Astronaut Tim Peake Running London Marathon From Space Thanks to an iPad

Astronaut Tim Peake is scheduled to move into his new residence – space – on Dec. 15. He's also scheduled to run the London Marathon on April 24. Here's the issue: Peake will still be in space then. However, thanks to an iPad, he will be able to lace it up with the rest of the runners in London come spring.

"The thing I'm most looking forward to is that I can still interact with everybody down on Earth," said Peak, via esa. "I'll be running it with the iPad and watching myself running through the streets of London whilst orbiting the Earth at 400km."

For his training – mostly space stuff, but almost certainly a little cardio, too – Peake lived in a cave in Sardinia, spent time at the bottom of the sea off the Florida cost and learned Russian. Along with the training, Peake will have the experience of running the London Marathon before as well – albeit from the more conventional location of Earth.

Back in 1999, Peake took to the London streets, finishing all 26.2 miles in a respectable time of 3:18:50.

Running a marathon in space will require Peake to navigate through a few extraordinary circumstances (quite obvious, yes). For example, running on a treadmill in space requires straps to be worn. You know, to keep the runner from floating away--which could pose as one of the more challenging aspects of the run (aside from the whole running 26.2 miles thing).

"I have to wear a harness system that's a bit similar to a rucksack," Peake said, via esa.int. "It has a waistbelt and shoulder straps. That has to provide quite a bit of downforce to get my body onto the treadmill so after about 40 minutes, that gets very uncomfortable."

No personal bests are expected, however.

"I don't think I'll be setting any personal bests. I've set myself a goal of anywhere between 3:30 to 4 hours."