On 24 April 2016, astronaut Tim Peake – resident on the International Space Station (ISS) since December 2015 – ran the London Marathon.
That is, he ran it on a treadmill in the Space Station at the same time the event was taking place on the ground in London. His goal: to raise awareness of The Prince’s Trust – a UK charity for the young – which itself had a team running on the ground, dubbed Team Astronaut.
“As soon as I got assigned to my mission, I thought: Wouldn’t it be great to run onboard the ISS,” Peake told the Guardian newspaper. “The London Marathon is a worldwide event. I wanted to take it out of this world!”
An additional layer of connection to the event was provided by the RunSocial app on his iPad, which showed Peake video footage of the streets of London all the way along the route. The app plays back the footage to match the speed of each individual’s run, so when Peake’s treadmill slowed during the race, so did the playback.
Not only that, but everyone who uses RunSocial has an avatar, meaning anyone who virtually ran the marathon on the same day might have seen Peake along the virtual route – a special European Space Agency suit was designed for his avatar to make it stand out.
Peake had already run the London Marathon – his feet firmly on Earth – in 1999, completing the race in a time of three hours 18 minutes. His target for 2016 was less ambitious: he’d been aiming for anywhere between three and a half and four hours. In the event, he completed the 26 miles and 385 yards in three hours, 35 minutes and 21 seconds – during which time the ISS had travelled more than twice around the planet. This makes him the Guinness World Record holder for running a marathon in space.
Although slower than his original London marathon run, his 2016 time was itself a feat given the need to wear a heavy harness, resembling a rucksack, for the whole run to avoid floating off the treadmill in the reduced gravity of the Space Station.
The first person to have run a marathon in space was NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, who ran the Boston Marathon while on board the ISS in 2007.
