In a narrative you couldn’t faux, a Toronto nurse has develop into the quickest girl to finish a marathon wearing an inflatable costume—whereas sporting an enormous red-and-white coronavirus swimsuit.
On Sunday, Karen Michelsen of Toronto tackled the 2024 Berlin Marathon sporting a completely inflated virus swimsuit, spikes and all, for 42.2 km, crossing the end line in 5:10:21. And it got here all the way down to the wire—she solely broke the earlier Guinness World File by 10 seconds.
One other superb file in the course of the #BerlinMarathon 👀
Karen Michelsen accomplished the quickest marathon in a full-body inflatable costume (feminine) with a time of 5:10:21. Congrats, Karen! ✨😎 pic.twitter.com/BQ2Bcp1JPA— Guinness World Information (@GWR) September 29, 2024
The earlier file was set by British runner Georgina Field earlier this yr on the 2024 London Marathon, the place Field ran 5:10:31 in an inflatable shark costume.
Why a coronavirus costume? Michelsen served as a nurse at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto in the course of the top of the pandemic, and needed to run a marathon and ship a message whereas doing it. “Throughout Covid, I used to be a part of the Medical-Surgical ICU on the Covid-19 command centre for the province of Ontario,” she says. “This file is to indicate individuals that you could take a adverse expertise and switch it into one thing optimistic, enjoyable and attention-grabbing.”
That is Michelsen’s fourth Guinness World File in operating. She has additionally run a marathon in all 50 states and carried the torch on the 2010 Olympics, in addition to on the 2015 Pan Am Video games in Toronto.
Michelsen, 60, noticed the 2024 Berlin Marathon as the proper alternative to focus on her love of operating, dressing up in a fancy dress and having enjoyable doing it. She was one among eight people to take house Guinness World File titles together with their Fiftieth-anniversary Berlin finisher medals. It was additionally a landmark yr for the occasion itself, setting the Guinness World File for the world’s largest marathon, surpassing the 2024 New York Metropolis Marathon with greater than 54,000 finishers.