Treadmill World Record Bonanza! | The Chaski Challenge PREVIEW
by Chase Parnell — June 5, 2020 — šø: Chaski Endurance
Well folks, we have ourselves an intriguing running event this weekend! Whaaaaat?! Thatās right, the Chaski Challenge. Am I the only one who canāt help but say Tchotchke Challenge? So what is this challenge I speak of? Itās a treadmill event. Itās virtual. Itās global. Itās free. It supports Covid relief. Itās good. If you want to participate in the running event itself, go here. There are lots of prizes and tchotchkes to win!
But here, Iām mostly writing to cover the Festival of Records Elite Field. After all the mortals are finished running, we have a handful of really high caliber professional runners taking a crack at a variety of treadmill WORLD RECORDS. This isn’t billed as a race per se, but some of the distances have multiple pros going for the same record, so by default, it’s essentially a race. For the ones going after a record alone, they’re racing a ghost–the current record holders.
Before I go on, shout out to my town Bend, Oregon for having THREE of the nine runners in the field: Mario Mendoza, Max King, and Renee Metivier. Not a bad running town.
Okay, letās get into the analysis.
Here are the existing TREADMILL WORLD RECORDS per the Chaski Challenge promotional materials:
- Womenās Half Marathon – 1:20:43 – Jenna Wrieden (USA / 2014)
- Men’s Half Marathon – 1:03:37 – Tyler Andrews (USA / 2015)
- Menās Marathon – 2:20:45 – Paul Zwama (NED / 2018)
- Menās 50km – 2:56:35 – Matthias Kyburz (SUI / 2020)
- Women’s Marathon – no known mark
- Women’s 50km – 3:51:25 – Arielle Fitzgerald (CAN / 2016)
- Men’s 100km – 6:40:35 – Phil Anthony (GBR / 2014)
Womenās Half Marathon
Here we have Renee Metivier of Bend up against Sarah Hall of Flagstaff. The current record of 1:20:43 by Jenna Wrieden set in 2014 is going to be annihilated. Hall has run 68:58 on the roads so if I had to guess, she might be able to offer up a 71-73 minute half on a treadmill right now. That said, this is uncharted territory. Treadmill world records havenāt exactly been high up on the list for professional runners to attempt. We don’t know exactly the road vs. treadmill time equivalents. I imagine it differs runner to runner.
As far as this record goes, 1:20:43 would be a jog for both of these ladies. Renee Metivier doesnāt quite have the pedigree of Hall but she’s a feisty competitor and a 2:27 marathoner. She also owns a gym so I imagine she’s very comfortable on a treadmill.
My only fear is that Sarah will have some sort of technical difficulties. If sheās running from her home treadmill, I know the Halls live in a fairly remote location outside of Flagstaff. I was listening to Ryan Hallās podcast recently when he interviewed Alan Webb and Dathan Ritzenhein. Ryan fell off the call a couple times and ultimately Alan and Dathan had to carry Ryanās own podcast to the finish line. It was hilarious. So HOPEFULLY, Sara doesnāt have any power outages, live stream issues, or anything else! Side note: sheās also running at altitude, which isnāt ideal.
Menās Half Marathon
This one has an interesting storyline to it. Tyler Andrews, founder of Chaski Endurance Collective and participant in the Marathon/50k throw-down, has the current half marathon treadmill world record of 63:37. John Raneri, who recently signed with agent Josh Cox has a personal best of 61:51 on the roads and a real fighting chance at taking down Tyler’s record. So hypothetically, Andrews could both lose a world record and gain one during the course of his run.
Raneri will be going up against Adam Holland, a Brit, who might have his hands full with this record attempt; seems to be more of an ultra runner, but who knows, maybe heās tuned up for the distance and ready to hit it!
Menās Marathon/50k
No disrespect to any of the other runners, but this one has to be the premier event of the day. We have a three-way head-to-head-to-head with Max King, Michael Wardian, and Chaski founder, Tyler Andrews.
This group will be chasing both the marathon AND 50k treadmill world records.
Their marathon personal bests (PBs) are within three minutes of each other (2:14-2:17), but full disclosure, those times are pretty dated. Tyler ran 2:15 in 2016, Wardian ran 2:17 in 2011, and Max ran 2:14 in 2012. Tyler has age on his side at 29, but fun fact, heās the only one without a wikipedia page so… that has to be hard on the ego. Max had a rough go at Cal International Marathon this past December, but if you take a quick peak at his Strava, youāll see thatās heās pretty darn fit right now. But when isn’t he?
In a recent Reddit Q&A with all three of these men, Max was asked how his training went for this event. He responded, āHa, I got asked a week ago to jump in this. How about NO specific training. Iāve been training but not on a treadmill and doing mostly trails right now. Weāll see how this goes!ā So not a huge confidence booster there, but he did ski up a 14er, Mt. Shasta, in California a couple weeks back. Does that count for anything?
In response to the same question, Wardian said, āTraining has been pretty straight forward. I did add in some faster 5Ks to get my legs ready for running a pace.ā
When Tyler was asked about his strategy, he said, āI donāt wanna give away too much info to Mike and Max š but Iām definitely going to go out at a pace that feels comfortable and leave room to accelerate in the second half of the race.ā
If I had to make a prediction, Iād probably give Tyler the edge. Despite not having the day he wanted, he did just compete in the marathon Olympic Trials. He did all the hard work to prepare for a race of that kind of intensity. We shall see how it all shakes out!
Womenās Marathon/50k
Regina Lopez is the sole entrant in this one. Sheās making her 50k debut but has a solid road marathon PB of 2:42. With no known world record mark for the marathon, sheās almost certain to get that if she’s able to finish the run. The 50k record of 3:51:25 is also well within her grasp; sheāll be laying down the gauntlet for future attempts!
Regina is the twin of 2:41 marathoner Sabrina Lopez. They both qualified and ran the Olympic Trials in Atlanta. Hereās a great Runnerās World feature on the pair.
Menās 100k
Mario Mendoza is the only one crazy enough to go after this one! And heās butting up against a pretty stout record in 6:40:35. Thatās 6:26 per mile! Phil Anthony of Great Britain, a 2:16 marathoner, set the mark in 2014. To give some context, Max King currently owns the American 100k road record in 6:27:44 so Mario is attempting to run within 13 minutes of that record setting time, but on a treadmill. Whew!
But this isnāt Marioās first rodeo on a treadmill. Back in January of this year, Mario set what was at the time the world record in the treadmill 50k with a time of 2:59:03 [I was there and made this YouTube video]. Heās shown he can withstand the mental pressure of a record attempt and Iām sure he learned a thing or two about the process generally.
Personally, I think heās going to get it. Mario is coming off what he called the biggest block of training in his life. So long as he didnāt leave his racing legs out on the training grounds, I think all that work is going to pay off. An interesting dynamic is that Mario will be starting his run at 9am and Max will begin at the same venue at 3pm, when Mario will be thoroughly in the pain cave. Itāll be interesting to see if they can work off each other and get it done.
Alright, that’s it! The elite coverage begins on Saturday, June 6th at 3pm (PST)! Make sure to go to the Chaski Website to find the livestream and schedule of events.
If you can’t tune in, rest assured, follow Treeline Journal on Twitter for all my live-tweeting nonsense. There’s a chance I’ll be in the room with the Bend contingent, but we’ll see. Either way, this is going to be fun! I’ve missed this kind of anticipation for a race. It’s been too long.
Best of luck to all involved!
**UPDATE 6/7/20: See how everything shook out in this LetsRun.com Article!**
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