Somewhere in Kansas, over the weekend, Marvellous Mimi reached the halfway mark in her quest to conquer America. It is all downhill from now on…. Metaphorically speaking.
Mimi Anderson’s ambition is to set a new Female Guinness World Record for running across America.
The 2,850-mile journey began on the steps of the City Hall in Los Angeles, and will finish on the steps of the City Hall in New York. The aim is to run across America in 53 days. That will smash the current Female Guinness World Record, set in 1979 by Mavis Hutchinson, which stands at 69 days 2 hours 40 minutes.
It has been a tough first half. A glance at her schedule for the day shows what kind of resilience you need to undertake something like this. On the 1st October her timetable was an 04:58 depart to get in 31.01 miles in the morning. 43 minutes for lunch and then a mere 26.49 miles for the afternoon shift, making 57.50 miles in total. We are loving the non-on-the-hour and on-the-mile timings and mileages.
Morale is high and Mimi and the team are doing really well. Mimi says she loves all the supportive messages she has been getting through Facebook and Twitter but there is no doubt that this is a mammoth task.
“A brilliant effort from all but a truly fantastic achievement from Mimi. Her legs are pretty heavy by late afternoon and the days seem longer as she moves East but her sheer strength of spirit has not left her.
The crew are falling asleep at all times of the day and sometimes mid task but we keep in mind what Mimi must be feeling and this puts into perspective just how amazing what she is doing one day to the next really is,” posted her team on Facebook.
There has been one black spot in that the team have had some trouble with online trolls (yes, I can’t believe it either). The first trackers they were using caused problems as they needed 2G or 3G and the team were using 4G. It got to the stage where a guy from Letsrun actually started following the team and eventually was arrested by the police.
Jenny Davis, from the support crew, told us, “I understand people have concerns re cheating and how badly Rob Young damaged the running community on that front / so I don’t mind people playing detective but at least stay out of sight when you get to us?! It was like Mr. Bean does detective?!”
For the record, everything is being monitored very, very closely and we have 100% faith in Mimi and her crew.
Good luck from all of us at RunUltra, Mimi! Follow Mimi through Facebook and Twitter or her website.
