Four endurance athletes have already registered for the first Sub-32 Marathon Club event held in Hong Kong.

The Sub-32 Marathon Club, also known as Sub-3 Squared Club or Sub-3 x 2 Marathon Club is a group of endurance athletes who have swum a full 10 km marathon swim without a wetsuit, fins or paddles under 3 hours and who have also run a full 42 km marathon run under 3 hours.

Running a sub-3 hour marathon is considered pretty good for the average runner. Swimming a sub-3 hour marathon swim is also considered to be pretty good for the average adult swimmer. Achieving both those two marathons on land and in the water – especially over a weekend – is considerably more challenging.

The 10 km marathon swim can be done in fresh or salt water, but must be correctly measured by GPS and not done downstream in a flowing river. The swim can be done solo or as part of a race. The marathon run can be done in any marathon running event or a solo run documented with GPS.

Matt Paz of Long Beach (shown above) just missed joining the Sub-32 Marathon Club last year when the sub-3 marathon runner just missed the 3-hour mark by 7 minutes in his first 10 km swim in Southern California. “The marathon swim was tough. I went the whole distance without anything. When they told them there was a [floating] feeding station, I just assumed there would be people there with all kinds of stuff to help me. I had no idea we had to bring our own stuff. Which I didn’t. But I will get under 3 hours for the next marathon swim.”

The Cold Standard is an extreme biathlon (swim-run) competition held in Hong Kong. It is combination of the 15 km Cold Half marathon swim held around Hong Kong Island and the Standard Chartered running marathon, a 42 km run held on February 15th-16th. Doug Woodring explains, “We can still get interested athletes into the Standard Chartered Marathon and of course the ocean has plenty of space for a few more swimmers.”

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