Oklahoma Man Runs Marathon While At Home

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has forced the cancellation of marathons across the country.

One Tulsa man went on with the race anyway, all from the comfort of his living room.

A marathon is no easy task but try running all 26.2 miles around your living room. That's exactly what Landon McJilton did.

You might think he's crazy, but for Landon, it's just another challenge - a way of dealing with quarantine and still getting another marathon under his belt.

"I had been training for the Tulsa Ironman and that just recently got canceled, and so I was kind of looking for a new challenge to do," Landon said.

He saw a man in France run a marathon on his balcony, so he thought why not do the same in his living room. He set up rugs to protect the carpet and turned on his running watch to track himself.

"We measured it out at about 42 feet around is what we said. So, if you do the math on that it ends up being about 3,300 laps around the living room," Landon said.

For six hours, he ran lap after lap after lap, his fiancé Damara standing by for support the entire time.

"We had the TV going, I was cooking for the week, and I was baking cookies and so I was there for most of the time," she said.

At the end of it all, Landon ran through a finish line made of toilet paper and received a homemade medal. But the couple says a lot of people have been asking the same question: How do we know that you actually ran the full 26.2 miles?

"They were like, 'No way he's done that' and I was like 'I'm sorry, I had to watch him for 6 hours running in the living room. Yes, he did do it,'" Damara said.

Either way, Landon just wants to inspire people to stay positive while being cooped up inside. But this may be the only indoor sporting event for a while.

"No indoor Ironman, no filling up the tub and swimming in it," Damara said.

Maybe that will be next year's challenge.