Apparently Haile Gebrselassie wasn’t the only one performing miracles at the Berlin Marathon. Mexican politician Roberto Madrazo also set an amazing PR — and defied the laws of physics too. All while wearing a clown suit — I mean, a red track suit top and black sweatpants.
Madrazo finished in 2:40:57, taking first in the Male 55 age group. But did he actually run the race as he claimed, or did he take a convenient shortcut between chip timing mats instead, as some have charged? Let’s do the math, shall we?
According to the timing mats, Madrazo hit the 20 kilometer mark in 1:42:42. That puts his first 12.5 or so miles at an 8:15 pace. Not bad for a failed politician of dubious scruples. But in order to make his finishing time of 2:40 and change, he would have had to have sped up quite a bit — to the tune of an average pace of 4:13 per mile.
Gebrselassie — now being called the fastest marathoner in the world — set his world record running an average pace of 4:45. Yet Madrazo, with his seemingly super-human ability to maintain a dramatically faster pace (and after already running over 12 miles, no less), can obviously run much faster than the slow Ethiopian, despite being 20 years his senior. It seems that Mr. Madrazo just needs to believe in himself and run a more aggressive first half to realize his full potential.
Madrazo might also consider broadening his competitive horizons. With his speed and endurance, he should be on track to easily shatter the current half marathon world record time of 58:33. Go, Roberto, Go!
Races Like a Girl 
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