US man runs seven marathons in seven days

San Francisco: Thirty-one-year-old Tim Durbin completed seven marathons in seven days on seven continents. The San Francisco resident was the only American who competed in the World Marathon Challenge that started last Saturday and ended in Sydney on Friday, after which he tweeted: ‘And Done'.

The map of the marathon challenge, which Tim Durbin finished

Tim Durbin

He ran 26.2-mile marathons in Antarctica, Chile, Miami, Madrid, Morocco, Dubai and Sydney. "In the last 48 hours, I've slept less than nine hours and ran three marathons," he said in an email earlier this week.

He said most of his sleep was on the airplanes between cities with a few hours spent in hotels following the races. He did have one full night of rest after running in Chile and before heading to Miami. Durbin added that the biggest challenge has been the quick turn-around times. "Twice we did two marathons in 24 hours," he said.

The Morocco marathon was the toughest where he started running in Marrakech less than seven hours after he completed the race in Spain. Durbin averaged about five-and-a-half hours for each 26.2-mile marathons, while the race in Morocco took nearly six hours. Durbin spent roughly $37,000 to participate with 11 others runners.

The World Marathon Challenge is part of a bigger challenge that Durbin started two years ago. In 2013, he started logging his miles for walking, running, cross country skiing and swimming in order to complete the distance around the equator 24,901 miles before 2022.