What ’s more bananas than running 26 miles in the sun ? Running it in sub - zero temperatures .

A marathon harbor last week Siberia is thought to have determine a new track record : the world ’s cold ever marathon . Racing in temperaturesreportedto be as low as -53 ° snow ( -63.4 ° F ) , 65 runners completed the “ Pole of Cold ” wash on January 21 , 2022 . To make matters even worse , they were competing first affair in the morning – implausibly , temperatures woulddrop even furtherlater on .

The marathon was hold at Oymyakon , in the Yakutia ( also known as Sakha ) region of the vast Russian state . This pocket-size settlement is what give the race its name – the Pole of Cold . It take in the moniker thanks to its reputation as the stale permanently occupy human colony in the world – you may remember it as the city where your eyelashes freeze , your saliva becomes “ needles that … prick [ your ] lips , ” and funerals are introduce bydays - long bonfiresjust to warm up the ground enough for a inhumation .

Competitors in the marathon hailed from locations as various as the United Arab Emirates , USA , and Belarus – but the locals beat them all . First place went to Russia ’s Vasily Lukin , who crossed the finish line of products in 3 hour and 22 minutes ; the best womanhood ’s solution was Marina Sedalischeva , a Yakutia topical anesthetic , who ran it in 4:09 .

Since the marathon was postponed last yr due to the pandemic , this is Lukin ’s second triumph in a row after he won the extreme slipstream in 2020 . The twelvemonth before that – the marathon ’s first – sawjust 16 peoplebrave enough to face up the sub - sub - sub - sub - zero temperatures .

According toGuinness World Records , the coldest marathon yet record was held in 2001 , also in Siberia – the Siberian Ice Marathon , at a relatively balmy -39 ° C . Other frozen marathonsincludethe North Pole Marathon and the Antarctic Ice Marathon ( a name which seems mildly redundant ) , but if you ’re really set on defying Mother Nature , there are a few even more extreme option . Take , for instance , the Antarctic Ice Ultra : 100 kilometers across the world ’s most southern continent in temperature of -20 ° C . The last fourth dimension it was held , thetop 10 finish timesranged between 11 and a ivory - chilling 21 hour of prevail – something that ’s much more potential on a continent with 24 hours of continuous sun .

With the new world record , the PDA of the Pole of Cold marathon hope to pull more promotion for the event in futurity . As it is , the 2021 raceway was attend by around 100 warmly - dress spectators – not much for the ordinary marathon , it ’s true , but under the luck ? Pretty nerveless , really .