Community Profile: Marcus Holmes

Marcus Holmes has run more cumulative miles on Zwift than anyone else. How did he find Zwift? Why does he use Zwift so often? How has he managed to accumulate so much mileage? And where does he go from here?

Professor of Government

Marcus lives in Williamsburg VA, where he works as a professor of Government at the William and Mary public research university. He teaches international relations, specifically diplomacy between leaders.

“I’m interested in questions of conflict resolution and why sometimes leaders are able to build empathy and trust with one another and why other times they are not,” he explains.

His wife Lindsay is also a professor at the Law School. She co-directs a clinical program on domestic violence and family law, helping members of the community go to court and teaching would-be law students how to handle cases.

Start of the Running Journey

Marcus says he only ran occasionally in school. He was never on a team and never ran competitively. It was only after college that Marcus decided to start running. He entered a half marathon and then a marathon. And he recalls it didn’t go well!

“It was the Marine Corps Marathon in DC. I was slow. Had to walk a lot and hurt for a week afterwards.”

But he kept at it, running Chicago, New York, and the Marine Corps 26.2 again. Eventually, his times began to improve, until he began to think about the possibility of breaking 3 hours for the marathon.

Injuries

Marcus claims he isn’t blessed with natural running talent. Therefore in order to run a sub 3 marathon, he thought, he would need to significantly increase his weekly mileage. Unfortunately, every time he did this he would get injured.

“A stress fracture turned into a real fracture DURING Chicago marathon one year,” he says.

With this in mind, he began doing more and more of his training on a treadmill. He says, “the treadmill is more forgiving and I found I could run more miles without getting injured.” In 2016 he purchased a home treadmill and initially watched YouTube videos while running.

Finding Zwift

It was as a result of watching one of Stephen Cousins’ YouTube videos that Marcus discovered Zwift. He was intrigued, purchased a Stryd footpod, and signed up for Zwift on June 1st, 2018.

It was summer in Virginia and very hot, so Marcus ran every day on Zwift. Because he was training for a sub 3 marathon, 10 miles a day soon added up and before he knew it he was at Level 21 (currently the highest level in Zwift Running).

Tumbling PRs

Ironically, Marcus ran his first sub 3-hour marathon in Richmond, Virginia in 2019 (Richmond being one of the 8 Zwift worlds). He finished in 2:59:09 and went on to beat this a year later in the same race, running 2:56:48.

Marcus is now looking to get into ultra running. “The farthest race I’ve done is the Knickerbocker 60k in New York City (60k in Central Park!). But I would love to do a 100 one day,” he says. And he has not ruled out doing it on Zwift!

Distance Record Holder

Having continued to run approximately 10 miles almost every day on Zwift, it wasn’t long before Marcus overtook everyone else. He has now run more miles on Zwift than anyone. As of March 2021, Marcus has covered 8500 miles on Zwift!

During the recent Eddie Izzard Marathon challenge, Marcus’s now legendary status earned him a guest interview with Eddie. “Hey, I was a guest just like George Clooney,” he says. “Of course I’m not comparing myself to these people, but I just think it’s kind of fun that I was involved in something some pretty famous people took part in also.”

Marcus’s closest rival is UK runner Simon Funnell, who is on 7200 miles, some 1300 miles behind.

Fun + Community

“In the end, I use Zwift because it makes running inside more fun. It’s a nice community and it’s fun being able to chat with people in real time even though we’re in different countries. And the more you do it the more you get to know the people so it becomes like a world-wide running club. That’s neat.”