Camille Herron — World Record Breaking Ultra Marathon Runner

This Is Oklahoma Podcast
4 min readJun 14, 2020

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4 TIME ULTRA MARATHON WORLD RECORD HOLDER & 1 GUINNESS WORLD RECORD!

On this episode I chatted with Camille Herron. Camille is a professional ultra marathon runner who currently holds 5 world records. 4 in ultra running ( 50 mile, 12 hours, 100 mile and 24 hours ) as well as her 5th one which is my favorite ( running the fastest marathon in a superhero costume ) Camille is a rockstar and her journey to the top of her sport has had more ups, downs twists and turns than you could imagine. To give you some context on how much of a rockstar she is. For her 24 hour world record she not only beat her previous world record by 5 miles but she ran 167.8 miles in 24 hours! Average running time of 8.14 per mile! Isn’t that INSANE!?

Camille is from a very athletic family, her father and grandfather played basketball for Henry Iba at OSU. So growing up all she did was run around playing basketball. That was her thing. As a kid she moved around a lot. He father was a school super intendent. They lived in Duncan, Guthrie, Norman and OKC.

Camille’s first memory of running is with her Dad and sister in Guthrie. Her Dad had signed up to carry the olympic torch as it crossed throught the state of Oklahoma. For one mile he’d carry the torch and asked his daughters to join him. So he bought them their first pair of running shoes and Camille and her sister ran along side their Dad.

During High school years their family lived in Moore, Camille went to Westmoore High school where she won multiple state championships, but her junior year she struggled with injury. Growing a total of 9 inches during high school this really put a strain on her body and caused her to sit on the sidelines for most of the year. However, her senior year she came back with a great performance at state and peaked the interest of some university athletic coaches.

Camille decided to go to Tulsa University and run track. Sadly injury caught up with her and she was given a medical hardship by the NCAA. Camille said for the next few years she became a recreational runner. Studying hard to graduate then moving to Oregon State to complete her masters degree. Camille met her hubsand Conor ( also a very gifted runner ) and helped him train for his olympic trials. But Camille was running more miles than Conor to what she called recreational running. About 70 miles a week for fun!

So she decided to get back into competitive running, with Conor coaching her she set her goal on the Olympic trials. Not to ruin too much of the podcast for you but, Camille won the OKC Memorial Marathon 3 times, set the course record before the course change in 2019. At this point she was ready to retire, she worked at OU Health Science Center as a researcher and was ready to settle down. At the age of 33 she had become a marathon maniac, traveling aronu the country running all the races she could.

But that’s not the end of the story, a friend of hers introduced her to an ultra race. Basically an ultra marathon is where you run more than 26.2 miles. Camille took to it like it was nothing, setting records her first year while still working full time in Norman. She won a few races and then broke a world record out of nowhere. Who was this Oklahoma woman in her mid thirties beating seasoned ultra runners.

Her second year was the hardest, balancing work and running she decided to hire an agent to handle all the press requests, sponsorship calls and travel arrangements. Traveling the world as one of the best ultra runners and clearly the best in some categories after the second year she decided to retire from her job and go full time professional runner.

Camille now lives and trains in Colorado with husband Conor, she runs twice a day, she’s a coach and motivational speaker, she’s a Nike sponsored athlete and she’s continuing to increase her goals. Beating her own records as well as chasing down new ones.

People who run ultra marathons are a little nuts, there’s definitely a few screws loose in the head. As someone who’s experienced a 31 mile race, its a pretty incredible thing to finish and have that sense of occumplishment. I will say this, during the race you go to a very dark place mentally and it fuels you. I got the bug when i ran my first race and i can totally relate to other distance runners out there.

So where does Camille go from here? She has 5 world records, but there’s always more. She’s got her eyes on the mega long multiple day races now like the MoAb 240 mile race through Death Valley, the Barkley Marathons and other 3 figure races.

WHAT A ROCKSTAR! At 38 Camille is in the thick of her proffession and not stopping anytime soon.

If you are reading this and you are under 33, don’t worry there’s plenty more life left to live. Since 33 Camille has broken 5 world records and become a running advocate for runners all over the world. She has a Nike contract for goodness sake! Don’t give up and take every moment life throws at you as a speed bump but keep moving forward.

Follow Camille on Instagram and see her daily routines @runcamille

PODCAST EPISODE HERE

https://open.spotify.com/episode/0klyDJHQM9zRPETURVAwoL?si=EbNcbVQHSlK5kQ0Dwub7pA

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-is-oklahoma/id1387331955#episodeGuid=thisisoklahoma.podbean.com%2Fbe68c6e7-09d0-59aa-8b27-8739f0c0b493

This podcast is presented by the Oklahoma Hall of Fame. Telling Oklahoma’s Story Through It’s People Since 1927. Follow them on social media

Oklahoma Hall of Fame at the Gaylord-Pickens Museum

and online at www.oklahomahof.com

#thisisoklahoma

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This Is Oklahoma Podcast
This Is Oklahoma Podcast

Written by This Is Oklahoma Podcast

Podcast hosted by Mike Hearne. Here I write about my interviews. Submit your story via email thisisoklahomamedia@gmail.com

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