Sandra Vi going for record across America

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.

If you run around in circles from SF to NY and it takes you 3120 miles and someone else runs a more efficient route in 3067 miles or 2800 miles from LA to NY, does that make your record better than the other person? Or...maybe you bought a better watch that measures distance better than another and it shows you ran more miles. Better yet, you chose to do more work than necessary to get the record. Good for you, you're awesome, you did extra credit, yeah for you!

Q: Why did the ultrarunner cross the road?

A: For extra miles

AquaDyne wrote:

So far today 2 wrote:

The Guinness transcon WR is based on running at least 2800 miles. Sandy completed 2800 miles on Day 50 in an elapsed time of 49 days and ~11 hours.

This is an interesting note.

Say someone runs the southern route and does 53 miles per day for 53 days. They would be slower than Sandy (on average) but finish LA/NY in 53 days while it will take Sandy to day 54 (Saturday). So the new person would get the record for "fastest crossing" when they weren't faster.

It would have been different had the record been set before Sandy (e.g., if Mimi had reached her 53 day goal) but now anyone coming after will be chasing an administrative record and not a superior athletic feat...

That's the reason why I think the Guinness Book rules make no sense. Since there is not one route through the US, the average per day should be the measure and the course should be at least 2800 miles long.

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.

LA City Hall or NY City Hall are not on the coast. LA City Hall is 15 miles from the ocean at Venice Beach. NY City Hall is 11 miles from the ocean which is at Brighton Beach.

NY City hall is something like 5 blocks away from the coast (Battery Park) . . . right by the Statue of Liberty.

Zwitty wrote:

NY City hall is something like 5 blocks away from the coast (Battery Park) . . . right by the Statue of Liberty.

But that is part of Upper Hudson Bay. Verazzano Narrows Bridge seems like where the Upper Bay ends the the Lower Bay (Atlantic Ocean) start.

Interestingly, if you ask Google to map a walking route from Venice Beach to the George Washington Bridge and add George Washington Bridge to the base of the Verazzano Narrows Bridge the distance is just over 2800 miles and coast to coast (ocean to ocean).

Zwitty wrote:

NY City hall is something like 5 blocks away from the coast (Battery Park) . . . right by the Statue of Liberty.

When will Sandy have a plan for Saturday? Battery Park as second finish point?

5-MILE SPLITS

Day # 52, November 1st

All times are Garmin Time in the Pacific Timezone.

Sandy is in the Eastern timezone.

Start Day & Time: September 11th, 6:01 AM

Time: Miles ~Split Time +/- 3 minutes

02:01 AM: 00 Elapsed time since start: 50:20:00 (days:hours:minutes)

03:19 AM: 05 ~78 min

04:32 AM: 10 ~73 min

05:38 AM: 15 ~66 min

06:01 AM: -- Start of Day 51 per elapsed time since start

06:46 AM: 20 ~68 min

07:56 AM: 25 ~70 min

09:08 AM: 30 ~72 min

10:14 AM: 35 ~66 min

10:16 AM: -- Lunch Break Start

10:50 AM: -- Lunch Break End (34 minutes)

12:03 PM: 40 ~75 min

01:11 PM: 45 ~68 min

02:23 PM: 50 ~72 min

The first 51 days wrote:

and one day when she ran less than a marathon.

Which day was that? I guess it missed it somehow. Was that the day in the Rockies with the blizzard?

Sandy? wrote:

The first 51 days wrote:

and one day when she ran less than a marathon.

Which day was that? I guess it missed it somehow. Was that the day in the Rockies with the blizzard?

That was the day after the midnight climb up to 9400 feet in an attempt to clear the pass before the blizzard. That day was 70.3 miles and had three runs. Sandy and crew were stopped by police near the top of the pass and waited in the RV during the blizzard until the next morning after the roads were cleared. The short day was 19.9 miles due mostly to losing some 7 hours of running waiting for the road to open. Sandy managed to cover 90.2 miles over those two days despite an massive blizzard occurring during that time. ... I wonder how many runner would manage to pull something like that off. I think, almost none.

So far today 2 wrote:

Zwitty wrote:

NY City hall is something like 5 blocks away from the coast (Battery Park) . . . right by the Statue of Liberty.

When will Sandy have a plan for Saturday? Battery Park as second finish point?

Sandy will run close to the City Hall and then has to wait until Monday morning when the City Hall including the stairs open.

Rules are rules. It's a Guinness Book record from City Hall to City Hall, not almost to City Hall.

You gotta love this stupid Guinness record stuff!

Alec Guinness wrote:

Sandy will run close to the City Hall and then has to wait until Monday morning when the City Hall including the stairs open.

Rules are rules. It's a Guinness Book record from City Hall to City Hall, not almost to City Hall.

Nope. With city hall is not a requirement of Guinness.

5-MILE SPLITS

Day # 52, November 1st

All times are Garmin Time in the Pacific Timezone.

Sandy is in the Eastern timezone.

Start Day & Time: September 11th, 6:01 AM

Time: Miles ~Split Time +/- 3 minutes

02:01 AM: 00 Elapsed time since start: 50:20:00 (days:hours:minutes)

03:19 AM: 05 ~78 min

04:32 AM: 10 ~73 min

05:38 AM: 15 ~66 min

06:01 AM: -- Start of Day 51 per elapsed time since start

06:46 AM: 20 ~68 min

07:56 AM: 25 ~70 min

09:08 AM: 30 ~72 min

10:14 AM: 35 ~66 min

10:16 AM: -- Lunch Break Start

10:50 AM: -- Lunch Break End (34 minutes)

12:03 PM: 40 ~75 min

01:11 PM: 45 ~68 min

02:23 PM: 50 ~72 min

03:36 PM: 55 ~73 min

5-MILE SPLITS

Day # 52, November 1st

All times are Garmin Time in the Pacific Timezone.

Sandy is in the Eastern timezone.

Start Day & Time: September 11th, 6:01 AM

Time: Miles ~Split Time +/- 3 minutes

02:01 AM: 00 Elapsed time since start: 50:20:00 (days:hours:minutes)

03:19 AM: 05 ~78 min

04:32 AM: 10 ~73 min

05:38 AM: 15 ~66 min

06:01 AM: -- Start of Day 51 per elapsed time since start

06:46 AM: 20 ~68 min

07:56 AM: 25 ~70 min

09:08 AM: 30 ~72 min

10:14 AM: 35 ~66 min

10:16 AM: -- Lunch Break Start

10:50 AM: -- Lunch Break End (34 minutes)

12:03 PM: 40 ~75 min

01:11 PM: 45 ~68 min

02:23 PM: 50 ~72 min

03:36 PM: 55 ~73 min

03:54 PM: ~57 (End of her day)

END OF DAY SUMMARY PER STRAVA

Miles 58.4

Elapsed Time (hr:min:sec): Pace

13:58:50 : 14:22 Includes breaks

13:24:50 : 13:47 Excludes breaks

OVERALL SUMMARY

Total Miles Completed: 2925.3 (Per Stava)

Miles /day: 56.3 (Based on Stava)

Ending Point - Lat: 40.974155 Lon: -76.802351

Sandy's miles since entering PA: 231.9 (Based on staying on Pete's Route)

Pete's PA+NJ/NY miles: 416.8 (Total Miles Completed + Miles to Go) **

Mileage Difference: 184.9

So far today 2 wrote:

Alec Guinness wrote:

Sandy will run close to the City Hall and then has to wait until Monday morning when the City Hall including the stairs open.

Rules are rules. It's a Guinness Book record from City Hall to City Hall, not almost to City Hall.

Nope. With city hall is not a requirement of Guinness.

Not quite. The rules do specify LA City Hall to NYC City Hall but also allow the runner to choose other routes that have longer mileage.

But they also require the runner to specify their route in advance, and Sandy has specified NYC City Hall.

However, nothing specifies that the run has to finish on the steps. Or inside the door. Or any other arbitrarily specific location within. Arriving at the gates as close as possible should suffice.

And, also, while the City Hall offices are only open during certain hours on M-F, it's clear that you can get access to the steps (for protests, speeches, and other gatherings) outside of the City Hall office hours. Pete arrived outside of normal operating hours last year -- he just had to arrive within the "appointment window" that they had arranged.

There will be no waiting until Monday morning. That's just silly.

So far today 2 wrote:

Mileage Difference: 184.9

To finish in 3 days (Sat) @ 185 miles

Daily x 2 Last day

60 65

59 67

58 69

57 71

56 73

55 75

54 77

To finish in 4 days (Sun) @ 185 miles

Daily x 3 Last day

53 26

AquaDyne wrote:

So far today 2 wrote:

Nope. With city hall is not a requirement of Guinness.

Not quite. The rules do specify LA City Hall to NYC City Hall but also allow the runner to choose other routes that have longer mileage.

But they also require the runner to specify their route in advance, and Sandy has specified NYC City Hall.

Sandra started at SF City Hall. Does that mean she cannot get a Guinness record?

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*.

The Guinness standard states that the coast to coast distance has to be the same or greater than the distance from LA City Hall to New York City Hall. If you put on Google Maps point A to point B it says 2767 miles. If you find two locations from one major city on one coast to another major city on the other coast you can submit for their approval prior to your departure and you can use those two cities. It's a very flexible rule. The purpose of it is to set a minimum standard for the distance provided roads change over time.

Someone like Pete K could elaborate since he's going through the process now. Does anyone know if he has received his certificate yet? There hasn't been any mention of it anywhere...that I know of.