Exclusive | Comic with one lung aims for emotional new Guinness World Record at NYC Marathon
Most New York City Marathon runners simply aim to cross the finish line, but Terence Hartnett wants to set a new world record.
The comedian and two-time cancer survivor, 35, is on track to establish a brand-new Guinness World Record for the fastest marathon time for a person with a single lung.
“As far as I can tell, there’s only ever been one or two people who’ve ever run a marathon with one lung. I looked it up, and Google said that more men have walked on the moon,” the Brooklyn resident told The Post in the lead-up to his record-breaking attempt Sunday.
“It’s a very rare thing, and I thought it would be cool if I could get a world record.”
While several other one-lunged athletes have technically already beat him to the task, it was Hartnett’s idea to establish the new category with Guinness World Records, which confirmed he could be the first one to hold the title if he can run 26.2 miles in under four hours.
The timeline is tight: Hartnett completed his only other marathon in 3 hours and 49 minutes in Chicago in 2017 at age 27– when he had two lungs on his side.
His record-setting goal is around double what it took last year’s winner to cross the finish line.
“If the winner did it in two hours with two lungs, and I could do it in four hours with one lung, then I pretty much won the race — if we make it fair: one marathon per lung,” Hartnett said, cheekily challenging this year’s winner to run two marathons in the time it takes the comedian to run one.
While the goal is giving Hartnett an extra incentive in the exhaustive race, completing the mission has been a dream of his since his left lung was removed in life-saving surgery in April 2023.
He was suffering from stage-three lung cancer, a terrifying diagnosis that came just 18 months after doctors declared him in the clear from his first brush with the disease.
Hartnett had already lost a testicle in 2021 in a move doctors made to avoid chemotherapy or radiation treatment, and he was seemingly in the clear.
But the 5.5-inch lung tumor was much more aggressive and involved months of treatment that left the comedian shaken.
“There was a lot of uncertainty at that time. They really didn’t know if the treatments they were giving me were going to work out. It was really touch and go,” Hartnett said. “They told me later that they were just guessing, that none of this was for sure.”
Fortunately, the comedian found solace in his profession — and even put on shows adequately named the “1 Ball Show” and “1 Lung Marathon.”
“Obviously, humor is vital in these situations. You have to laugh about this stuff. Otherwise, everyone’s going to get really upset,” Hartnett said.
“What’s nice about being the cancer patient is that, if you’re laughing, everyone else feels like it’s OK to laugh. I was able to be there with my friends and family with humor.”
Although he is an experienced runner and already has one marathon his belt, the comedian said he had to restart training from step one — first running for 5 minutes at a time and slowly increasing his stamina and breath control over a period of years until he reached his highest time yet last month of 3.5 hours, or 20 miles.
“It’s a different race this time,” Hartnett said of Sunday’s run through the five boroughs. “It feels like a whole different category that I’m doing this year.
“As soon as they took the lung out, I thought it would be such a cool goal to build up to that,” he said.
“At first, I wasn’t sure. I thought that stairs would be a problem, just walking around my house would be a problem. But once I learned I could actually run, I was excited about it.”
Hartnett is running to benefit Fred’s Team, the official running program of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, to support groundbreaking cancer research.
His family and friends will also be scattered across the sidelines to cheer on the cancer survivor — and film the race for his upcoming documentary on his journey with the disease titled “Cancer Free.”
“The marathon will be the very last shot of this documentary about my cancer, because it really feels like it’s the end,” Hartnett said.
