Prince’s Park – Burntwood. The start/finish line can be seen in the background.
In Burntwood, Staffordshire at the junction between Church Road, Farewell Lane and Coulter Lane lays Prince’s Park.
Prince’s Park isn’t your ordinary or typical park. Yes it has a perimeter fence, trees and a bench, but that is all crammed into an area of 15ft by 30ft, making it the world’s smallest park.
But the park also plays host to the World’s Shortest Fun Run, which navigates around the park, taking just 55 steps to complete it.
Organisers had a world record attempt rejected by the Guinness Book of Records in 2013 and vow to continue making events around the park until the prestigious book accepts their record.
In the inaugural event back in 2013, all 390 of the runners went the distance, with the fastest time at 7 seconds and had a large age spread, ranging from three months old to 93 years old.
The park is over 150 years old and was created to commemorate the marriage between Edward VII, who was then the Prince of Wales, and Princess Alexandra of Denmark.
A new event was held in 2014, called the World’s Shortest Superhero Fun Run, in aid of creating the world record for the shortest fun run ran by superheroes.
It is not yet known whether Guinness has verified this record, but it is certain the Fun Run shall return again in 2015 should the record not stand.
On the other end of the spectrum you have the 3,100-mile Self-Transcendence Race, which is the worlds longest certified footrace, and did make it into the Guinness Book of Records.
The Self-Transcendence 3100-mile race is incorporated around a New York City block.
The race is the brainchild of the late Sri Chinmoy, a spiritualist who opened meditation centres across New York City.
This multi-day race is the extreme version of a run round the block as the course, based in Queen’s, New York is only half a mile long, runners will have to complete 5,649 laps to go the full distance.
Current record holder for the race is German runner Wolfgang Schwerz, with a time of 41 days, 8 hours, 16 minutes and 29 seconds.
He beat his own record by more than 24 hours and puts Forrest Gump and his “I just felt like running” quote to shame.
The distance is the equivalent of running from Paris to Moscow and then back again, and makes the Staffordshire fun run look rather flimsy.
