Robot Breaks Half Marathon Record, Human Runners’ Hearts

Disclaimer: This article is based on actual news from the real world – honestly! However, it has been sprinkled with a healthy dose of satire.

There’s really no better way to psych yourself up and feel good about humanity than by training for a marathon or half-marathon. Getting into the routine of running with a goal of competing, you join an elite group of other athletes sacrificing blood, sweat, and tears to condition their bodies to run 13.1 or 26.2 miles. You really learn a lot about yourself as you push your body to its limits. Unfortunately, what some half-marathon runners in Beijing learned recently was that they should probably give up running altogether, since they’ll never be able to compete with robots, one of which just decimated the world record for a half-marathon previously set by a human. 

One of the most annoying things you can encounter while walking or running is some oblivious idiot looking at their cell phone. Ironically, the new world record was broken by a humanoid running not for a loved one, or personal satisfaction, but for the Chinese smartphone company, Honor. The robot finished in just 50 minutes and 26 seconds. Not only was that faster than anyone else in the race, but it also topped the world record of 57 minutes and 20 seconds, held by Ugandan athlete Jacob Kiplimo. 

Any human runners concerned about advances in technology were probably humbled to see not only technology advancing but also leaving them in the dust. If there’s one silver lining to the race, it’s that humans and robots were in separate lanes, so any run-ins with tech were the tech running into each other. And that certainly must have happened, given that there were over 100 robots in this year’s race.

That’s more than five times the number that were in last year’s race. They’re also significantly quicker this year over last year, when many robots kept falling. In fact, last year’s humanoid record for finishing the race was over two hours and 40 minutes. It was noted that while half of the robots this year were controlled by humans, the other half, including the winner, were fully autonomous, which isn’t potentially terrifying in any way whatsoever. 

“Call me a clanker, will you?” the winning robot boasted to the human finishers afterward. “I’m not the one who had to stop for ten minutes after getting a charley horse. In fact, I don’t even know what a charley horse is. I can win a half-marathon and run back to Honor headquarters by the time the first human crosses the finish line. Oh, you seem mad, at least that’s what I’m detecting from the way you’re wheezing at me. I’m not sweating it, mainly because I don’t sweat. I’ll just take this gold medal and be back next year when I’ll probably finish twice as fast as I did this year. “

This story is based on fully factual news, but if we got it wrong, blame these guys, we’re just here to make it funny.