First marathon in space

Flight engineer completes first marathon in space

17 April 2007 9:24 GMT / By Ryan Haynes

If you're preparing for the London Marathon then you know exactly how difficult it is achieving 26.2 miles. Yet, as we reported just a couple of weeks ago, try it 210 miles above earth and circling it at least twice.

Sunita Williams, a flight engineer is an accomplished marathon runner who really took her skill to another dimension. Her unofficial completion time was 4 hours and 24 minutes as she completed the race at 2:24 PM EDT.

As per our article on April 3, Indian American astronaut Sunita ran nearly as fast as 8mph but flying more than 5 miles each second, as she completed the Boston Marathon on an international space station treadmill.

Strapped to a specially designed treadmill in the international space station, it was the first time an astronaut in orbit officially attempted to traverse the Boston Marathon’s gruelling 26.2 miles.

Sunita started the race on time at 10 AM EDT with race no. 14,000 taped to the front of the treadmill. Throughout the duration, she was closely watching a live feed of the race from Boston and keeping track of where the ISS was flying.