The Guinness World Record of 8 hours, 26 minutes and 53 seconds for the 100 x 1 mile mixed relay was officially confirmed by the Guinness Book of World Records.
The relay, which took place at Marist School, involved 70 men and 30 women and was organized by metro Atlanta native Colin Beecham. While the date on the record is incorrect (the attempt occurred on July 14, not June 14), the record is valid and Beecham’s mission has been completed.
“It’s a cool feeling,” Beecham said. “It’s a fun team thing. After you do the event, you’re like, ‘Hey, we broke the record,’ but there’s kind of that thought of, ‘Well, you know, it’s not really official.’ ”
Beecham had to submit videos, photos, witness statements and other documents to Guinness immediately after the run so the company could begin certifying the attempt. Certifying a record normally takes around 12 weeks, but Beecham was so excited that he paid for expedited certification.
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At 6 a.m. Tuesday, he received an email certifying his record. A plaque with the record arrived a few days later, though the date is also wrong. Beecham has reached out to Guinness to correct the date.
The group of runners that participated in the event were excited as well, celebrating in the group chat.
“We’ve still got our group message, so I sent it to everybody and they were all fired up,” Beecham said. “I posted a story on my Instagram and had a bunch of people respond and a bunch of people were texting me and the GroupMe was going crazy for a little bit.”
Beecham isn’t sure what’s next for him. He said he had a lot of fun organizing the event and would be interested in doing more creative running events. He doesn’t have his eye set on any other world records at the moment. For now, he’s just enjoying this one.
