Marathon runner Ben Pobjoy has clocked a distance of 74,601 kilometres on six continents.Supplied
Eight years ago, Ben Pobjoy had ballooned to 250 pounds – way too much for someone who was 34 and stood five-foot-11. He realized he needed a lifestyle change, or he could be dead.
So he altered his diet and started walking. And jogging. And running. And running marathons.
Today, he has completed 842 solo marathons. Including other training and walking, he’s clocked a distance of 74,601 kilometres on six continents. That’s almost twice around the earth. He runs freestyle marathons, as opposed to officially sanctioned time-clocked marathons, but the non-stop distance is equivalent, 42.2 kilometres, and sometimes greater. His average time is 6 ½ hours.
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For the past eight years Ben Pobjoy has trotted the globe all alone. He carries a camera and laptop in his backpack and a whistle around his neck to scare off dogs.Supplied
“I was too afraid to step on a scale,” the Torontonian says of his decision eight years ago. He began to suffer from weight-related health issues including inflammation, kidney stones and body aches. “I got to a point where it was like, ‘The show is over dude, it’s time to grow up and be responsible.’ I was embarrassed. Cheeseburgers only get you so far.”
He lost 100 pounds in the first eight months. Soon, he became engaged in a Forrest Gumpian adventure.
For the past eight years he has trotted the globe all alone. He carries a camera and laptop in his backpack and a whistle around his neck to scare off dogs. When he turned 40 in 2021 he celebrated by doing nine 42-km marathons in nine different countries in nine days.
And he’s not done yet. He hopes his feats are recognized as a world record.
In the past calendar year, he did 242 marathon-equivalent runs in 63 countries, a distance that totalled 11,465 km. He recently applied for a Guinness World Record under the category of “most marathons run in different countries in one year.” (The record is 239).
“In and of itself if I am granted the record it will be a very pleasant surprise,” says Mr. Pobjoy, 42, who keeps a log book and records all of his travel by foot via GPS. “It was more like a DIY project from the start. If I get the piece of paper to put on the fridge it will be the physical formalization of what I accomplished.”
He called last year’s project the Marathon Earth Challenge and documented it step by step, word by word and image by image in social-media posts and essays he wrote in his own newsletter. He financed the exercise himself with a budget of US$38,000, which paid for 70 flights, 70 different accommodations, food and health insurance. He stayed in some roach-coach motels and slept on a bedroll on the floor when necessary.
In the past calendar year, Ben Pobjoy did 242 marathon-equivalent runs in 63 countries, a distance that totalled 11,465 km.Ben Pobjoy/The Canadian Press
He began the year in Bogota and completed his last marathon in Tokyo on Dec. 20 skittering along, he says, at the “pace of a human snail.” Along the way he admired the pyramids in Giza, tortoises in the Galapagos Islands, the magnificence of the Panama Canal and architecture in Dubai. In Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, he gazed out over snow-capped peaks and felt like he was at the end of the world.
He also was shaken down by police on the street in Mexico City twice, landed in Lima, Peru in the spring of 2023 amid protests of government corruption and ran a marathon in Azerbaijan during a war with Armenia. He heard gunshots.
“What you quickly realize is the line between what’s normal and chaos is very thin,” Mr. Pobjoy says.
At one point he was the creative director of a marketing and advertising agency in Toronto, and retired from another company in 2022 when he started to plan the Marathon Earth Challenge.
“I wanted to do my bucket list in my athletic prime,” he says. “I just wander the world with my camera and a notepad and I am very interested in the human condition. I enjoy the hustle and bustle of everyday life and seeing how things work.”
For the most part, he goes undisturbed as he trots for hours from one location to the next.
When Ben Pobjoy runs in exotic locales, he drinks only bottled water, avoids street food, dairy and meat products and subsides on a plant-based diet.Supplied
“I look like a big weirdo,” Mr. Pobjoy says. “I have a bushy beard and I wear a big bucket hat and am unkempt in appearance and probably don’t smell too good. I am an oddity so most people stay away. I don’t present myself like a normal tourist.”
When he runs in exotic locales, he drinks only bottled water, avoids street food, dairy and meat products and subsides on a plant-based diet. At times, he raises funds in different localities for charities.
He returned to Toronto shortly before Christmas and did a few of his lonely marathons just for yucks.
“My wife said if I wasn’t back before the holidays I wouldn’t be married any more,” Mr. Pobjoy says. “My wife is a normal person. I am Peter Pan.”
Since he returned he has been completing jobs on a honey-do list and cleaning their apartment.
He has not announced a new project yet.
“My short-term goal is to stay married,” he says. “My long-term goal is that I would love to run a marathon in every country before my time is called.”