Running a marathon in under three hours is an achievement most people can only dream about.
Running one in around two-and-a-half hours takes things to an entirely different level.
Doing it while wearing a pair of bright yellow Crocs sounds completely ridiculous – but that is exactly what Iskander Yadgarov managed at the Berlin Marathon.
The 35-year-old Russian runner completed the gruelling 42.195km course wearing the unmistakable plastic clogs, crossing the finish line in a reported time of 2:30:03.
That works out at an average pace of approximately 3:33 per kilometre, or 5:43 per mile.
And yes, he did it in Crocs.
Yadgarov arrived in Berlin with the specific goal of breaking the marathon record while wearing the footwear, rather than the highly engineered running shoes normally seen on athletes capable of producing times anywhere near his.
Before taking on the challenge, he summed up what was about to happen with a fairly understandable message.
“God bless my feet.”
Fortunately, his feet survived.
After completing the marathon, Yadgarov simply declared: “Challenge completed.”
As bizarre as the achievement sounds, Yadgarov isn’t simply a casual runner who decided to turn up to one of the world’s biggest marathons wearing Crocs for attention.
He is an accomplished distance runner with some seriously impressive times behind him.
His reported personal best for the marathon stands at 2:14:07, while he has run a half marathon in 1:02:35 and recorded a 7:59 time over 3,000 metres.
That pedigree goes some way towards explaining how somebody could even contemplate running a 2:30 marathon without conventional running shoes.
Still, knowing how fast Yadgarov is doesn’t make the sight of him hammering through Berlin in neon-yellow Crocs any less strange.
His pace during the race was equally impressive.
Yadgarov reportedly averaged around 3:30 per kilometre during the opening half of the marathon before slowing slightly over the latter stages.
Even with that drop in pace, he remained on course for an extraordinary finishing time.
Perhaps even more remarkably, Berlin wasn’t his first attempt at testing just how quickly somebody can run in Crocs.
Yadgarov had previously recorded a reported 31:18 over 10km in Barcelona while wearing them, before completing a half marathon in Valencia in 1:09:08.
There has also been a slight discrepancy surrounding Yadgarov’s exact finishing time, with some reports listing 2:30:03 and another citing a World Athletics result of 2:30:08.
Either way, we’re talking about a difference of five seconds after more than 26 miles of running in plastic clogs.
It hardly makes the achievement any less absurd.
And anyone now considering digging an old pair of Crocs out of the cupboard and attempting to copy him might want to listen to Yadgarov himself.
His advice after completing the challenge was simple.
“Don’t try to replicate that.”
Probably sensible.
Yadgarov is, after all, a runner capable of completing a marathon in a little over two hours and 14 minutes when he’s not deliberately making his life considerably more difficult.
For everyone else, the Crocs are probably better left for the beach.
Featured image credit: Iskander Yadgarov / runnersnerd / Instagram
