Imagine running 26.2 miles. Then imagine running 26.2 miles on a glacier in Antarctica.
That's only a portion of what this year's World Marathon Challenge competitors took on. Each endurance athlete ran a full marathon on all seven continents in only seven days, or 168 hours, 59 of which were spent on planes.
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Marathons were completed in Union Glacier, Antarctica; Punta Arenas, Chile; Madrid, Spain; Marrakech, Morocco; Dubai, United Arab Emirates and Sydney, Austrailia.
It's a phyical and psychological feat, one that includes jet lag, exhaustion and extreme temperature and environment changes. And yet somehow, 15 finished it.
The last World Marathon Challenge, which concluded Jan. 30 in Sydney, had two finishers representing the United States.
One, Becca Pizzi, operates a day-care. At 35, she is the first American woman to finish the race.
“We just made history,” Pizzi told The Associated Press after her finish. “I believed in myself since the moment I signed up for it. I went for it and got it done. When you believe in yourself, anything is possible.”
3 down, 4 to go for Belmont’s Becca Pizzi: Antarctica 3:57, Chile 3:44, Miami, 3:41. Madrid next. #7marathons7days pic.twitter.com/g8P1YBpU23
— Rus Lodi (@ruslodi) January 26, 2016The other, Daniel Caritca, is a U.S. Marine Corps captain. The 27-year-old ran the marathon series in honor of the four Marines and sailor who were killed in a Chattanooga, Tennessee gunman attack.
Although it has long been an exercise staple, running has been picking up the pace, so to speak. Running USA's most recent data, the "2014 Annual Marathon Report" showed 550,637 runners finished a marathon, as compared to just 9,000 in 2013. The 5k had significantly more, with 8.3 million finishers.