In total, Stefaan Engels of Belgium covered 9,569 miles.
On Saturday, he completed the Barcelona Marathon and finished a feat in which he ran 365 marathons over the course of the year. That’s 26.2 miles of running a day for the 365 days. The BBC reports:
“I don’t regard my marathon year as torture. It is more like a regular job,” the 49-year-old said.
He averaged about four hours to complete a marathon. He said his best time was 2 hours and 56 minutes.
Engels told the AP that he ran despite his doctor’s insistence that he shouldn’t run because he had asthma:
But he decided to overcome his ailment and ran his first marathon at 25. He said his latest feat is the result of 35 years of exercise.
“There were a lot of moments when I thought ‘Today, I won’t finish,’” he said. “One of the hardest moments was in Mexico City after a long flight, the altitude and I had gotten sick from eating something, and I thought ‘What am I doing here?’”
According to CNN and the AP, which quote the Guinness Book of World Records, Engels smashed the previous record held by Akinori Kusuda who ran 52 consecutive races in 2009.
We did, however, find one more man who claims to have completed this feat. According to reports in the Basque and Dutch press, Richard Bottram ran 365 marathons back in 2006-2007. He said he did it to raise awareness about cancer after he lost his wife to the disease.
Engels told the AP that he wanted inspire people, saying “If I could run a marathon a day for an entire year, that anyone could run or bike a little each day or do something about their weight problem.”
Source: NPR.com
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