It’s the penultimate day, and her nap is stretching long – five hours – and the timer by the line is ticking – and Herron has less than 24 hours to run 48 miles. If she can will herself on, she’ll break a record that has stood for more than three decades. Herron, a 2:37 marathoner, started an unprecedented streak. In 2017, she became the third American to win the Comrades Marathon, a storied 55-mile race in South Africa, and in 2023 won the Spartathalon, a 153-mile ultramarathon in Greece. She is the first athlete, male or female, to win both. That same year, she logged 270 miles around a 400m track in Bruce, Australia. She did so in 48 hours not only improving her own mark but becoming the first woman to hold an outright American record – for men and women – in distance running.
