Sarah Pezzino, a 23-year-old personal trainer and group fitness coach from Easton, Pennsylvania, started Sunday's New York City Marathon on Staten Island dressed as a hot dog and finished in Central Park in 2:49:15, averaging 6:28 miles, according to Runner's World.

She was attempting the Guinness World Record for the fastest marathon dressed as a savory food, a mark of 3:11:34 that she beat by more than 22 minutes. Guinness still has to review the evidence before the record becomes official.

The race itself set its own benchmark: New York Road Runners' updated results list 61,151 finishers, and the organization says the 2026 edition was the first marathon ever to surpass 60,000 finishers.

Runner's World reports the hot dog was not part of Pezzino's original marathon plans. A friend spotted a costume at Target; she tried it on, filmed herself running through the aisles, and, as she put it, "the next thing I knew, I was walking out of Target with a hot dog costume."

The Guinness idea came later, when she found the savory food category. The suit was labeled for ages 8 and up, so she wore the too-small headpiece as a hood and had a CycleFit coworker tailor the sides.

Her total rehearsal in the outfit was a single three-mile run the day before the race.

The costume attempt followed a difficult stretch. Pezzino began competing at age 4 and made her marathon debut in Chicago in 2024, but per Runner's World, a serious medical emergency at Mile 17 of the 2025 Chicago race forced her to drop out, and she strongly considered quitting running altogether.

"I'd put too much pressure on myself and lost the joy in the sport," she told the magazine.

A close friend helped her plan a comeback: Chicago and New York in 2026, fundraising for the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation, a cause tied to losing her mother to a rare cancer in 2022 and the death of a family friend's husband, Mike, from multiple myeloma.

Raffles, 6Ks and what she called "no-shower happy hours" raised more than $8,000.

Three weeks earlier Pezzino had run a personal best 2:45:57 in Chicago, but Runner's World says New York was a different race entirely: "In New York, my mind was nowhere near the clock," she said, describing crowds shouting "HOOOT DOOOG!" and "Look at that glizzy!" while she chatted with other runners and jumped into photos.

Grand marshal Tracy Morgan told her, "I hope that hot dog is relishing this moment," and she even needed help peeling off the sweaty suit afterward. Her favorite moment came in the final 200 meters, spotting her CycleFit teammates cheering: "I didn't cross a single finish line this year alone."

If Guinness verifies the evidence, the record will be hers — and her biggest challenge now is paperwork, not the costume.