Man becomes first to run sub-three hour marathons over 40 years apart

For many runners, cracking the three-hour barrier in the marathon just once is mission accomplished. For others, running the full 42.2K in less than 180 minutes is an obsession. For a select group of runners, the quest for the sub-three finishing time is one that fuels their training for four decades.

RELATED: Longest known run streak comes to an end after 52 years

Of all the runners who are taken with the sub-three hour marathon, Steve Smythe is perhaps the most dedicated. The runner just completed a 2:56.21 race at the Seville Marathon this past weekend to mark over 40 years since he first broke the barrier.

Back in 1976, when Smythe was just 18 years old, he ran 2:54 in the distance. His race on Sunday was 40 years and four months since that original marathon. This also means that he now has the record for being the first to achieve an over 40-year span between breaking three hours.  The previous record was 40 years on the nose. That was set in December by Antonio Arreola, according to Athletics Weekly.

AW’s Steve Smythe achieved a record 40-year span of sub-3:00 marathons at @MaratonSevilla on Sunday. READ: https://t.co/njyz2vZhS1

— Athletics Weekly (@AthleticsWeekly) February 21, 2017

Lucky for this 58-year-old runner, this was also the first time in the past five years that he hasn’t wound up injured in his training period leading up to the marathon.

An avid fan of the running scene, when he noticed the record was set in December, he thought he could better it.

“Luckily I found a record for someone old and slow, who has just kept going a long time,” he said. “I saw the record had been improved in December and thought the opportunity was there to finally do something I can be satisfied with when I stop running,” he said in the Athletics Weekly article.

What’s with the sub-three obsession?

But this fascination with making it across the finish line before the clock strikes three hours is possibly what’s more interesting to the running community.

Smythe is part of a small group of runners worldwide who are focused on achieving this mark through decades of running. In total, there are 37 runners across the globe that can say that they have broken three hours in four different decades. There’s even a list published online…

While, sadly, there are no Canadians who have taken to pursuing this feat, there is one easily recognizable name on that list. Female running pioneer Joan Benoit-Samuelson who won the first-ever women’s Olympic marathon in 1984 is recorded as having run a sub-three in 1979 through to 2010.