Aleksandr Sorokin breaks 100 mile, 12-hour world records

First runner to cover 100 miles in less than 11 hours

Lithuanian ultra-runner Aleksandr Sorokin set new world records in the 100 mile and 12-hour run at the Spartanion 12-hour event in Israel on January 6.

He is the first runner to break the 11-hour barrier in 100 miles.

Running on a 1.46-kilometre loop, he covered 100 miles in 10 hours, 51 minutes and 39 seconds. He went on to complete the 12-hour run covering a distance of 110.24 miles (176.384 km). Both of these are new world records. According to a January 6 report on the website irunfar.com, the new records were yet to be officially confirmed.

Known popularly as Sania, he broke his own records set in April 2021 at the ultra-running event in Ashford, Kent.

“ Sorokin held an incredible average pace of about 6:32 minutes per mile (about 4:04 minutes per kilometer) for 12 hours. This effort breaks his own previous world records of 11:14:56 for 100 miles and 105.825 miles (170.309 kilometers) for 12 hours, improving those respective records by about 22 minutes and about 4.4 miles (about 7 kilometers),” irunfar.com said in its report.

(The author, Latha Venkatraman, is an independent journalist based in Mumbai.)