A woman bomb technician broke the Guinness World Record for a mile run in a bomb suit with a time of 11 minutes 6 seconds, the Army reported today.
Army 1st Lt. Ashley Sorensen of the 303rd Explosive Ordnance Disposal Battalion out of Hawaii beat the previous time for the female run by more than two minutes. The fully functioning bomb suit weighs more than 75 lbs and becomes extremely hot in just a short period of use.
"Whenever EOD goes out in the bomb suits for a manual approach, it's really important that we're able to work and sweat in the suit and still be able perform," Sorensen told Army reporters. "So making it a competition when we train helps with that. Running a mile like this is definitely a challenge."
Here's a bit of her getting ready to break the record:
1st Lt. Jonathan Kehoe was the first to do the bomb suit run for a Guinness Record while serving in Iraq. He did it to raise funds Benefitting the EOD Memorial and Scholarship Foundation and to commemorate fallen EOD members.
He finished in just over ten minutes. (Sgt. First Class Eric Johnson would later run an unverified, but nonetheless eye popping 8 minutes, 5 seconds.)
Sorensen is still waiting to get her time verified.
A perfect 3-mile run for female U.S. Marines would average out to 7 minutes per mile, so 11 minutes is a considerable speed carrying 75 extra pounds.
Women have been disarming bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan for the entirety of both wars. They've even died in the line of duty.
Then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta opened up direct combat roles — infantry, tank operators and special operations — to women earlier this year.