Running a marathon is no easy task, and spending six months in space is extremely physically taxing as well. Doing both at the same time would seem to be more than the human body could take, but that’s exactly what British astronaut Tim Peake plans to do next year.
Peake, who according to Mashable will be travelling to the International Space Station in less than two weeks, announced Friday that he plans to run the London marathon on April 24 while onboard the orbiting facility. It won’t be the first time he has run the race, having finished it in 3 hours and 18 minutes in 1999, but it will be his first attempt in zero gravity.
The plan is for Peake to strap himself into a treadmill in the Tranquility node and start running at the same time as those on Earth (10:00 GMT on April 24 in London), the ESA explained in a statement. In order to run, he will have to wear special equipment to keep from floating away.
“I have to wear a harness system that’s a bit similar to a rucksack. It has a waistbelt and shoulder straps,” he said. “That has to provide quite a bit of downforce to get my body onto the treadmill so after about 40 minutes, that gets very uncomfortable. I don’t think I’ll be setting any personal bests. I’ve set myself a goal of anywhere between 3:30 to 4 hours.”
Not the first ISS astronaut to attempt a 26-mile race
Surprisingly, Peake, who is running in order to raise awareness for the Prince’s Trust, a charity that helps men and women under the age of 30 find jobs, get training or obtain an education, will not be the first astronaut to have run in a marathon while serving onboard the ISS.
In 2007, Expedition 15 crew member Sunita Williams completed the Boston Marathon in a time of 4:23:10, according to NASA. Williams, a Needham, Massachusetts who was issued number 14,000 by race organizers, ran in 78 degree conditions while her counterparts on Earth endured temperatures of 48 degrees with rain and 28 mph wind gusts.
Williams, an accomplished runner who qualified for the race by completing the previous year’s Houston Marathon in a time of 3:29:57, explained that she decided to attempt the feat in order to “encourage kids to start making physical fitness part of their daily lives. I thought a big goal like a marathon would help get this message out there.”
As for Peake, he said that the thing that he was “most looking forward to is that I can still interact with everybody down on Earth. I’ll be running it with the iPad and watching myself running through the streets of London whilst orbiting the Earth at 400km.”
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Image credit: ESA
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