WEB CHUTNEY

If you think running more than 26 miles is a challenge, it’s not! Tim Peake completed the London Marathon on Sunday while strapped to a treadmill in the International Space Station.

Team Peake, UK’s first official astronaut is also a marathoner! He participated from space this time and e finished the virtual London Marathon in 3 hours and 35 minutes on a T2 treadmill, floating in orbit about 200 miles above his nearly 40,000 competitors on the ground. Earlier in 1999 Peake participated in the London Marathon from the planet earth.

Tim stresses on the importance of training

I don’t think you can ever do enough training for a marathon. But I’ve certainly been putting in the miles on the T2 treadmill. That’s what we call it up here in the Space Station

He participated from space using an iPad app, known as the Run Social app

I’ve got the Run social app, so I’ll actually be looking at the route that I am running, and I’ll be running alongside everybody else.

After the marathon run Tim mentioned in his blog that the run was better than he expected.

The run went better than expected. I thought I’d stick to a steady 7.5 mph, but when I got to 10 miles I realised that my legs were feeling OK but my shoulders were beginning to hurt, so I needed to finish the run quicker than planned and running faster doesn’t seem to hurt the shoulders any more – in fact I think the longer stride made it less painful on the shoulders.

So I went to 8 mph for 10 miles and then for the last 6.2 miles went to 8.6 mph. My legs paid the price but my shoulders were grateful. It probably looked like I was having a strong run at the end but the reality was that I couldn’t wait to get out of that harness!!

Watch the moment Tim Peake completes the London Marathon on the International Space Station:

Tim tweeted congratulating everyone involved in the #LondonMarathon.

42 km, while @Space_Station flew almost 100000 km. Congratulations to everyone in #LondonMarathon & #teamastronaut…gonna sleep well tonight!

— Tim Peake (@astro_timpeake) April 24, 2024

Tim Peake is now the first man to complete a marathon in space.