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A triathlete who goes by the name of ‘Ashkickin’ has embarked on a challenge to run 7 marathons on 7 continents in 7 days with the first of the 7 marathons taking place in Antarctica where Ashley Paulson set a record for the fastest women’s marathon time ever in Antarctica. Her 7 marathons on 7 continents in 7 days is part of the ‘Great World Race’ where a group of ultra-endurance athletes are tackling the impossible.
Ashely Paulson won the first leg of the Great World Race by shaving almost 30 minutes off the previous best women’s marathon time in Antarctica, finishing with a time of 3:18:02. On the men’s side, William Maunsell or Ireland set a new Antarctic record as well fishing with a time of 2:38:42, nearly 15 minutes faster than the previous record.
During this truly insane physical challenge, ‘Ashkickin’ is documenting the 7 marathons in 7 days across 7 continents on her TikTok page and other socials and her video from Antarctica went viral over the weekend. While many people were hungover from Friday night and sitting in bed scrolling on their phone they came across this video of a woman running 7 marathons on 7 continents in 7 days and a lot of those people started to question their own laziness.
@ashkickn1 7 marathons in 7 days in 7 continents, 1st one done in Antarctica. We had to start 1 day early beacuse a storm was coming in❄️#antarctica #marathon #runner #fyp #ultramarathon
This top comment on her video sums it up for a LOT of people. Sarah E. wrote “I have never related to anything less” with nearly 29K people ‘liking’ her comment.
The 7 day marathon across 7 continents schedule is wild. The Great World race has handled a lot of the logistics for this so competitors can simply sign up and show up where they’re supposed to be when they are supposed to be there and run the races. Here is what the 7 day schedule looks like:
November 15th: Wolf’s Fang: Antarctica
November 16th: Cape Town: Africa
November 17th: Perth: Australia
November 18th: Istanbul: Asia
November 19th: Istanbul: Europe
November 20th: Cartagena: South America
November 21st: Miami: North America
The fact that Turkey straddles two continents and is both part of Europe and Asia feels like a stretch but it is two marathons over two days and not as if they are doing 1 marathon in Istanbul to have it count for both continents, so in this instance it works.
After the Day 2 race in Cape Town, Africa, she showed how the athletes were recovering on the plane with cryo therapy compression pants during their flight to Australia:
@ashkickn1 Replying to @noah33tc BTS in between our marathons, 14 hour flight to Australia!! Rest, eat, & recover as much as we can✈️ @iFIT #australia #marathon #fyp #runner #recovery
For those wondering, it cost competitors €49,500 ($52,298) to enter the 7 marathons on 7 continents in 7 days challenge with The Great World Race who handles all of the travel and logistics. As we speak, some of the competitors are either running (or recovering) from the first of two marathons in Istanbul, Turkey, having completed the ‘Asia’ leg of the challenge.
For anyone crazy enough to want to attempt this, check out The Great World Race’s website here.