Chad and Amy Kempel had struggled for years with infertility and pregnancy loss, and had begun to think that they would never have the large family they'd dreamed of. Then along came quintuplets Lincoln, Grayson, Preston, Noelle, and Gabriella. What followed, as they both tell Guinness World Records in a recent YouTube video, was non-stop noise and chaos at home-albeit the kind they're incredibly grateful for.
'One of my escapes, either after they go to bed or early in the morning, is I go for a run,' says Chad. 'Running is my thing, that's my anti-depressant, that's my feel-good, that's my celebration. Every emotion, I pair that with running... When we had the quintuplets, I didn't really expect that I would go running with all five of them at the same time.'
However, shortly after finding a jogging stroller which would seat all five babies, Chad began to think about setting himself a challenge that his children could be a part of. 'At some point close to their first birthday, I decided that I wanted to do something to kind of celebrate how far we had come to now be this family,' he says. 'So I had the idea that I would complete a full marathon pushing the quintuplets. And I thought, hey, when I do this, as a bonus, I'm going to try and set a Guinness World Record title for this event.'
© Guinness World Records - YouTubeChad Kempel set a world record when he completed the Modesto Marathon in 14 hours 42 minutes while pushing his five baby quintuplets in their stroller.
And so in 2019, Chad put Gabriella, Grayson, Lincoln, Noelle and Preston into their stroller at the starting line of the Modesto Marathon in California, and completed the entire 26-2-mile run in 4 hours, 42 minutes and 49 seconds, setting a new record for the fastest known time while pushing a quintuplet pram.
'Normally I would sprint towards the finish, especially when trying to set a record like this,' he says. 'But we were running towards it, and I thought, I don't want this moment to end. So I stopped, and brought it to a walk, and said I'm just going to walk across this thing and take it all in... I want the kids to know that anything is possible. Doing things like this with the kids is the kind of stuff that I had hoped that I would do as a parent.'
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