In our family, we have a motto that “we were made to do hard things,” (learned from my friends the Wonderling Family) and it’s always fun to think of new challenges and adventures to do together. This motto has been our encouragement through personal and family challenges from long hikes to cliff jumping and pole vaulting to math problems (and everything in between).
This morning, that motto spurred on a fun new challenge… setting a world record!
Why A LEGO® Walking World Record?
One of my goals for this year was to set a world record, and knowing the importance of community, I knew I wanted to attempt it with other moms…
This year has been tough for many families, and moms especially, so I wanted to think of something both fun and funny that I could do as a team with some women in my community. As moms, I realized that we have been training to set a Lego walking world record for years without even knowing it! How many of us have had the experience of a Lego to the foot while walking across a room in the middle of the night to get a fussy baby, or while running across the house to answer the door or check the oven?
We have the experience, and we have the legos!
Between our team of five moms, we have 19 kids and well over 200 pounds of LEGOs®. We’d spent over 14 years (760 weeks) pregnant… how hard could a few minutes of LEGO® walking be? Turns out… pretty tough!
Preparing for the World Record Attempt
More goes into a world record attempt than you might think! We started preparing in February and coordinating with GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS® to make sure the event counted. Thing got even more complicated with travel restrictions and coordinating the final attempt. All in all, here’s what it took to get us ready:
- 8 months of planning
- 5 relay team members (and 5 supportive husbands)
- 3 independent witnesses
- 2 medical professionals for foot verification
- An official flat surface at a local track facility
- a 10 meter track made of plywood and 2x4s (with roughly two feet of turnaround space on either side)
- My dad helping build the track
- 200+ pounds of legos
- Live and official verification with Guinness World Record staff in multiple countries
- 19 of the best cheerleaders and pit crew to throw legos back in that we could ask for (our kids)
- Some amazing friends cheering us on
- A playlist of upbeat, motivational 80s music
- Food for everyone: 2 huge breakfast casseroles, a coffee cake, 48 muffins, 42 cups of coffee, 9 pizzas
- A little bit of blood (from our feet), a lot of sweat, and (surprisingly) no tears!
- A minor hurricane (that didn’t directly hit us)
I couldn’t be more grateful and proud to have these other amazing women as friends: Ashley, Savanna, Grace, and Cat. Not only did they get up early on a weekend to come walk on LEGOs® with me, but they walked faster and farther than I ever expected! I’ve always said that moms are one of the most powerful forces on this planet, and they proved it this morning.
The Official World Record Attempt
This morning for the attempt, we all assembled about 90 minutes in advance of start time. We’d built the track the night before and it was ready to go. To verify the track, we hired a professional surveyor to officially measure and submit a report. Shortly after, a local doctor and an EMT inspected our feet to make sure they were not coated in anything or injured (yet!).
We had three witnesses, Alex, Michael, and Zachary (all coaches or former athletes), read through the six pages of official rules and got ready with notebooks, clipboards, stopwatches and counters. One witness sat at each side of our 10 meter track and one was in the middle. The witnesses counted and announced each lap and told us how much time we’d been walking. We had to cover at least 1 km to be eligible for the record.
Our official attempt kicked off shortly after 9 AM and started strong at a pace of about 12 seconds per lap. Each of us walked roughly 12 minutes and we needed to cover at least 20 laps minimum per person. We did that before the halfway mark and officially crossed the minimum on the third leg of the relay!
When the stopwatch finally beeped at the one-hour mark, we had covered 328 laps! Our goal was to walk at least 1 km and we walked over 3 km (over 2 miles!). Our kids served as “pit crew” and threw the LEGOs® back on the track if they flew off while we were walking.
In Case You Were Wondering
Yes, it hurts!
We all had bloody feet by the end of the morning and didn’t want to walk for the rest of the day. The first few laps aren’t too bad and in some ways were easier than stepping on stray LEGOs® than happens unexpectedly in our daily lives. After the first 100 meters or so, the feet start to get really raw and walking gets tougher. By 10 minutes in, we each started to question why we’d decided to do this in the first place!
Our World Record Results…
The team at Guinness World Records® was really great to work with and had an official adjudicator on call to verify our attempt. After a few hours of waiting on pins and needles (or well… LEGOs®), we got the official word that we’d set the new world record!
We now officially hold the GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS® title for farthest distance traveled by walking barefoot on LEGO bricks by a relay in one hour! And are now icing our feet!
What do you think? Would you ever voluntarily walk on LEGOs?
This sounds like pure torture and I wouldn’t want to do this for anything. You are all VERY tough and resilient and have taught your kids perseverance in difficult & painful circumstances. Good job!!!
PS – your poor feet look so worn out in the photo….OUCH! I hope they got a good soak afterward.
Congratulations! I actually thought it was a joke when I saw the email notification, so I just had to click and read your post. WOW! You all did this for real??!!! Intentionally walking on LEGO – repeatedly! Your names will go down in history for something parents joke about and lament. I read your post aloud to my husband, and he was shocked and laughing; we tip our hats to you!!!
Are there any videos?? I would love to see this in action 😀 Also, bravo, that sounds like a tough (and fun!) challenge.
There’s a time-lapse one here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CGLjZR7FSnJ/
Wow, Congratulations to all you mom’s an all your hard work! I think it’s amazing setting a world record. I always wanted to do that also. Probly never will though. No, I’d never deliberately walk or run on legos or hot coals. I used to be able to walk and run on hot gravel roads/driveways but my feet’s too sensitive now for that. God bless you all and your families. I don’t have too many newsletters sent to me but I enjoy what you send me usually. Thank you for all your positivity and great recipes an natural ideas. Your helping me be more healthy an to lose weight which has always been a life long struggle even as a child.
Katie – this is SO COOL! And all of your kids will never forget this. ?? I love it!
I applaud you, Ladies! As I was reading this, We Are The Champions was playing on Alexa in background, I thought appropriately so. Oh those poor feet!
Love all the brave women’s’ Hobbit feet. 🙂 Rich