Eight marathons on a treadmill in two days

By Paul Taylor

Former Queenstowner Emma Timmis has broken the Guinness World Record for the greatest distance run on a treadmill in 48 hours.

The adventurer, who last year became the fastest female to run the length of New Zealand, clocked up 340.36km on a treadmill last weekend - that’s the equivalent of eight marathons.

She ran 17.4km farther than previous record-holder Kristina Paltén, of Sweden.

Timmis, 39, says the origins of the record attempt came from the length of NZ run.

“At the end of that, my body was pretty destroyed but my mind was quite clear,” she says.

“I’m fascinated by psychology and the mindset of endurance sports, so I wondered what I could do that would be a real test of my mental strength.

“Running on a treadmill is probably the most awful thing you can think of as a trail runner, because it’s so boring. It’s like being locked in an empty room, there’s no stimulation.

“That’s why I lived in Queenstown. I love running through the mountains and through forests, up and down hills and along single tracks.

“It is really mentally hard to be on that treadmill, to be doing that physical movement that you love outdoors, but just in one place, not moving.”

Timmis, who lived in Queenstown from 2016 to 2020, and now lives in Reefton, set the world record at Koha Fitness in Christchurch, backed by a team of supporters and Guinness witnesses.

She ran in four hours chunks from 7am Friday to 7am Sunday, with 20 minute breaks in between, and a two-and-a-half-hour sleep break half way through, although she couldn’t doze off.

Did she find her mental limits?

“There were lots of highs and lows, and they’d come thinker and faster than they would do outside running 100ks. Every 15 minutes my mood would change from high to low or low to high, which was challenging.

“It was about recognising it was happening and being open with the people around me. I had such an amazing crew, which was really helpful. It takes a village to do something like that.”

Physically, it was tough too.

“When I broke the record, I still had about two-and-a-half hours to go, and my whole body was in a lot of pain, so there wasn’t a great celebration of that. It was more about focusing on the time left, about what I could put into it.

“When you’re outside, every footstep has a slight variation, you use your muscles in different ways, but on a treadmill every single step is exactly the same, so all your joints, your knees, ankles and hips because really painful because they’re getting that wear and tear in the same place over and over again.

“The last half an hour I got some energy and was back running again. All the pain disappeared and I felt great. I felt like I could have continued but I guess it’s just the adrenalin.

“I’ve recovered now but my toes are a bit of a mess.”

And Timmis, who has ran across Africa twice and also holds the unusual world record of the longest ElliptiGO bike trek, some 8,000km across Australia in 2017, says the 48-hour record wasn’t the original goal.

Instead, it was a ultimately a training run for an attempt later this year on the 833km world record for the greatest distance covered on a treadmill in one week, fundraising for Youthline and Christchurch charity Speed Freaks, which uses walking and running to help people overcome addiction and other mental health issues.

For that one, though, she says she might see if she can at least move the treadmill outside.

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