Daredevil Michelle Khare ran 7 marathons on 7 different continents in 7 days. The first one was on Antarctica.
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You can read more about the Great World Race on the official website. The 2025 results are interesting to look at...the Antarctica marathon times are in some cases 2 hours slower than the times on other continents.
As a casual runner that runs a few local races here and there, the cost for this race is $58,000. I would much rather run other races around the world, stay a week or two in the region before/after the race for less money. Speed traveling to run seven marathons in seven continents while basically sleeping on a plane just isn't on my life bingo card.
As a lifelong outdoor adventure obsessive, I try to find enjoyment in this type of content. But I can’t. No doubt these are impressive, disciplined athletes, but ultimately the ability to do something like this has far more to do with access to capital than it does with someone’s skill set or natural ability.
At what point do “inspiring” undertakings become one more way for the wealthy to flaunt the inaccessibility of their lifestyle.
I love seeing people push their limits, but to me this is just about money. These folks, while in better condition than a casual runner like myself, are nowhere near where others are in regard to pushing the limits. The Cocodona 250 race (actually 256 miles and a ton of elevation all in one go) gets sold out. Get really into it and there are back to back ultra triathlons (full marathon, 112m bike ride and 2.4m swim) which have gone for more than 30 days in a row. Oh, and they are just running, not racing like in the other sports. I can run a marathon - I cannot race a marathon.
Yeah - I have a lot of trouble getting excited or impressed by these "achievements". Looking at the results, the winner's fastest average time was 3:26. That's almost 90minutes slower than the fastest in the world (see yesterday's KDO content), or ~75% slower. Yay?
And Mr. 10th place was almost an hour slower than that.
They're just decent recreational athletes with a lot of money. That, and I'd guess a need to feel like they've done something meaningful in their lives. (And I'm also gonna guess that this "accomplishment" doesn't fill that hole.)
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