Whenever a runner can chip nearly a full second off a world record in a sprint race, you know he or she put in an impressive performance.

That was the case this week in Tokyo, where Kenichi Ito shattered his old mark and set a new world record for fastest 100-meter dash run on all fours. Ito completed the race in 16.87 seconds, breaking last year's time of 17.47 seconds.

Here's his performance:

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As one might imagine, training for this kind of event is not easy. Ito says he's walked around his neighborhood in Tokyo on all fours for nearly a decade. He's enamored with primates, and says his running style is based off the African Patas monkey.

"You know my face and body kind of looks like a monkey, so from a young age everyone used to tease me, saying 'monkey, monkey,'" Ito told the International Business Times. "But I wasn't really bothered because I really liked them, and somewhere inside of me I had this ambition to adopt one of their traits."

Although he dusted the rest of the field, perhaps racing against others might have helped Ito post a faster time this year. Check out the video from his performance in 2012 where he was the only one on the track: