Woman Completes A Marathon In Three Inch Stilettos

Irene Sewell, a 27 year old ballroom dancer-turned-runner, decided to be the first person to complete a marathon wearing heels.

That’s 26.2 miles wearing these:

Surprise, I had a last minute heel change and I’m super excited about it. This heel has a built in heel cushion, more support around my mid foot and wider straps which should help me out a lot. In addition to the 5 pairs of shoes I bought today, Fleet Feet (like always) helped me pick out some much needed race day essentials like the CEP calf sleeves, Super Feet high heel insoles, a knee brace and of course their awesome swag! We are only 24 days away from the 7 Bridges Marathon and all my preparation is finally all coming together! See you out on the course . . . . . . . #guinnessworldrecordattempt #cep #cepcompression #superfeet #superfeetinsoles #fleetfeetchattanooga #fleetfeet #7bridgesmarathon #chattanooga #marathontraining #marathon #run #fitfam #highheelsforguinness #highheels #stiletto @superfeet @cepcompression

A post shared by Irene Sewell (@highheelsforguinness) on Sep 20, 2017 at 3:06pm PDT

Sewell completed the 7 Bridges Marathon in Chattanooga, Tennessee earlier this month. She says she trained for a year and rotated her footwear to prevent injury.

“I had a year to train — which I needed both physically and mentally. I began running all my runs in heels but quickly learned that was an easy way to wear my feet out and toed the line of possibly getting injured. After having some forefoot pain, I saw a podiatrist who recommended that I run most of my training runs in my normal running shoes and throw in the heels every once and a while.”

I don’t think I’m the only person in complete awe of this. I’ve been on the receiving end of some pretty killer blisters from wearings heels out at night for a few hours. I can’t imagine how Irene did over 26 miles in them.

Given that the average time to complete a marathon is a little over 4 hours, I had to know how long it took Irene. Her getup looked pretty efficient, so I was guessing maybe around 5 or 6. She even wrapped her feet in moleskin to prevent injury.

Well world, I DID IT. I’m still in shock, but it really happened. I ran a marathon today in high heels and set a Guinness World Record and got it with two minutes to spare! HUGE thank you to my pacers/bag and shoe carriers Zach Cowart and Susanna Kirby for sticking out the whole thing with me, you two are saints. Thanks to Tommy Norton for rushing to bring more GoPros, Brittany Schield for bringing a memory card, then running with me, I could NOT have run as “fast” as I did without you. Thanks Chattanooga Police Department for staying on my butt with your lights and making me run the Dam literally as fast as I could because time was running out. Thanks to the weather for cooperating and giving us shade even though I still got sunburnt Thank you to all my friends for showing up and cheered me in!! Thank you to everyone else who texted, called waved to me on the course (sorry for the traffic jam we caused) and cheered from afar. Jay Nevans you put on an AWESOME race, as always and I love the medal. What a day for the books.. get it? #marathon #26point2 #guinnessworldrecordholder #guinnessworldrecordfamily

A post shared by Irene Sewell (@highheelsforguinness) on Oct 15, 2017 at 1:43pm PDT

Turns out, it took Irene 7 hours and 28 minutes to run this thing. The cutoff for a marathon is 7 hours and 30 minutes. She finished two minutes before that. She even mentioned that the police had to rush her along – with the sirens on – to get her to finish in time.

Now I’m not knocking that this is still a pretty cool accomplishment. I’m all for setting records and doing crazy things. Pie eating? Sure thing. Polar bear plunges? I’m there. But if the police literally have to shove you over the finish line with their lights and sirens blazing, maybe stay home instead. There are plenty of other Guinness World Records to aim for that I’d be much more impressed by. Like being covered by the most amount of bees or doing the longest basketball spin while balancing on a toothbrush in your mouth. Not everyone can be a hero. Maybe stick to the mile fun run instead.