How long can a human run? One woman is on a quest to find out

For 10 years, Sufiya Khan had a comfortable job as a ground handler at the Delhi airport. “But it wasn’t the life I wanted for myself,” she says. What she wanted was a mission, and in 2017, she found one in running.

Where her job had left her feeling worn out, a bit like an overworked machine, the exhaustion that came from running gave her a high. It felt healthy. She could see her body get fitter. “It impacted my mind too. It gave me a lot of positivity,” says Khan, 35.

She eventually quit her job in 2019 to pursue her passion for running. She has since set two Guinness world records. The first, that same year, was a new record for fastest time by a woman on the Kashmir to Kanyakumari route (about 4,000 km in 87 days). The second is a record she set on April 6, 2021 — fastest time by a woman along the Golden Quadrilateral (about 6,000 km in 110 days and 23 hours). Along the way, she also set a new record for fastest time by a woman between India Gate in Delhi and the Gateway of India in Mumbai (29 days).

If that sounds intense, it’s because it was. Khan ran about 55 km per day, which is essentially an ultra-marathon every day without a break, for 110 days.

“It is all in the mind,” Khan explains. “I was not physically fit in the beginning. My body hurt a lot. But then your body gets accustomed to it.” She finished her first half-marathon in 2017. Then her first ultra-marathon (that’s any run longer than the 42 km of a full marathon). The more Khan ran, she says, the more she was able to run, and the further she wanted to go.

It wasn’t even about the world records. It became about exploring and marvelling at what her body was capable of. She became fascinated with the question: “How long can a human run?”

Running was also literally opening up the world to her, allowing her to explore different places, meet with people from different cultures. “I have met thousands of people from different religions, with different beliefs, different cultures, different lifestyles, who eat different kinds of foods and speak various languages,” Khan says.

On each of her runs, she has had a chance to see how differently people live and what is important to them. “This includes all the runners who have accompanied me, for a few km or a few hundred km,” Khan says.

Khan doesn’t have a big support crew on her runs, just her partner Vikas Saroha, 28, also a former ground handler and now an ultra-cyclist, who previously held the world record for fastest cycle ride from Kashmir to Kanyakumari (10 days).

“We were both told in our office that we had to choose. It was not possible to handle both as such expeditions requires a lot of time. We both decided to quit our jobs,” Khan says.

It was tough to get sponsors for their early expeditions. “We didn’t have a sports background,” Khan says. Initially the couple used their own funds, and raised money through crowd-funding. Now, they have a few regular sponsors.

But they are proof, Khan says, that one doesn’t need a big budget or big support crew. “It is manageable even with few resources. We have done all our expeditions, just us, together,” she says.

Her next mission? “To run around the world!” Technically, she would have to cover 30,000 km in under two years, to make the cut for a Guinness world record.

“We plan to start in 2023. We have sent an application to Guinness following which they will give us their guidelines. There will be challenges. We will need to apply for so many visas,” Khan says. “But I want to carry my message for unity and to run for hope, around the world.”