Real-Life Forrest Gump Runs 150 Marathons In 150 Days Across 3,900 Miles Of Australia

Runner Punches Competitor At Florida Track Meet In Shocking Video

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Australia is a pretty big piece of land. Most modern maps you see in textbooks or on the walls of your high school social studies classroom don’t accurately show how big it is. In actuality, it’s almost the same size of the continental United States.

It’s also one of the world’s greatest sporting countries. The Aussies are 8th all-time in Summer Olympic medals despite being the 55th most-populated country in the world.

They succeed in a lot of different sports, but long distance running isn’t one of them, at least on a world championship and Olympics level.

But, one Australian decided to make some history. She ran a marathon every day for 150 days in a row, good enough for 3900 miles.

Here’s some more information, courtesy of the BBC

Five months after setting out from the tip of Australia, marathon runner Erchana Murray-Bartlett has reached the country’s southern edge.

The 32-year-old on Monday finished her 6,300km (3,900 miles) journey – a marathon every day for 150 days.

Ms Murray-Bartlett’s effort sets a new world record for the most consecutive daily marathons by a woman.

And she has raised over A$100,000 (£57,000, $70,000) for conservation charity the Wilderness Society.

Ms Murray-Bartlett has been running professionally for years, but after missing out on qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics, she set her sights on another life-long dream.

She was going to run the entire length of Australia, and she was going to break the Guinness World Record for the most consecutive daily marathons by a woman – held by Briton Kate Jayden, who last year completed 106 in as many days.

Ms Murray-Bartlett set out on the run to raise awareness of the extinction crisis facing Australian animals and plants. Australia is home to some of the richest biodiversity in the world – much of which is unique to the continent – but it is among the worst in the world for biodiversity loss.

It was tough going for Ms Murray-Bartlett from the beginning – she had three injuries in the first three weeks.

But her body learned to cope as she wound her way along Australia’s famous coastline, through rainforests, and down both dirt roads and highways. She sometimes ran in torrential rain, other times in heat upwards of 35C (95F).

Quite the feat. As for me, I won’t be running any marathons any time soon.

Garrett Carr BroBible avatar
Garrett Carr is a recent graduate of Penn State University and a BroBible writer who focuses on NFL, College Football, MLB, and he currently resides in Pennsylvania.