a phone call with Runner’s World before she left for Australia, Herron said she planned to take 6- to 8-minute power naps a couple of times in the first 24 hours. “A lot of 24-hour runners don’t sleep at all for 24 hours, but I found when I did that little bit of lying down and closing my eyes and meditating, it really helped me,” she said. “I was able to extend my 24-hour record by 8 kilometres.
“You hear about hallucinations with ultra runners,” she continued. “When I start to feel that happening with my brain is when I lie down.”
Earlier in her career she was sponsored by Nike and Hoka, but at the end of 2022 she left Hoka and signed a new deal with Lululemon.
Other elite runners weighed in on the snippets of video posted to Herron’s instagram during the event. Colleen Quigley, Keira D’Amato, and Zach Bitter were among those expressing their admiration for Herron’s feat.
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