If you’ve ever run a marathon, you know that it is a long and grueling race.

Running 26.2 miles is definitely something that most people can’t do, at least not without a lot of training and effort.

What would you do if while running one of these races, you saw a robot dog run past you and crossing the finish line?

If you happened to be running in the 22nd Sangju Dried Persimmon Marathon last year, that may be something that actually happened to you.

That is because a robot that was built by the South Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) completed this marathon, making it the first robot ever to achieve this feat.

The robot dog, named RAIBO2, became the first quadrupedal robot to finish a full marathon according to the statement put out by the university.

Its time was four hours, nineteen minutes, and 52 seconds. This isn’t a great time by human standards. The top human in this race completed it in two hours, thirty-six minuets, and 32 seconds.

As the first ever robot of this type to finish a marathon, however, it is an incredible achievement. It is likely that this robot won’t hold the record as the fastest robot marathon runner for long though as the technology is constantly being evolved and improved. It is almost unavoidable that in the coming years, robots will be able to outpace humans in marathons.

In the statement, researcher Choongun Lee said:

“Through the marathon project, we demonstrated that RAIBO2 has the walking performance to stably execute services such as delivery and patrol in urban environments with many people and random objects. In follow-up research, we will add autonomous navigation functions to RAIBO and strive to achieve the world’s best walking performance in mountainous and disaster environments.”

Having a robot that can operate successfully for such long periods of time is undoubtedly a big step forward. As the statement implies, this type of technology is being developed to allow robots to work in difficult environments such as disasters, mountain rescues, and much more.

That robot would destroy me in a race.

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