Guinness World Record -- 839 Rubik's Cubes in 4:56:01 During a Marathon

[PhillipEspinoza]

Hello Speedsolving Forum,

It's been a while, I just wanted to let you all know of the Guinness World Record I will be attempting to break on November 15, 2014 at the Azusa Canyon City Marathon and maybe get some tips and/or support for setting this record. The current record is 175 cubes solved during a marathon by Shane White. My goal is to do at least 1,000 solves during the 5 hour time limit they set. Note: the time limit is 5 hours and given that the record is not for fastest marathon but most cubes solved during, it makes most sense to try to solve as many cubes as possible under the time limit that they set instead of trying to pull a sub-3 marathon while solving 176 cubes. I have written to Guinness and have received all the guidelines for breaking this record and it seems pretty straightforward and liberal as to how you decide to have the cubes presented to you during the attempt.

Here's my idea for the most efficient way to break this record (let me know if you could think of a more efficient way to pull this off): I will have a 4-person crew (Steven Turner, Michael NotKevin Young, Sam Chiu, Everett Kelly and possibly Cameron Brown). They will all be accompanying me in one pedicab as I do the 11:13/mile pace. 1 person will be the official scrambler of the event, 1 person will be responsible for handing/taking the cubes from me, 1 person will be responsible for keeping count, and the final person will be filming the event for evidence purposes. There will be about 10-20 cubes on deck that will be cycled through the whole run. With this system set up, I feel like it should be highly possible for me to reach 1,000 cubes (given that the pedicab driver does enough training to withstand driving 4 people for 5 hours straight). Is there any timer system out there that highlights the number of cubes currently solved as opposed to the time of the most recent solve?

Please let me know if you can foresee any issues I may have overlooked in attempting this run. Also, if you can, I know everyone is spending their money on cubes and other cubing related things, but please take time to support this endeavor on www.gofundme.com/rubiksrunrecord. I am also raising money to start an organization that will help San Diego Native Youth afford expensive race fees and good running shoes so that there is no longer a reason to continue unhealthy lifestyles that plague Native Americans. Every little bit helps to bring awareness to this cause through the cool hobbies of speedcubing and running! Thanks in advance!

 

[Goosly]

(given that the pedicab driver does enough training to withstand driving 4 people for 5 hours straight)

My first thought while reading your plan is that this might be an issue.

 

[rokicki]

They will all be accompanying me in one pedicab as I do the 11:13/mile pace.

Most marathons have a strict no-wheels policy; have you verified with the marathon organizers that they will make an
exception for you? Especially for a large pedicab; that's going to be real popular with all the runners around you.
Of course you'll be way at the back, so maybe it's not that big a deal.

If one pedicab driver is not up to it, it's probably not that hard to have, say, 5 drivers do it as a relay, 5.2 miles each.

Pops could be a real problem early in the race when it's crowded. I'm surprised you're choosing such a crowded
marathon.

Have you done any dry runs? Can you tell us about them? Even just knocking off six miles as a test will bring out
issues, I am sure.

11:13 is so slow you may actually be able to *walk* for most of the marathon and do the cubes then, and run
a mile every so often to make up the required time. Don't know if this violates the spirit of what you are
attempting, though. It's pretty easy to walk 13:30's; if you can run 8:00's that means you can walk 16 miles
and run 10.2, so you're walking for 3 1/2 of the 5 hours. If you can run 7:00's you can walk nearly 18 miles.
And alternating walk/run like this is surprisingly easy.

I've tried running and cubing simultaneously and for *me* it was dangerous; I had a hard time watching for unexpected
obstacles (other runners, curbs) while cubing at the same time. I wish you the best of luck!

 

[PhillipEspinoza]

Most marathons have a strict no-wheels policy; have you verified with the marathon organizers that they will make an
exception for you? Especially for a large pedicab; that's going to be real popular with all the runners around you.
Of course you'll be way at the back, so maybe it's not that big a deal.

If one pedicab driver is not up to it, it's probably not that hard to have, say, 5 drivers do it as a relay, 5.2 miles each.

Pops could be a real problem early in the race when it's crowded. I'm surprised you're choosing such a crowded
marathon.

Have you done any dry runs? Can you tell us about them? Even just knocking off six miles as a test will bring out
issues, I am sure.

11:13 is so slow you may actually be able to *walk* for most of the marathon and do the cubes then, and run
a mile every so often to make up the required time. Don't know if this violates the spirit of what you are
attempting, though. It's pretty easy to walk 13:30's; if you can run 8:00's that means you can walk 16 miles
and run 10.2, so you're walking for 3 1/2 of the 5 hours. If you can run 7:00's you can walk nearly 18 miles.
And alternating walk/run like this is surprisingly easy.

I've tried running and cubing simultaneously and for *me* it was dangerous; I had a hard time watching for unexpected
obstacles (other runners, curbs) while cubing at the same time. I wish you the best of luck!

Thanks for the feedback! I've taken a lot of these things into account but what I'm interested in is your last idea. If I walk 18 miles at 13:30 pace, and say I can get a no-inspection average of 11 seconds, I could solve 1,337 cubes and just run 7 minute miles for the last 8.2? Hmm.. that might actually make it easier on the pedicab too, only having them do 4 hours and at a slower pace... although, yeah I'd have to decide if that would compromise the intent of what I'm trying to do (I don't want it to seem as if I'm trying to cut corners) but I will seriously consider this, thanks!

I picked the marathon based on flatness of the course. As much as I'd want the pedicab to do 1,000 ft of gain it's already iffy on a flat marathon course. The crowd shouldn't matter too much as I will obviously be in back, and I will also coordinate this event with the organizers of the marathon so I'm not just crashing the marathon.

 

[Rocky0701]

Is the person who is cyling the pedicab a cyclist? 26.2 miles wouldn't be too hard for someone who isn't used to cycling, but hauling 3 passengers and a heavier bike would make it easily 800+ pounds, which could be a challenge for a non cyclist. I would also time your scrambler to make sure that they can keep up with you since based on your signature you seem to be sub 10. I average 21 and scramble in about 10 seconds, so it could be an issue if they are slower than you.

 

[qqwref]

Is there any timer system out there that highlights the number of cubes currently solved as opposed to the time of the most recent solve?

There's a marathon timer out there, which was used during Eric Limeback's 24 hour WR marathon. I think strakerak also made another one. It would also be pretty simple to modify something like qqtimer to make the number of solved cubes really big (or at least the number of scrambles done - and then you would subtract the number of unsolved cubes at the end).

Most marathons have a strict no-wheels policy; have you verified with the marathon organizers that they will make an
exception for you? Especially for a large pedicab; that's going to be real popular with all the runners around you.
Of course you'll be way at the back, so maybe it's not that big a deal.

This is a good point. And a 5 hour time may not necessarily be way at the back, depending on how many casual runners there are...

 

[PhillipEspinoza]

Is the person who is cyling the pedicab a cyclist? 26.2 miles wouldn't be too hard for someone who isn't used to cycling, but hauling 3 passengers and a heavier bike would make it easily 800+ pounds, which could be a challenge for a non cyclist. I would also time your scrambler to make sure that they can keep up with you since based on your signature you seem to be sub 10. I average 21 and scramble in about 10 seconds, so it could be an issue if they are slower than you.

Thank you all great points. I would be having someone from the crew scramble (Michael?) so they're pretty safe if I solve on avg 12-13 secs while running with no inspection if they could scramble random state ~9 secs. I would take an occasional break to down some gu or drink something too so there should be comfortable space in terms of timing but yeah no doubt they're gonna be busy the entire time.

And yeah that is true about the pedicab driver, if I could I'd do it myself but yeah we need a decent to strong cyclist.

 

[PhillipEspinoza]

There's a marathon timer out there, which was used during Eric Limeback's 24 hour WR marathon. I think strakerak also made another one. It would also be pretty simple to modify something like qqtimer...

Awesome! Do you know where I could find that timer, or could you maybe help with the qq modification?

 

[PJKCuber]

Just get 1000 Sulongs They are cheap. Good Luck on the WR!

 

[RobertFontaine]

Solving at a rate of 12-13 seconds it would be very easy to overrun your scrambler who has to retrieve a cube read the correct scramble and then hand it off or put it in the pile. Probably worth doing a dry run to find out how many cubes you will need and whether you will need 2 scramblers or more over a period of 5 hours.
They may not be as motivated as you.

 

[DeeDubb]

Just get 1000 Sulongs They are cheap. Good Luck on the WR!

Before you hit submit, you should consider what you just typed, do some research, and see if it makes sense. 1000 Sulongs, at their cheapest price are maybe around $3.50USD in bulk... multiply by 1000, that's $3,500USD. That's assuming you can even find somewhere to buy that many cubes in bulk. Plus the practicality of towing 1000 cubes through a marathon. It's simply ridiculous.

 

[blade740]

I think I could pedal a pedicab for 5 hours if need be.

 

[rokicki]

For each role, have an understudy. With this big a production, one person being sick
could wreck the whole thing.

And scrambling does worry me; I might do have two people scramble and each
count as well (you can get little click things that count).

The video will probably be pretty boring; I bet you could get a few GoPro cameras
and attach them to the pedicab and get everything you need video-wise without
actually needing an individual to run the cameras.

 

[Bunyanderman]

Do they make pedi-cabs that hold 4 people plus some equipment? Unless you already have one, some can be very expensive. If you spaced out the marathon to 5 hours, thats 5mph average for the cyclist. I average 18mph and good cyclist can average over 20mph, on a 20+ mile ride, but I don't know about the added weight on how much that affects the ride. If you had the right gear, it would be a breeze.

 

[brian724080]

Just get 1000 Sulongs They are cheap. Good Luck on the WR!

Or just buy three, because 1000 cubes of any kind is both expensive and heavy.

 

[Baku]

To address the concern of the pedi-cab driver becoming too tired to drive. You could have a scrambler (or anyone else involved) and the pedi-cab driver switch roles mid race so they wouldn't have to peddle for so long. Keep in mind that a pedi-cab will not ride like a road bike so even a two and a half hour ride could tire your average cyclist out.

And in response to this ...

Just get 1000 Sulongs They are cheap.

Just ... no

 

[PhillipEspinoza]

I think I could pedal a pedicab for 5 hours if need be.

That'd be awesome to have you on Board Andy. I will get back to you to see if this could happen. The pedicab company I called said that their driver needs to be licensed to operate the pedicab so it might not be as simple as we would like it to be.

For each role, have an understudy. With this big a production, one person being sick
could wreck the whole thing.

And scrambling does worry me; I might do have two people scramble and each
count as well (you can get little click things that count).

The video will probably be pretty boring; I bet you could get a few GoPro cameras
and attach them to the pedicab and get everything you need video-wise without
actually needing an individual to run the cameras.

Yeah, that is a great idea with having someone as backup. The driver will have to show up as I would be paying the company good money for this stunt. But I have arranged for the mentioned cubers to be there. I feel like other cubers in the SoCal area could come too just to spectate or something and maybe I could have some of my backups be there if they're not too far from the area. Long Beach I thought was really good in terms of being central to socal cubers. I'm also doing Ventura and was thinking about having that one be the marathon for this event because it too is really flat, but it's kinda out of the way for most cubers. I'll just settle for a sub-3 Boston qualifying time for that one.

Do they make pedi-cabs that hold 4 people plus some equipment? Unless you already have one, some can be very expensive. If you spaced out the marathon to 5 hours, thats 5mph average for the cyclist. I average 18mph and good cyclist can average over 20mph, on a 20+ mile ride, but I don't know about the added weight on how much that affects the ride. If you had the right gear, it would be a breeze.

Yeah I cycle too and am about the same average wise, but yeah unfortunately I can't clone myself and even so, I wouldn't be sure how much different it would be. I almost feel like yeah, the driver needs to train more than me because they need to be damn sure they can do keep up if I'm paying them. Again, not like I'm going incredibly fast but 5mph carrying 4 people might be a different story. The guy from the pedicab company I talked to said it might be a record for longest distance for 4 person pedicab too! lol

To address the concern of the pedi-cab driver becoming too tired to drive. You could have a scrambler (or anyone else involved) and the pedi-cab driver switch roles mid race so they wouldn't have to peddle for so long. Keep in mind that a pedi-cab will not ride like a road bike so even a two and a half hour ride could tire your average cyclist out.

And in response to this ...



Just ... no

Yeah, again, I dunno if it would be as simple as just switching in whoever given that you have to be licensed to "drive" the pedicab but yeah, if they're flexible this would be a good idea.

I'm thankful for all responses and feedback, it really helps, regardless of how ridiculous they may sound. Some advice/feedback is always better than none, I don't have to follow all advice given here but it still helps to know everyone else's ideas even if they are something like buy 1,000 cubes. I could have spread out the 1,000 cubes in bags along the course somewhere if I could afford them (I never said money was a limiting factor to be fair). So thanks for the constructive feedback guys!

 

[ChickenWrap]

I was actually going to attempt this record this year but my goal was 500 cubes....I probably shouldn't bother now

As for advice, I am a very strong cyclist (ie I can hold 24+mph for over 50 miles) and from my cycling experience, I think that anyone who is in reasonable shape could pedal the pedicab at 5.5mph for a 5 hour effort! I would actually volunteer to pedal it but I live 800 miles away!!

 

[DGCubes]

This sounds like a great idea. Make sure to post it on here once you do it!

 

[goodatthis]

The 1000 sulongs post made me wonder something... How many cubes are you going to use? 20? 50? 100?