Saturday a City of Sparta, Greece witnessed a staggering performance by one of the best female ultra runners in the world.
Noora Honkala from Finland broke impressive 4 National Records and nearly the World Record in one single run!
The City of Sparta (Greece) organised a first SPARTA CITY ULTRA in the Main Street of Sparta. Loop of two kilometres was a stage for 88 runners, participating for 6h, 12h and 24h race. But no one was as impressive as Noora Honkala from Finland.
Noora started fast by crossing first marathon at 3:02 and 50km 3:39.32, by breaking her first National Record, following the 6 hour mark at 79.00km breaking another National Record.
For not slowing down she passed 100km mark at time of 7:41.54 (another National Record) at way under World Record pace for 12h. Unfortunately closing 8h mark, her stomach started to throw dark skies for her run, forcing her to stop a few times. She tried to hold the pace but unluckily at 10 hour mark her stomach forced her to slow down rapidly. Even so Noora held her “slow” pace to the end and achieved 145.4km in 12 hours breaking the 12 hour National Record and putting her the third best performance in all-time world rankings.
Whoever witnesses the race, saw a spectacular run and that is what ultra running is about. There is surely more to come from this young Finnish ultra runner.
Noora Honkala (29)
Born in Finland and living part time in Greece
www.noorahonkala.com
IG @noorahonkala
Photos: Sami Vaskola