Woman breaks world marathon record during lockdown.

Alyssa Clark, a 28-year-old American track and field athlete, still finds the whole story, which happened last year, somewhat unbelievable: "I didn't start the 95-day marathon with the intention of breaking the world record."

Although he achieved the record in 2020, it wasn't until more than a year later that Clark was able to officially receive his world record certificate after a lengthy process of completing all the necessary procedures.

Clark said she had been running regularly since high school, so she was very good at it. While living and working in Italy last year, witnessing the country's lockdown due to the pandemic, she came up with the idea of ​​running marathons with her coach. She started her first marathon of over 42 km on a treadmill on March 31, 2020, and officially began her outdoor marathon on May 10, 2020.

After about 25 days of running continuously, Clark remembered the current Guinness World Record was 60 days, which motivated her to try to surpass it. Clark had been training for long-distance races for years, even running longer than the official 42km marathon distance, but during that time, many races were canceled due to Covid-19, so she came up with a new way to challenge herself.

Initially, Clark set a goal of running continuously for 100 days. After her husband finished his military service and they both returned to the US, she even planned to accomplish it during her journey from Italy to Florida. With her determination, she ran a marathon at 1 AM while temporarily staying at a German military base.

However, running long distances every day took a toll on Alyssa Clark's health. On the 96th day, she was unable to complete the run after experiencing chest pain, and she and her husband subsequently discovered they had both tested positive for Covid-19.

Clark shared that she doesn't want to break any more world records because the record verification process takes too long, but she will soon be back with new long-distance running adventures in the future. She said, "Running is my regular job. I am the best version of myself when I'm running."

Khanh Ha