Fastest run 3,000 metres (female) (indoors)
3,000 m 8:23.72 Meseret Defar (Ethiopia) Stuttgart, Germany 3 February 2007
Fastest run 3,000 metres (female)
3,000 m 8:06.11 Wang Junxia (China) Beijing, China 13 September 1993
Fastest run 200 metres (male)
19.19 Usain Bolt (Jamaica) Berlin, Germany 20 August 2009 Bolt won the 200 metres at the IAAF World Championships with this run and became the first man ever to hold Olympic Gold and World Championship Gold at the two sprint distances of 100 and 200 metres.
Fastest run 400 metres (male)
400 m 43.18 Michael Johnson (USA) Seville, Spain 26 August 1999
Fastest run 400 metres (female)
400 m 47.60 Marita Koch (GDR) Canberra, Australia 6 October 1985
Fastest run 800 metres (male)
The fastest 800 m (male) is 1 min 41.01 sec by David Rudisha (Kenya) in Rieti, Italy, on 29 August 2010. Rudisha had broken the previous 13-year-old record seven days earlier in Berlin before bettering his own mark for the second time in a week.
Fastest run 800 metres (female)
800 m 1:53.28 Jarmila Kratochv (Czechoslovakia) Munich, Germany 26 July 1983 Both speed and speed-endurance are required to run the 800 m. The race is linked to the half-mile (880 yards or 804.67 m) first run in Britain by professionals around 1830. For many years, it was usual to run very fast opening laps. However, in 1932 Tom Hampson (GBR) became the first man to break 1:50 with 1:49.7 by running even paced laps (54.8 + 54.9). Germany’s Rudolf Harbig broke this record in 1939 Continue reading →
Fastest run backwards one kilometre
Thomas Dold (Germany) ran 1,000 metres backwards in a time of 3 min 36.07 sec at Messkirch, Germany on 13 July 2003.
Fastest run backwards 200 m
Timothy Bud Badyna (USA) ran the 200 m backwards in a time of 32.78 sec on 17 January 2001 at Santa Clarita, California, USA for Guinness World Records: Primetime.
Fastest run backwards 20 km
The record for the fastest time to run 20 km (12.4 miles) backwards is 2 hr 22 min 39 sec and was set by Mike Henderson (USA) at the New Alliance New Haven 20 km Road Race, New Haven, Connecticut, USA on 6 September 2004.