Backwards mile milestone — first sub-6 goes to a submaster
Aaron Yoder once ran the equivalent of a 4:13 mile at Fort Hays State, but didn’t really attain four-lap glory until this week, when he posted a video of a mile he ran in 5:54.25. Backwards. At age 30, on Nov. 23, he broke the backwards mile best of 6:02.35 set by D. Joseph James in 2002. Think about that. He averaged 88.5 a quarter-mile, or 44.2 for 220. Try it. Not easy. More details at Runner’s World. Saturday morning, running forward, dozens of masters will test themselves at the Hartshorne Masters Mile in Ithaca, New York. Thankfully indoors. Meet director Tom Hartshorne writes: “We lost five or six from our elite races due to the storm coming across the country and hitting lower Pennsylvania and Virginia. New York State has been spared the brunt of this storm. … Nolan Shaheed called in tonight to wish us well. We miss you here in Ithaca, Nolan, and hope to see you soon in warmer venues.” All the best to those braving the weather, especially Alisa Harvey, now 50. Time for some records.
4 Responses
I respect that man’s quads.
A very difficult run to do so it is pretty impressive. Backwards running will strengthen the quads and some research indicated that it strengthened the muscles used for jumping so short backward sprints may benefit high jumpers but otherwise pretty useless. Of course, we also have beer runs and monkey running so why not a backward mile?
Dold, now 31, owns every world record for running backwards from 400m to 10km (with the exception of the 5000m). His range is incredible: 69.56 for the 400m, 2:31.1 for the 800m and 5:46.59 for the mile. He achieved his latest record – 39:20 for the 10km – in Dresden last year.
http://spikes.iaaf.org/post/retro-running-king-thomas-dold
eh…I’d be more impressed if it were a Steeplechase.
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