This story was originally published on iRunFar.
American runner Camille Herron has set another world record.
This time, Herron ran at least 560.300 miles (confirmation in progress) to set a new women’s 6-day world record at the 2024 lululemon FURTHER event in La Quinta, Calif.
The event ran March 6-12 to coincide with International Women’s Day on March 8. New Zealand’s Sandra Barwick set the previous record of 549.063 miles in Australia in 1990, a record that’s stood for 34 years.
Herron broke that record by more than 11 miles and also achieved at least 12 interim world records and milestones along the way. Her effort comes out to an average pace of at least 15:22 per mile over the entire 6 days. This includes hours of stopped time, which Herron used for sleeping, resting, eating, drinking, and more.
The race was held on a 2.55-mile loop around Lake Cahuilla made up of largely dirt — Herron ran 220 laps. Ten women, all lululemon-sponsored athletes, started the event. Check out the tracking and results.
Editor’s Note: At the time of this article’s publishing, we’re waiting to confirm if Herron ran a partial additional lap not identified on the tracker. We’ll update this article when her final mileage tally comes in.
Herron’s Record-Breaking Run
Here are the records, world bests, and other milestones that Herron hit en route. This was Herron’s approximate record progression through the 6 days:
- 48-hour USATF American road record – 247.7 miles (Her IAU world record and USATF American track record still stand at 270.5 miles from her 2023 effort at the time-based event.)
- 300 miles – 59:54:58 (hours:minutes:seconds)
- 500 kilometers – 62:50:45
- 3 days – 342 miles
- 600 kilometers – 81:23:38
- 400 miles – 88:34:26
- 4 days – 429.8 miles
- 700 kilometers – 98:33:59
- 800 kilometers – 117:44:55
- 500 miles – 118:19:17
- 5 days – 501.7 miles
- 900 kilometers – 142:40:58
- 6-day IAU world best performance benchmark – at least 560 miles
A big hat tip to the record-tracking and record-visualizing of the folks in the Running Through Time Facebook group, who’ve been following this event and Herron’s splits so closely and sharing them in a public forum.
Uniquely, the ultrarunning record marks reached during this event are managed by different entities, a combination of governing bodies and nonprofits.
The 48-hour mark is recognized as a world record by the governing body International Association of Ultrarunners (IAU) and, in the U.S., an American record for this time-based event is managed by the governing body USA Track and Field (USATF), divided into track and road surfaces.
The 6-day mark is considered by the IAU as a world-best performance. All the other records listed above are tracked by the nonprofit Global Organization of Multi-Day Ultramarathoners (GOMU).
