The long-distance friendship between Susie Hewer and David Babcock is held together by colored yarn and a world record few people knew existed.

Their achievement is more of an oddity than a record, in the traditional sporting sense anyway — longest scarf knitted while running a marathon — but the people from Guinness had thought it interesting enough to give Hewer a place in their book of such things. Hewer set the original world record at the 2008 London Marathon, producing a multicolored scarf 5 feet 2 inches long as she ran, and extended the mark (literally) at this year’s race with another one that measured 6-9.

On Oct. 19, she surrendered her crown to Babcock, who smashed the record when he stepped across the finish line at the Kansas City Marathon with a blue, purple, red and orange scarf that was 12 feet 1 ¾ inches long.

Few were happier for him than Hewer, who awoke the next day in her home in Ewhurst Green, England, raced to her computer to confirm the news and fired off a joyous email that began, “Well done.” She followed it up with an 812-word entry on her blog, Extreme Knitting Redhead.