MOSCOW – A Russian man in the far eastern city of Vladivostok ran circles around his bed for more than 10 hours in an effort to replicate completing a 100-kilometer ultramarathon.
Experienced ultra-runner Dmitry Yakukhny had planned to run the 250-kilometer (155-mile) Marathon des Sables in the Sahara Desert this month, but instead found himself stuck at home after the race was postponed to September because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Yakukhny spent 10 hours, 19 minutes running around a double bed in his apartment on Saturday. He said he was inspired by a Frenchman who ran a marathon on his balcony last month, but decided to take it further.
Running such a small circuit in a confined space was a challenge.
“My head started spinning and my leg was aching on one side, so every 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) I changed the direction I was running,” Yakukhny told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
“I had the support of my family. Normally on an ultramarathon like that you’d be running with a rucksack between food stations. Here I just waved a hand and my wife cooked something,” he said. “The kids gave me moral support and my wife was the DJ, changing the music all the time.”
Yakukhny said he used a tracker which showed he ran just over 100 kilometers (62 miles). After some viewers following his regular Instagram updates doubted he could have covered that distance, Yakukhny said there could be a “discrepancy” with the device working indoors, but said that didn’t take away from his 10-hour feat.
“It’s not the Guinness Book of Records. I was running for myself,” he said. “I wasn’t trying to trick anybody.”
Russia has been on extended lockdown in order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.