Finland’s Satu Lipiäinen has set a new women’s 12-hour world record at the 2023 Kokkola Ultra Run in her home country by running 153.600 kilometers (95.443 miles).
It was only 4.5 months ago, in early January, that Poland’s Dominika Stelmach reset the 12-hour world record at 152.633 kilometers (94.841 miles). Lipiäinen’s performance, which is pending ratification, takes the record just shy of a kilometer further.
Lipiäinen’s average pace for 12 hours comes out to about 4:41 minutes per kilometer (7:33 minutes per mile).
Finland’s Satu Lipiäinen on her way to setting a 12-hour world record at the 2023 Kokkola Ultra Run in Finland. Photo: Kalle Lipiäinen
The 2023 Kokkola Ultra Run, taking place in its namesake town located on the west coast of Finland, is hosting six-hour, 12-hour, and 24-hour races on Saturday and Sunday, May 20 and 21. According to the event website, “The race course is officially measured and it is 864.2 meters long. The course is quite flat and there is approximately one meter ascension per lap. Half of the course is gravel and the other half tarmac.”
While Lipiäinen has been performing at a high level in ultrarunning for several years, she came across iRunFar’s radar when she took fifth at last year’s IAU 100k World Championships by running 7:15, which was 11 minutes behind the champion. When not running, she’s a post-doctoral researcher at Finland’s Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology in renewable energy technologies.
Lipiäinen’s performance is one of a significant number of ultramarathon world records which have been reset in the last few years, what is amounting to a resurgence of interest and competition in road and track ultramarathon running.
