I have been quiet for a while and still haven’t shared my Galapagos Islands, Cotopaxi Volcano and Bogota experiences. I should do this while I am resting my sore muscles from last night’s incredible race. In the meantime, I wanted to share with you this fantastic experience.
Having done too much running, hiking, climbing and my new hobby cross-fit, I was advised by a sports therapist that running a marathon now, would be a bad idea! However, passing the chance to run with the World Marathon Challengers was out of question! So, promising that I would rest after the race, I arrived in Cartagena with almost no prep but lots of excitement!

I should pause here briefly and add the following info: World Marathon Challenge (WMC) involves running 7 marathons in 7 continents and in just 7 days! It is a huge logistical challenge for Richard Donovan as the organiser and a tremendous physical and psychological challenge for the participants as it involves nearly 200 miles run and thousands of miles of journey time; all in just 168 hours! This year’s course was as shown on this map:

Richard has generously agreed for me, David and Chiara (all members of Antarctic Ice Marathon 2017 team) to join the World Marathon Challengers on their 6th continents.

I flew in on Saturday and met with Dave and Chiara. We had a great pre-race dinner at Restaurant Interno which is located inside the Cartagena San Diego women’s prison and is run by the inmates. The restaurants is among the top fine dining spots in Cartagena and the women are certainly doing a great job. It provides great dining experience and helps inmates gain skills and successfully integrate into the society.

The next day we met at Dave’s hotel for breakfast and after a few hours by the pool headed to my hotel which was near the start line. We were all nervous and had different physical troubles but supported each other whilst getting ready, just like we did in Antarctica.

The start was delayed from 3 to 6 pm local time which meant that most of the run was going to be in the dark. Once at the start line, we hugged the friends who had been running for days and wished everyone luck. Then the start signal came and we were finally running!

There were some issues with the marked course and some of us went off-course at the beginning of the race. This meant that later on, not only we had to make up for the gap but most of us ended up doing at least couple of mile more than 26.2 miles. Ignoring this, the tourists and the heavy traffic, it has been an epic race. The heat and the late night timing wasn’t great but every time my body gave any fatigue signal, I was humbled by the sight of a WMC participant and reminded myself that they were doing this run on top of 131 miles that they have already done.

The support staff were brilliant and enthusiastically cheered and replenished us at various spots until late at night. I had the chance to run with many race participants. Russian/American runner Gulzhamal was just full of positive energy, and despite the miles that her legs had already covered this week, she had a huge smile that gave me lots of energy.

In the end, 28 miles and 4:50 minutes later, I made it to the finish line happy and very much content with my achievement.

People keep asking me why I run marathons, I think the simple answer is “love”. I love the challenge, the unpredictability and effort you must put into every race and the happiness that comes as a reward. Some people’s marathon is a 3 mile run while for others it is nearly 200 miles. No matter how many marathons you have under your belt, each is a completely different challenge and unpredictable in its own way.

As I write this, the WMC challengers are in the middle of their final marathon in Miami. My heart is with them.

Keep running people!