David Goggins would be proud.
American runner Connor Strynkowski completed the NYC Marathon — in dashingly quick fashion — with his bib pinned to his bare chest.
The 30-year-old traversed the route, which weaves through all five of New York City’s boroughs, in just less than two hours and 39 minutes — a nearly six-minute pace per mile.
Strynkowski’s decision to go shirtless, it appears, was not made in the spur-of-the-moment: among the running community, the Palmyra, Pa., native has become a pseudo-celebrity, affectionately dubbed the “The Pin Skin Man.”
The precise conditions most conducive to running 26.2 miles with four barbs pinned to the chest remain unclear, but the majority of runners who competed in Sunday’s marathon were pleased with the race-day temperatures.
It was a crisp 44 degrees when Strynkowski set out across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge around 9 a.m. By the time he crossed the finish line in Central Park some two and a half hours later, the temperature had risen to a balmy 50 degrees.
Strynkowski’s official time — 2:38:16 — was the 326th-fastest among 55,524 marathon finishers. In his age group, 30-34, that time was good for 94th place.
Praise and confusion rained in from all corners of the internet; in the Marathon’s official Facebook group, a post picturing Strynkowski near the starting line garnered thousands of reactions.
“Why?” one user asked.
“He must really hate chafed nipples,” another observed.
“That’s the definition of a real runner right there,” a third said.
Among the 600-plus commenters, many wrote about seeing the shirtless speedster — who ran track and field at Cornell from 2012-16 and was competing in the race as a member of the New York Harriers Run Club — pass them along the route.
Of course, Strynkowski could have pinned his bib to his shorts, but where’s the fun in that?