Bill Watts
Feb 3, 20201 min
From OutsideOnline.com - Feb 2, 2020
For some, running a marathon is a lifelong goal. For others, it’s running a marathon in under three hours, which requires an average pace of 6:50 per mile. It’s an arbitrary time that’s so elusive that some politicians even lie about earning it—in 2012, then vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan said he’d run a marathon in under three hours, a claim that was promptly debunked in the media. But not Iain Mickle. He ran his first sub-three-hour marathon (which was also his first marathon) in 1977, and his most recent sub-three 42 years later, three days after turning 59. In doing so, he set a world record for the longest elapsed time between his first and most recent sub-three finishes.
“It’s an interesting record, because it implies some sort of consistency to your running career,” Mickle says. “But honestly, I didn’t even realize it existed until a few years ago. I had to go through an old copy of the San Francisco Chronicle to find some sort of record of my finish time at my first marathon.”