AquaDyne wrote:
Records are records wrote:
The record that Guinness certifies has certain requirements, coast to coast, the distance from LA City Hall to NY City Hall or more. Anyone who wants to submit their intentions with route and start/finish to Guinness for a certificate can. If they meet the requirements, pay the money, they get the certificate. It's plain and simple.
Yep. Which is why you can also break Babe Ruth's home run record in a season with a few extra games and still get the record.
Doesn't mean that the world won't put an asterisk next to your record.
53* will be the Ultra community's 61*.
Or a more relevant point would be, Geoffrey Mutai's 2:03:02 at the 2011 Boston Marathon as (at the time) "the fastest Marathon ever run", the IAAF has noted: "Due to the elevation drop and point-to-point measurements of the Boston course, performances [on that course] are not eligible for World record consideration.")
This is to say that organizations who certify World Records have standards and one way or another, if you play the game all you have to do is follow the rules.
Definition 1 of "the world" - 1000 people who care about ultra running
Definition 2 of "the world" - 75 people (the # of people who have donated to Sandy's transcon)
Definition 3 of "the world" - 7.422 Billion people