Mississippi college student runs 51 second 400m in Crocs

Decathlete and Croc enthusiast Niklas Klei of Kirchlengern, Germany, did something remarkable in a pair of foam clogs last weekend. He broke the Guinness World Record for the fastest lap of a track in Crocs, clocking a ridiculous 51.84 seconds at a track at Mississippi College in Clinton, Miss.

Klei shattered the previous Crocs record of 52.06 seconds, set by his friend and NCAA competitor Will Eggers in June 2020. 2012 Olympic 800m finalist and YouTuber Nick Symmonds first put the record on the map in early 2020 when he ran 55.65 seconds. Symmonds’s original record-breaking video has been viewed more than 300,000 times.

Klei told us that he did not practise running in Crocs before attempting the record, and accidentally ordered his record-breaking black pair one size too big, which made things tricky. “I wore three pairs of socks to fill the extra space, and my feet were still sliding,” Klei laughs. “Even ‘sport mode’ didn’t help me.” (Crocs commonly have two modes, sport and casual. Sport mode refers to using the back strap, adding additional support. The causal mode has the strap up (over the upper), and is more commonly used for kicking around or grabbing milk from the corner store.

Klei expressed that doing this challenge in causal mode would be extremely difficult. “Running in Crocs is harder than you think,” he laughs.

The 23-year-old holds a personal best time of 47.10 over 400m (wearing spikes) and finished third in the decathlon at the 2022 NCAA Division II Outdoor Track and Field Championships.

“I think a time under 51 or 50 seconds is possible, but with some proper fitting Crocs,” Klei says. Klei and Eggers hope to meet after the 2023 indoor season to settle who the faster runner in Crocs is. 

posted Thursday December 15th
by Marley Dickinson