SAN ANTONIO – Seven marathons over seven continents in less than seven days! It may seem impossible, but San Antonio resident Paul Holborn completed and won the World Marathon Challenge in February.
Holborn is originally from the UK, so he also became the first British man to take the title of overall winner of this competition.
“I googled the hardest challenge in the world, and the World Marathon Challenge came up,” Holborn said. “Seven marathons, seven continents, seven days — I thought, that’s impossible. Like, who can do that? That’s impossible. But I couldn’t get it out of my head for like three days. And I was like, I really need to do this.”
Holborn said that when he decided to take on the challenge, he had never run a marathon.
Paul started his training 19 months before this tough challenge of back-to-back marathons. During that time, Paul completed his very first marathon in San Antonio.
“I haven’t actually run a race in my life,” said Holborn. “I grew up as a boxer until I was 27, so I had some fitness, you know, some muscle memory, some fitness in my past.”
Paul Holborn, who is 40 now, said the San Antonio Rock-n-Roll Marathon was a stepping stone to getting to the level of running seven marathons, which was literally a “world wind” experience.
“So once you finished running, and once everyone’s finished running, that’s it. You’re on the bus. And within half an hour you’re back at the airport,” said Holborn.
Paul’s first marathon in this challenge was in Antarctica on Friday, Jan. 31.
These are all the destinations where Paul completed marathons:
- Antarctica
- Cape Town, South Africa
- Perth, Australia
- Dubai, Asia
- Madrid, Europe
- Fortaleza, Brazil, South America
- Miami, Florida, North America
The challenge came to an end on Wednesday, Feb. 5th, at 4 a.m. in South Beach, Miami.
“You didn’t know what day it was sometimes,” said Holborn. “You would think it was Sunday, and it’s Tuesday morning. You didn’t know what time it was, so some of the races were at 2 in the morning. Some of them were 8 at night.”
To put things in perspective, Paul said all 60 competing runners were on the same private jet, flying from continent to continent. That’s how they were able to get around the globe so fast, and it gave the runners little time to rest.
However, Holborn said that may have worked to his advantage because he didn’t have time for his body to be “sore.” He said he would just “run off” any soreness during the next marathon.
Paul finished and won in less than seven days. It took him five days, 19 hours and a couple of minutes to complete the challenge.
“It’s an incredible achievement for me,” said Holborn. “I never would’ve imagined that going into the race.”
