Verona - Aleksandr Sorokin, the Lithuanian ultrarunner shattered his own 24-hour world record over the weekend, covering 319.614 kilometers to win the 2022 IAU 24-Hour European Championships in Verona, Italy.
Sorokin averaged 4:30 min/KM for 24 hours on a track to break his record of 309.399 kilometers from last year.
“I'm very tired, however I'm double excited”, Sorokin wrote on instagram.
Before Sorokin put his name in the record books, the previous world best set by Greece’s Yiannis Kouros was thought to be untouchable.
Sorokin, who turns 41 this month, has rewritten the ultrarunning record books in recent years. He has set world records for 100-kilometers (6:05:41, 5:53 mile pace), 100 miles (10:51:39, 6:31 mile pace) and 12 hours (110.24 miles, 6:32 mile pace) in the past year.
To prepare for the race, he trained at altitude near Iten, Kenya, logging a high of 378.04 KM in one week, including a 70KM run at 6:27 pace.
Sorokin was a competitive kayaker in his youth, but gave up the sport at age 25 after he got a shoulder injury. He got a regular job, smoked, drank and gained some weight before deciding to change his lifestyle and take up ultrarunning at age 31.
In an interview with The New York Times, Sorokin described the feeling of those last painful miles of an ultramarathon as “radical acceptance.”