For six days and 6 nights, whereas most of us went about our each day lives, Megan Eckert and Ivan Zaborsky ran, and on the finish of 144 hours of singular focus, they each emerged with new six-day world data. When the occasion ended at midday native time on Sunday, Could 4, Eckert of the U.S. and Zaborsky of Russia had run at the very least 603.094 and 650.894 miles (970.585 and 1047.512 kilometers), respectively, on the 2025 Six Days of France race, held in Vallon Pont d’Arc, France.
(Word: These distances characterize their totals as of the final full lap accomplished, so their ultimate distances may very well be anyplace as much as a kilometer longer to incorporate any partial distance they coated on a ultimate lap.)
Eckert broke Camille Herron’s earlier report of 560.333 miles (901.768 kilometers), set on the 2024 lululemon Additional occasion, by 42.7 miles (68.8 kilometers). For perspective, she additionally bought very near the lads’s American six-day report, held by Joe Fejes with a distance of 606.243 miles (975.653 kilometers) from 2015. She ran at a median tempo of 4.12 miles per hour — each hour for six days, together with stops for sleeping, consuming, and logistics.
Zaborsky broke Matthieu Bonne’s 2024 report of 649.655 miles (1045.519 kilometers) by simply 1.24 miles (2.0 kilometers). His was a median tempo of 4.52 miles per hour over all six days.
Whereas Eckert’s report appeared doubtless as quickly as she handed Herron’s splits about 4.5 days (108 hours) in, Zaborsky’s tempo noticed him dip slower than Bonne’s on the finish of day 5 (about 118 hours elapsed), making for a nail-biting ultimate day of working.
The race, held within the Ardèche area of France, was held on a virtually flat paved circuit run totally on the roads and paths within the Tenting l’Ardéchois campground on a 0.70294-mile (1.13128-kilometer) circuit. The 141 members began their journey on Monday, April 28, at midday andfaced heat to sizzling temperatures in the course of the days and cooler temperatures at evening that supplied some aid. The occasion was held as World Group of Multi-Day Ultramarathoners (GOMU) world championships.
As is common, each data are pending ratification.
Megan Eckert on her approach to setting a brand new large girls’s six-day world report. Picture: Samuel Lhermillier
Megan Eckert’s Ladies’s Six-Day World File
If one is to imagine social media chatter, 38-year-old Megan Eckert arrived in France with each the ladies’s world report and general American report as her targets. Eckert isn’t any stranger to multiday lap racing and holds the ladies’s yard extremely world report with a distance of 362 miles (583 kilometers) from Huge Canine’s Yard Extremely in 2024 and received the Six Days within the Dome, her first try at six-day racing, outright with a distance of 526 miles (846 kilometers) in 2024. She talked in-depth with iRunFar earlier this 12 months about her life, racing profession, and future targets.
Eckert appears to have had a well-planned technique for the six-day effort, together with her husband serving as her essential crew and assist. She took longer breaks round midnight and midday every day, after which two smaller breaks in between these, and her pacing was remarkably constant all through the occasion. This technique was in distinction to Herron’s execution of her report, the place she ran the preliminary 36 hours at a blistering quick tempo however slowed down significantly after 108 hours. Eckert, in the meantime, aimed for consistency and appeared to virtually get sooner because the hours and days wore on. The pacing graphs proven on GOMU’s Fb web page stayed amazingly stage because the race progressed.
After 72 hours (3 full days), Eckert had coated 323.321 miles (520.335 kilometers). At 103 hours, she’d coated 444.931 miles (716.047 kilometers). And it was after about 108 hours that Eckert lastly closed the hole of Herron’s splits that she’d been chasing, proper across the time that Herron’s tempo had began to dip considerably. With 114 hours on the clock, Eckert had run 487.811 miles (785.055 kilometers), and within the ultimate two days of racing, she was constantly closing the hole to Fejes’ males’s American report as she opened the hole to the ladies’s world report by an ever-increasing margin.
Whereas the ultimate day was sizzling, Eckert stayed on tempo and made it into the cooler night hours in seemingly fine condition and with the report in sight. With 16 hours remaining, she’d run about 536 miles (862 kilometers) and solely had a marathon left to go so as to break the ladies’s world report. With one thing like 9 hours remaining on the clock, Eckert surpassed the report mark, however continued on after a break.
Eckert ran strongly via the ultimate evening and till midday, ending with a ultimate distance of 603.094 miles (970.585 kilometers) with a brand new girls’s six-day world report.
Megan Eckert placed on a masterclass in pacing over the course of her six days of working. Picture: Samuel Lhermillier
Ivan Zaborsky’s Males’s Six-Day World File
Consistency was the secret to interrupt world data this 12 months in France, and 37-year-old Ivan Zaborsky had clearly studied the splits he was going after. Zaborsky is very skilled with multiday lap races, having competed on the 2024 GOMU 48-Hour World Championships in Hungary and received the St. Petersburg Yard Extremely with 204.2 miles (328.6 kilometers) in 2023. In 2024, he additionally received the 24-Hour Self-Transcendence Volgograd race with a distance of 177.0 miles (284.9 kilometers) and the 304-mile (490-kilometer) Genuine Phidippides Run Athens-Sparta-Athens in Greece with a time of two days, 4 hours, and 52 minutes.
It seems this was Zaborsky’s first six-day race, and he opted for a pacing technique of going out forward of report tempo and doing his greatest to carry on for so long as he might. When in comparison with Matthieu Bonne’s report splits and pacing, he appeared to be working barely sooner and taking extra frequent breaks each six hours with one lengthy break per day, whereas Bonne would take one main break per day. Apparently, Zaborsky would time his large breaks to be at almost the identical occasions as Bonne’s have been, which made for attention-grabbing spectating, hypothesis, and tempo comparability on GOMU’s Fb feed. All through the primary 4 days, he stayed a handful of miles forward of Bonne’s splits however began to gradual with two days to go.
Someplace round hour 118, after taking his final lengthy break earlier than the end, he dropped behind Bonne’s splits for the primary time because the begin of the occasion, but it surely was a protracted cease that Bonne hadn’t taken, giving the benefit to the Russian with a day left to race.
Ultimately, Zaborsky’s dogged consistency, skillful execution, and quick working paid off for him with a brand new general six-day world report of 650.894 miles (1047.512 kilometers).
Ivan Zaborsky had a robust ultimate 24 hours to safe a brand new males’s six-day world report. Picture: Samuel Lhermillier