"Breaking Three Hours" Celebrates Black American Women Sub-3:00 Marathoners

An exciting new award-winning documentary, “Breaking Three Hours,” celebrates Black American women who have run faster than 3:00 in the marathon.

The film is available on Amazon Prime Video and other streaming platforms to rent or purchase and on Tubi for free viewing (with commercials). You can watch the trailer below. 

Of the approximately 14 million people who have completed marathons in the U.S. since 1975, about 280,000 finished in under three hours. Just 28 of those runners are U.S.-born, African American women. “Breaking Three Hours” tells the extraordinary stories of nine of these athletes.

The film is produced by the National Black Marathoners’ Association (NBMA). Learn more about the origins of the film here and read a recent press release here.

For Tony Reed, the creator and producer of "Breaking Three Hours" and the co-founder and executive director of the NBMA, the film makes an important statement about the power of representation. "When the project started in 2020, only 19 women were on the list. In just over two years, another eight have joined it. Role models are so important, and we're able to see that this project is having an impact on the Black running community," he said.

The featured athletes include Marilyn Bevans, the first Black American woman sub-3:00 marathoner (Boston, 1975), Michele Tiff-Hill, the first Black woman to run in the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials, Samia Akbar, the fastest U.S.-born Black American woman marathoner (2:34:14, 2006 New York City Marathon), and Alisa Harvey, an 800m and 1500m Pan American Games medalist and the most versatile sub-3:00 marathoner.

“There’s a myth that Black Americans aren’t distance runners—we’re just sprinters,” said Reed, who is pictured above, center, with New York Road Runners staff members. “The reality is that we can and do run distances.” Reed himself has run 132 marathons on seven continents, as well as a marathon and half marathon in all of the 50 states.

The NBMA’s historian, Gary Corbitt, maintains an active list of sub-3:00 Black American women marathoners. Learn more at the Ted Corbitt Archives.