Walking onto the MV track on Martin Luther King Day afternoon, one might be expecting to see a few people jogging around the track or maybe a pick up soccer game being played on part of the field. On this day in 2019, you would be surprised to see a group of a hundred or so people, looking excited and organized, ready to see a new World Record be set.
MVXC and MVTF athlete Nitin Subramaninan is also a competitive speedcuber–he solves Rubik’s Cubes competitively, including blindfolded. On this Monday, Nitin was out to break a world record for the most Rubik’s Cubes solved while also running 5km in 25 minutes or less.
There was a lot of planning necessary to have the new mark recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records. Nitin said, “I submitted my application back in September, and got approved [by Guinness] months later in November. The last few weeks is where the planning ramped up. Where do I get a cart? Who would be running? Who would be timing? Who would act as witnesses? Luckily, almost every single thing went perfectly, my neighbor was able to reach to the city, and got the Vice Mayor [of Cupertino], and the Planning Commissioner to witness the event.” Some of the people that have been part of Nitin’s athletic growth over the last few years were also supporting him in his attempt, with his seventh grade PE teacher and Coach Jodi Johnson timing the run.
Cubing has a lot of requirements–for instance there are standards for setting up the cubes before solving. A non-cuber might not think of this, but after consideration it makes sense–the solving must be uniformly difficult. So all the cubes had to be scrambled in a way to make the solution difficult.
Even with all the advance planning, some solutions came together in the last few days. “[At] 10pm last night we had no idea how the whole [golf] cart thing would work. What if the cart didnt last 25 minutes? Conner, Pranav, Karthik, Andrew and I got together and brainstormed till we came up with the solution of the laundry basket at 10pm yesterday”, Nitin said. “We had a clear plan B in case the cart failed as well. Luckily, everything went perfectly, and wow was it was one of the coolest experiences ever!”
Nitin solved 77 cubes–and still had about 500m to run so he was able to kick and finish well under 25 minutes for his 5km. The next step is to submit all the documentation to Guinness and, when approved, Nitin’s new record will appear on the Guinness World Records site.
This was an incredibly fun event not only for Nitin in his family, but also for all his friends and supporters. What a great day! Congratulations, Nitin, and thank you for letting us all participate!
Here are a couple of videos…
of the start IMG_9136 2 … YouTube
and about half way through…IMG_9138 … YouTube
There are more photos posted on the El Estoque site.
