Some races are fairly straightforward. You toe the line, begin running at the crack of the starting gun, and don’t stop until you reach the finish line. This is not one of those races.
Former Olympian Ryan Hall and a pair of friends, Sam and Colin, took on a run that they’ve dubbed “The World's Most Interesting 5K,” a 3.1 mile trial of endurance and strength. Hall shared the info about the challenge—along with several slides of videos documenting the super challenging event—on an Instagram post.
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The race starts with a mile run as hard as you can go. After that, things get interesting. The next mile is split into four 400-meter segments, each with a grueling challenge. The first lap is a 45-pound plate overhead run, followed by double leg bounds, then a 230-pound farmers carry with a trap bar, then finally a run carrying a Wreck Bag. But that’s only two of the 3.1 miles that make up a 5K.
The final 1.1 miles is the home stretch. There are no stunts, just guts to finish the ridiculously tough run alternating between walking lunges and, as Hall puts it, “a regular ‘run.’
“Run is in quotes because it’s hardly a run at this point in the challenge,” he wrote in the post’s caption.
“The big takeaway for me coming away from this challenge is that we are capable of so much more than we think when we are pushed by others taking on the challenge with us,” Hall wrote. “There were many points in this when I was ready to call it, but knowing that Sam and Colin were out there taking it on with me allowed me to keep pushing.”
For Hall, this extreme challenge isn’t so far out of line with his fitness exploits. The unofficial American marathon record-holder (2:04:58) and two-time Olympian has transformed himself from a distance runner into a strong hybrid athlete, regularly showing off feats of strength and endurance like long distance trap bar farmer’s walks and heavy lifts. Brett Williams, NASM the 500-pound deadlift, sub-5-minute mile challenge.
But for Hall (and anyone else), the Most Interesting 5K is a killer race. “You can do pretty much anything after doing that,” he said to his friend after they finished.
Olympian Elle St. Pierre Is Expecting Second Child-CPT, PES, a senior editor at Men's Health, is a certified trainer and former pro football player and tech reporter. You can find his work elsewhere at Mashable, Thrillist, and other outlets.
