Have You Seen This? Meet the world's fastest backward runner

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THE TRACK — Believe it or not, backward running is a trend that seems to be catching on quickly.

In March, we introduced you to a man who was about to attempt to run the entire Boston Marathon backward. Runner Loren Zitomersky told the Associated Press that it would "literally be the hardest thing" he's ever done. And though Zitomersky didn't break the world record for the fastest backward marathon at Monday's race, he did manage to run the full 26.2 miles backward through heavy rain and strong winds.

Now, I'd like to introduce you to another backward runner: Aaron Yoder. Yoder has been running (forward) most of his life. It wasn't until a knee injury almost made him stop running forever that he decided to switch things up. He now holds the record for the fastest backward mile (and it's probably a much faster time than you'd expect).

In this video, Yoder explains how backward running, or "retro running," made it easy for him to continue with the sport he loved so much because "there's no impact on the knee." And that's just one of the perks.

"Backwards running has allowed me to see things in a little bit different perspective," Yoder says in the video. "In a world where everyone goes forward and I'm going backwards, it's really allowed me to just get back to competing against myself and not be so concerned when other people are doing it. I've found great gratification in the fact that I'm just competing against my own shadow."

Yesterday's Have You Seen This?

According to Yoder, backward running is more popular than most people realize. At the last world championships, nearly 200 athletes represented more than 20 different countries. And if backward running is really as good as Yoder makes it sound, I can see why.

"When I'm running backwards, it almost feels like I'm flying," Yoder said. "When you're going backwards, you can really just take a step back, literally, and enjoy what you're doing."

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