Going the extra mile

Step aside Eliud Kipchoge and stand up Zach Bitter－arguably the finest long-distance runner in the world.

That's a big statement but the 33-year-old American is a truly remarkable athlete, having broken two distance records within the space of 40 minutes.

At an indoor track in Milwaukee, in his home state of Wisconsin in August, Bitter broke the record for the 100 miles (161 kilometers), completing the distance in 11 hours, 19 minutes and 13 seconds, knocking almost nine minutes off Oleg Kharitonov's previous record of 11:28:03, set back in 2002.

Bitter completed 363 laps of the track averaging a mile pace of 6:48, which is faster than running a sub-three-hour marathon. He carried on running to claim the world record for distance covered over 12 hours, in his case 104.8 miles (168.66 km).