Women runs 520 miles on treadmill in 7 days but doesn't get WR as Guinness says her witness doesn't count

What to Look For in a Treadmill:

1. Safety Handles (first thing!)

Most machines have small handles installed on or in front of the display panel, which are mostly used for catching ones breath. If you feel unsteady on your feet, however, or simply want to take a brisk walk with a little support then you may need safety handles that jut out to the sides of the treadmill. These handles are a little higher than the average walker or cane, but they do provide extra relief to weak knees or leg muscles.

ExpertKipWatcher wrote:

Why don't the people who day this is OK run it past Guinness to see what they say? Maybe they would say they would change their mind about witnesses? ;-)

A standard treadmill exercise fitness machine should be used for the attempt.

The setting of the machine is at the discretion of the competitor (but using downhill mode is not an option).

It is not permitted to lean on the "handle-bar".

The belt must be strictly stopped before the atemptee leaves the treadmill.

The venue for the record attempt must be open to the general public for the duration of the attempt

Rest breaks may be taken at the discretion of the competitor but they are included within the time for the attempt. The clock does not stop. For example, if the 24 hrs-event starts at 11 am on Monday, it must finish at 11am on Tuesday.

For the distance records (100 km, 100 miles etc.), two timekeepers should time the attempt with highly accurate stopwatches.

A log book should show the time taken for rest breaks as well as either the distances after each hour or the times after each completed kilometre or mile.

A calibration certificate for the treadmill and two signed statements by at least two sports referees should be provided.

Log books exist wrote:

It is not permitted to lean on the "handle-bar".

This is bogus information. Rekord-Klub SAXONIA is not Guinness.

Consider the source wrote:

Log books exist wrote:

It is not permitted to lean on the "handle-bar".

This is bogus information. Rekord-Klub SAXONIA is not Guinness.

In order to be eligible to become a Guiness World Record holder, Staley had to follow a book of rules 45 pages thick.

Among them was one barring him from touching the handles of the treadmill at any point during his run. Another barred him from touching any buttons on the machine.

Don't touch any buttons wrote:

Consider the source wrote:

This is bogus information. Rekord-Klub SAXONIA is not Guinness.

In order to be eligible to become a Guiness World Record holder, Staley had to follow a book of rules 45 pages thick.

Among them was one barring him from touching the handles of the treadmill at any point during his run. Another barred him from touching any buttons on the machine.

This is another bogus comparison, because his record was 12 hours. Amy's is 1 week (168 hours). Obviously the rules can differ, due to safety considerations.

she is clearly using the handles to take weight off her legs for long periods.

its not the same as just holding them, whether it be for safety or balance or comfort or whatever other reason you may have.

...although i assume both would disqualify you from any world record attempt.

Mikhaylove: The longest I ran on the treadmill before was about 35 miles, so I was able to notice that it is quite different from running on the roads. First of all, I’m not a road runner. I’m not a treadmill runner. I’m a mountain runner. I only did this record because it seemed like it was doable. I’ve done a couple road races and they definitely aren’t my specialty. I’m not fast; I’m not fast on the road at all. I’m in [the] Hardrock 100 this year—that’s my kind of thing.

From my limited time on the treadmill I understood that it’s different from regular running outside because first of all, there seems to be a little bit different muscles involved and, second of all, mentally, after a couple hours your brain gets confused because your legs are moving but your scenery doesn’t change. It’s a very different kind of situation—you have to keep your mind sharp the whole time, to know what’s going on. Many times in road racing, or any kind of ultra racing, it’s a very good thing mentally to just zone out and run on autopilot. The problem here is that you cannot do that. Once you turn autopilot on, automatically something will happen: you will stop and slide off the treadmill or you will grab the handles accidentally or something will happen. Considering that, my pacing strategy was very conservative. I didn’t want to—I know I have a tendency of going fast in the beginning so I had a friend Elena Makovskaya who knows me pretty well—she was pacing me at several ultra events.

So, I let her handle my pacing completely—she knows my weakness of going out too fast and she didn’t let me do that. I’m happy for that: the first 30 or 40 miles were pretty effortless. Then I just started to suffer but was able to pull it off. My pace was still a little faster in the first half but not dramatically. I was able to have a smooth pace, which is probably how it should be on the treadmill.

iRunFar: Was she pushing the dials?

Mikhaylove: Exactly. The rules were a little unclear. They say you are allowed to change the speed, obviously, but they also say that you aren’t allowed to make a lot (?) of contact with the treadmill. Just to play it safe, I had someone else pushing all the buttons for me. I was just asking someone to bump it up or take it down a little. Mentally it was absolutely destroying: having to watch the numbers doesn’t let you relax. You have to call out every mile. All these papers have comprehensive logbooks where you write every mile and the time, so I had to call out every mile I did. I had to pay attention to all the numbers.

http://www.irunfar.com/2015/03/treadmill-diaries-interviews-with-treadmill-world-record-holders-denis-mikhaylove-gemma-carter-and-michael-wardian.html

i wanted to believe wrote:

she is clearly using the handles to take weight off her legs for long periods.

its not the same as just holding them, whether it be for safety or balance or comfort or whatever other reason you may have.

...although i assume both would disqualify you from any world record attempt.

1. She obviously didn't follow the rules. Independent witnesses? No

Not grabbing or hanging onto bars? No

And her body language reveals she knew hanging on the bars was not allowed.

2. She did give a better effort than Rob Young who was obviously riding in the RV from the start. There is that at least.

3. She is not an elite athlete.

4. Scam is a beast!

Scam_Watcheroo wrote:

I found two more times in that 12 hour live stream video from September 6, 2016 where Amy Hughes is hanging onto something while "running" and updated the "damning evidence" list at ]

It doesn't matter how much "damning evidence" (your inverted commas) you find. Guinness has no responsibility to take an affidavit of facts beyond that of the official witnesses. But they ex post facto declared one (1) of them to be invalid. Despite this technicality, it doesn't change the fact that Amy broke all records with her 521-mile run over the 7 day period.

I smell a Dave & Amy wrote:

Ha! The video is clear. Many times, Amy Hughes' looked around to made sure the janitors were not coming down the hall and then proceeded to cheat!

This makes no sense whatsoever. Amy knew that the livestream was running 24/7 with a permanent ineffaceable record of her record, so why would she care if an irrelevant janitor made up some story about what he claimed to have seen?

Did Dave Keighley sign an affidavit confirming that Amy followed all rules, including not resting her weight on the treadmill bars while running?

If so then he has broken the law and should be held accountable in court.

Blah blah blah... wrote:

Despite this technicality, it doesn't change the fact that Amy broke all records with her 521-mile run over the 7 day period.

,lol

Darren Kavinoky wrote:

Did Dave Keighley sign an affidavit confirming that Amy followed all rules, including not resting her weight on the treadmill bars while running?

If so then he has broken the law and should be held accountable in court.

You are making the unspoken assumption that the rules include such a restriction.

Yes, I am. Or at least it was unspoken until you mentioned it. If the rules permit resting body weight on the bars then it is an even more stupid record than I thought.

Darren Kavinoky wrote:

Yes, I am. Or at least it was unspoken until you mentioned it. If the rules permit resting body weight on the bars then it is an even more stupid record than I thought.

Of course the rules allow that. They also allow you to stand on the side rails for up to five minutes at a time while the treadmill is cranked up to 20 mph. Finally you are allowed to keep the treadmill running during rest breaks so long as you maintain line of sight with the treadmill. I would have thought everybody knew these rules. I wonder if Dave and Amy knew about them?

i wanted to believe wrote:

No that great a find wrote:

These so called hanging finds aren't that damning. While true she may be propping herself a bit I didn't see any time (admit I didn't watch every second of video) where she was just hanging there with the treadmill free spinning underneath her. And the whole hanging onto Dave's neck thing is nothing. She was balancing herself while he talked to her for a few seconds.

Keep at it though. These are always interesting threads.

she's using the bar to at least partly suspend her weight allowing her legs to coast along as the treadmill continues.

the question is no longer whether she cheated more what extent the cheating went to.

I have no problem with some time on the bars while running a treadmill. Especially while eating, drinking, talking, getting your balance, etc.

Treadmill running sucks & leaves you disoriented. (It does to me anyways).

If she was on that thing for 19 hours a day for 7 days she would get my vote to leave her non-record alone.

Yeah, I feel like there are two issues here.

I don't think she deserves the Guinness world record since she didn't follow their rules, but I do think she ran that distance in that time and I think it's impressive af, regardless of whether she at times held on to the bars. This persecution is ridiculous.

The old record was/is helt by a 48 year old woman, and I don't know why it seems so impossible that Amy Hughes could have done a similar thing.

Janitors R us wrote:

This makes no sense whatsoever. Amy knew that the livestream was running 24/7 with a permanent ineffaceable record of her record, so why would she care if an irrelevant janitor made up some story about what he claimed to have seen?

That assumed a belief that someone would watch the video, it wasn't exactly made widely available. Another factor is that even when people know they are being filmed, over time they pay less attention to a camera when there is no person associated with it.

Why did they stop posting the videos after the first 12 hours?

Are there more videos over longer times than 10 minutes?

There was a video where Amy was crying after she stopped after the first 12 hours and 60 ish miles. What happened to that?

Anyway as an multiday ultrarunner you should run the first 60 miles very easily on day one.