Astronaut "Suni" Williams Runs Boston Marathon from Space

Sunita "Suni" Williams ran the Boston Marathon on Monday. She finished the 26.2 mile race in 4 hours and 24 minutes, which put her close to two hours behind the winner. Williams, 41, finished nearly an hour slower than her qualifying time of 3 hours and 27 minutes in the 2006 Chevron Houston Marathon.

Of course, this time she was running in outer space. Williams, a NASA astronaut currently stationed in the international space station, actually circled the earth almost three times - close to 76,000 miles - as she ran the marathon tethered to a treadmill.

Williams, a test pilot and commander in the U.S. Navy, who was officially registered for the race, will receive a finishing certificate and a medal, and her time will be recorded along with contestants who actually ran in the sometimes 50-mile-per-hour gusts of wind in Masachusetts. She will not, however, be considered an official finisher.

"It's a unique situation," said Jack Fleming. He said that several hundred other members of the armed forced competed in the marathon by running on military bases in places as far-flung as Iraq and Kosovo.

Williams, who did not have to face the wind and hills other competitors endured, nevertheless faced difficulties of her own. No gravity, for one. Williams had to harnessed into the treadmill, and the straps caused more than a bit of pain.

"It's very irritating and leaves marks," said Bob Dempsey of NASA, and Williams did not disagree.

"I wanted to give it a stab and see if I could make it," Williams said in a post-race interview. She said her shoulders were sore after 15 miles, but her fellow astronauts cheered her on. "I said, 'OK, this will be tough.' But I got to 20 [miles], moved on to 21 miles, and it was all downhill from there. My crewmates crowded around and cheered. I was pretty ecstatic."

Williams is on the international space station with U.S. astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Tyurin, Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov, and space tourist Charles Simonyi. Lopez-Alegria seemed impressed with the run, saying Williams "has my undying respect," for her effort.

Williams, who has been in space since the beginning of the year, has already logged four space walks, a record for female astronauts. Because of recent shuttle delays, her tour in space could be extended until August, which would be the longest for any American astronaut, male or female.

Sources:

www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4720652.html
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/16/AR2007041601638.html