Bingley Harrier Juniors attempt to break the Marathon World Record!
On Saturday 19th October, 36 of Bingley Harriers finest Under13 runners set out to break the marathon world record of 2 hours 3 minutes and 23 seconds, set by Wilson Kipsang at the Berlin Marathon in September. They were attempting this in a relay format, with each runner running 200m each as many times as it took to reach the goal of 26.2 miles and in doing so were raising money for the charity “Save The Children”!
The runners gathered at the band stand in Bingley’s Myrtle Park and they were all raring to go and of course excited at the prospect of working together to break a world record! The atmosphere built as the clock ticked down towards the start and this overflowed into roars of excitement and encouragement as the first runner set off. What followed was an amazing display of enthusiasm and team work. Every runner gave their all from the start, powering around the 200m loop before passing onto their team mate.
They set off at an unbelievable pace and it looked as though there could be a chance of them reaching that coveted world record time. As they continued to run however, the tiredness began to kick in and the lap times began to creep up ever so slightly. Nevertheless they continued to work hard as a team and they all supported each other well. Even when the clock passed the world record time they didn’t give up. They ran on to complete the 211 laps that made up the 26.2 miles of a marathon in an unbelievable time of 2 hours 15 minutes and 2 seconds. Just 12 minutes off the world record, no mean feat for a team of Under13 runners!
Even though they hadn’t quite reached the world record target, all of the juniors remained in high spirits as they knew that the time that they had achieved was amazing. They had all had the opportunity to compete in a fantastic event and they all helped to raise money for a brilliant charity. A huge effort was made by all including organiser Martin Peace and the atmosphere down in the park on the day was fantastic. Well done to everybody that took part and you never know, we might have to do it all again next year and maybe then we’ll reach that world record time!
Max Nicoll