The man who achieved this was Mike Wardian from Arlington Virginia - just outside Washington DC in the US.
“Running to me is an opportunity to move through the world kinetically under my own power,” Wardian tells SBS Norwegian.
In addition to being a professional athlete, he is a father of two boys, the husband of Jennifer and has a fulltime job as an international ship broker..
In response to how he finds time to train, Wardian says: “I try to make it what I call invisible training; you know less impact on the family and the job I have as possible.”
His wife Jennifer explains invisible training, “He does all of his training during the day early morning.”
She says, “He runs to and from work and then in the evening he is just at home and a normal dad.”
“So it’s not actually that big of an impact on our daily life and he just seems to get it done. He’s pretty motivated so he finds the time. I think he has extra hours in his day.”
The World Marathon Challenge that Mike Wardian recently completed is a challenge which consists of seven marathons, on seven continents in seven days.
It is organised by runner and Irishman Richard Donovan.
He organised the first event in 2015, as this was a challenge he himself wanted to do.
The event is in its third year and had more than 30 participants.
One of Mike Wardian’s fellow runners in the event, Martin Mølsæter of Norway describes why he decided to participate.
“In the beginning [after I heard about it] I thought it was completely madness and after while it kinda matured I thought I could do it and I decided to do it.”
For Mike himself it was the challenge that enticed him. “I've never ran that many miles in a weekend,” he says. “All the different climates that you have to run and also ranging from Arctic temperatures to boiling Sydney summer and then the chance to be with a group of people and getting to learn about them and what makes them tick.”
“I was so excited that I was able to make it happen.”
Doing so many marathons in such short amount of time under so many different conditions makes it hard for Wardian to decide which one is the toughest.
“I thought it was going to be Antarctica before the event,” says Wardian. “But I actually think it probably was Dubai or Sydney just because of the heat and the amount of fatigue that built up over the course of the week.”
“Dubai was a really tough one for me it was super-hot and no shade. But Antarctica was just so amazingly beautiful.”
The Dubai marathon was also the toughest for Mike’s fellow runner and roommate who told SBS Norwegian said he ran with ice cubes in his hands in an attempt to try and keep cool.
Interview with Martin Mølsæter (in Norwegian)
Completed the World Marathon Challenge
Wardian didn’t only win the World Marathon Challenge; he beat the previous average time record with about 45 minutes.
Every marathon was completed in less than three hours.
After the last marathon in Manly he added on another 17 miles, to make it an even 200 miles for the week, adding another milestone achieved during the week.
You would be forgiven thinking that with so many feats during a week one only has time to focus on yourself and your own running.
Not so for Mike Wardian, as he also won the sportsmanship award.
Martin Mølsæter voted for him, and explains why.
“He was just cheering up everybody while running.”
“He made fun dressing up like Elvis running around.”
“He always shared his knowledge, experience, he share food- every time somebody was needing anything he was just there to help people.”
The prize money from the sportsmanship award is donated to a charity of the athlete’s choice.
“World Vision is a charity that I already have partnered with for 2017,” says Wardian.”And my goal is to try to get a 1000 kids sponsored and so it's about $50 per kid - so about $50.000.”
Winning the World Marathon ChallengeThe full interview with Mike Wardian
So what’s next?
Mike Wardian has been accepted to run in this year’s ‘Hardrock 100’ ultra-marathon in July..
As the name suggests, this race are 100 miles (160 kilometres) long and features 10,000 metres of climbing/uphill running.
Another iconic event Mike has been accepted to this year is The Barkleys Marathon
“The Barkleys marathon is intentionally designed make sure that people don't complete the race,” explains Wardian.
“ You’re basically running around Frozen head state park in Tennessee, trying to complete 5 loops of 20 Miles each”.
“It's not a marked course so you kinda have to navigate, and each year its get harder so I think in the entire history of the race they’ve had 15 finishers.
“So I'm hoping that I can kinda figure it out but I know that it's going to be a tough one.”
As he says, it is going to be a tough one but Mike Wardian isn’t one to shy away from a challenge..
Perhaps we will we see more records broken in upcoming races?
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