Female Soldier Breaks World Record

Date Posted: 24/09/2013

Early on Monday morning, 1st Lt. Ashley Sorensen of the 303rd Explosive Ordnance Disposal Battalion, 8th Military Police Brigade, 8th Theater Sustainment Command, based out of Schofield Barracks in Hawaii, set the new world record for running a mile while wearing a fully functional bomb disposal suit. The suit weighs more than 75 pounds, and Sorenson ran the mile in an impressive 11 minutes, 6 seconds.

Sorensen broke the previous record by two minutes, and once reviewed by the folks at Guinness World Records, she'll officially hold the title as the fastest female one-mile run in an EOD bomb disposal suit. The male record is 8 minutes, 5 seconds.

But, for Sorensen, the record is about training, not vanity. "Whenever EOD goes out in the bomb suits for a manual approach," she told Hawaii News Now, "it's really important that we're able to work and sweat in the suit and still be able perform, so making it a competition when we train helps with that. Running a mile like this is definitely a challenge."