Finally coming to a halt on Tuesday — the last day of 2024 — Belgian runner Hilde Dosogne was ready to file the paperwork to be declared the first woman to run a marathon every day of the year.
Weary, but seemingly far from exhausted from the relentless marathon running, Dosogne emerged from the cold, gray light to cross the line as a throng of fellow runners celebrated the feat.
“I’m glad it’s over,” she said after crossing the line on the last day, leaving the last crash of many behind her after she collided with a spectator during her final run.
Photo: EPA-EFE
On top of running at least 15,444km in a single year, Dosogne, 55 also raised about 60,000 euros (US$62,434) for breast cancer research.
Now comes the filing of GPS data, photo and video evidence, and the independent witness reports she collected daily to meet the requirements of Guinness World Records. If approved, the record should be officially hers in about three months.
The 55-year-old would join Hugo Farias, the Brazilian who holds the male record of 366 days, which he achieved in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Aug. 28, 2023.
In the female category, Dosogne would be in a league all her own, as the current record by Erchana Murray-Bartlett of Australia stands at 150 days since Jan. 16, 2023.
She said the feat was not a shining example of healthy living, but more of personal persistence, as she fought off the flu, COVID-19, more than a dozen crashes, blisters and bursitis. Overall, the brain took the toughest beating.
“The mental strain is harder than the physical. Of course, physically, everything has to be OK. Otherwise, you can’t run for four hours every day, but it was more mental to be there at the start-line every day,” she said.
Dosogne ran the majority of the marathons on a flat loop just outside the university town of Ghent, where a strong headwind was her toughest competitor.
Even there, she would not take any statistical risks and instead of the 42.195km a day, she made sure her runs were 42.5 km — just for safe measure with the Guinness administrators, she said.
The bioengineer at a chemical firm started especially early to squeeze in a marathon every afternoon. Because she could not run at top speed every day, she stuck to an easy 10kph pace, which also allowed friends and witnesses to run along.
The only time when her daughter Lucie Dosogne felt she might not make it was the day she crashed after 27km, had to be taken to an emergency ward with a dislocated finger and spent far too much time there to be allowed to finish the marathon by the regulation.
The solution?
“She started from scratch again,” Lucie Dosogne said.
“It’s still a little bit crooked,” Hilde Dosogne said.
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