In a story you couldn’t fake, a Toronto nurse has become the fastest woman to complete a marathon dressed in an inflatable costume—while wearing a giant red-and-white coronavirus suit.
On Sunday, Karen Michelsen of Toronto tackled the 2024 Berlin Marathon sporting a fully inflated virus suit, spikes and all, for 42.2 km, crossing the finish line in 5:10:21. And it came down to the wire—she only broke the previous Guinness World Record by 10 seconds.
Another amazing record during the #BerlinMarathon 👀
Karen Michelsen completed the fastest marathon in a full-body inflatable costume (female) with a time of 5:10:21. Congrats, Karen! ✨😎 pic.twitter.com/BQ2Bcp1JPA— Guinness World Records (@GWR) September 29, 2024
The previous record was set by British runner Georgina Box earlier this year at the 2024 London Marathon, where Box ran 5:10:31 in an inflatable shark costume.
Why a coronavirus costume? Michelsen served as a nurse at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto during the height of the pandemic, and wanted to run a marathon and send a message while doing it. “During Covid, I was part of the Medical-Surgical ICU at the Covid-19 command centre for the province of Ontario,” she says. “This record is to show people that you can take a negative experience and turn it into something positive, fun and interesting.”
This is Michelsen’s fourth Guinness World Record in running. She has also run a marathon in all 50 states and carried the torch at the 2010 Olympics, as well as at the 2015 Pan Am Games in Toronto.
Michelsen, 60, saw the 2024 Berlin Marathon as the perfect opportunity to highlight her love of running, dressing up in a costume and having fun doing it. She was one of eight individuals to take home Guinness World Record titles along with their 50th-anniversary Berlin finisher medals. It was also a landmark year for the event itself, setting the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest marathon, surpassing the 2024 New York City Marathon with more than 54,000 finishers.
