1000 marathons,1000 days

ultraman1

Tony mangan is gonna jog around the world startin when he finishes the DCM......... http://www,theworldjog.com

Highway_To_Hell

slight typo in the link - http://www.theworldjog.com/ www, instead of www.

impressive undertaking, best of luck to Tony

Slogger Jogger

Best of luck Tony. The logistics of this must be head-wrecking.

gerard65

Slogger Jogger wrote: »

Best of luck Tony. The logistics of this must be head-wrecking.

Just thinking that, even trying to sort out the tourist visa's would be a nightmare, can be complicated for just one country sometimes.

RacoonQueen

Best of luck to him. This will be an interesting one!

donothoponpop

The mind boggles. I'd have thought 100 marathons in 100 days, or even 365 marathons in a year, to be extreme, but this?!?:eek: Best of luck to him.

thetonynator

That is ridiculous!!! He'll die or something!!!

Tipsygypsy

Wow, he's obviously completely insane, but more power too him. Best of luck Tony Mangan.

TheRoadRunner

thetonynator wrote: »

That is ridiculous!!! He'll die or something!!!

I think the title of the thread might be a bit misleading. I don't think he will necessarily cover a marathon a day. Some days may be some some may be less, I'm guessing. There are also a number of rest periods so he will not be running for 1000 days consecutively.

Pisco Sour

TheRoadRunner wrote: »

I think the title of the thread might be a bit misleading. I don't think he will necessarily cover a marathon a day. Some days may be some some may be less, I'm guessing. There are also a number of rest periods so he will not be running for 1000 days consecutively.

Regardless, the man is still insane.

Krusty_Clown

The guy is a legend. I saw him running his indoor treadmill world record a couple of years back at the Longford marathon, and couldn't understand how anyone would have the mental strength.

Just saw a blog post on the website. He's expecting the trip to take 3-4 years. :eek: Hope he updates on his progress as he goes along. Would love to track how he's progressing. Best of luck Tony! Living the dream.

shels4ever

Mental stuff, wonder would you be allowed to run witha gps through some of those places

Krusty_Clown

China used to be pretty bad on GPS (stealing state secrets), but have eased up in recent years. It's kind of ironic, given that most GPS receivers are manufactured in China. Best to stay away from missile sites just in case.

TFBubendorfer

I think all of you shouting out things like "he's insane" and "that's ridiculous" should get a grip on yourselves. That's a multiple world record holder we're talking about, not some fella who decided over a couple of pints with his mates to go for a run.

A little bit of respect towards a world class sportsman would not go amiss.

shels4ever

TFBubendorfer wrote: »

I think all of you shouting out things like "he's insane" and "that's ridiculous" should get a grip on yourselves. That's a multiple world record holder we're talking about, not some fella who decided over a couple of pints with his mates to go for a run.

A little bit of respect towards a world class sportsman would not go amiss.

To be fair I do think that people are just saying his mad because of the amazing task he's about to undertake, not something i'd ever be able or want to try myself but fairplay to him.

Krusty_Clown

I think they mean insane as in 'look at the guy jumping over 5 double deckers on his motorcycle; that's insane'. It's a Dublin'ism for 'risk-taker adventurer'.

donothoponpop

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Would love to track how he's progressing. Best of luck Tony! Living the dream.

There's this tracker linked from his blog (no data yet). He's starting the run on Monday, after a 4:30 marathon run (an appropriate warm-up for a run around a planet!)

Slogger Jogger

Great article about Tony and his achievements in Irish Runner. Looking forward to checking in on the progress I know he'll make.

Slogger Jogger

Just bumping this up to remind people it's happening. Newfoundland sounds great.
http://www.theworldjog.com

donothoponpop

Slogger Jogger wrote: »

Just bumping this up to remind people it's happening. Newfoundland sounds great.
http://www.theworldjog.com

Does he have to put his hand in his pocket at all? Running seems to be a form of currency in Newfoundland. Great story so far.

donothoponpop

Irish Times article 13th Dec

RUNNING: SEAN KENNY talks to Tony Mangan, who is jogging around the world for the charity Aware

PHOENIX PARK, early 1990s: Stride after effortless stride he runs. The endorphins are firing and whizzing, coursing pure joy through his veins. Tony Mangan feels as though he could run around the world. It’s a fanciful notion, a passing whim plucked from the ether, to which it will soon surely return.

Except that it doesn’t.

The idea lingers. It follows him around, eventually takes up permanent residence in his mind. He nurtures the notion, feeds it and watches it grow. “When I got that thought into my head, it’s never left me for more than five or six waking hours.”

Finally, in July, he found the door of opportunity ajar. Having worked in construction, he applied for and received voluntary redundancy. It was time. Rent the house, raid the savings. The dream packed up its cases, moved out of his mind and onto the road. The World Jog began with his participation in the Dublin Marathon on October 25th. If all goes well, and it is an ‘if’ of monumental dimensions, he will complete the global circle by running the same race in 2013. Three years, five continents, 42,000 kilometres by foot.

A few fleeting glimpses of the formation of Tony Mangan, ultra runner. Pounding 40 laps out round the track at Sundrive Park in Crumlin, 18 and burning in the mid-70s (he dates it by Bohemian Rhapsody on his transistor radio). Jogging to football training sessions in his 20s, injuring an ankle, missing the footie, the sudden dawning that he misses the means of travel much more. Clocking a marathon best of 2 hours 38 minutes in his 30s.

In 1994, he emigrated to the US, settling in Colorado, a state that stretches skyward across great swathes of mountain. The Rockies stood there looking down like a taunt, great bunched fists of implacable rock. He ran them, of course. His big dream was forming still, crystallising in the cool thin air. He would order world travelogues so obscure they had to be delivered to his library from Federal stores in Washington, DC.

By 2002 he was back in Ireland, entering 24-hour races. That’s a solid day’s sapping slog, punctuated only by brief breaks. Wait, there’s more. Forty-eight hour races, a concept surely dreamt up in a moment of purest masochistic madness, were next.

“The reason I started doing 48-hour races was to make 24-hour races seem shorter by comparison in my mind. But I discovered I was more competitive at 48-hours. In March 2007, I went to Brno in the Czech Republic to an indoor 48-hour race. I won it (breaking the world record, with a distance of 426.178kms). It was the race of my life to be honest. I had no expectations. I went over on a Ryanair flight, wearing the shoes I ran in. I got some kind of divine inspiration I guess.”

It was the first recorded occasion on which anyone had run over 200kms on consecutive days. Let’s run those numbers again, dwell on their brutal toll. He ran 223kms one day, and then, now he was warmed up, just kept going, covering 203kms the next day in a near-continuous loop. He was 50 years old.

“After these races, especially 48 hours, it’s like a week-long hangover. Even when the stiffness is gone you feel mentally fatigued.”

His legs stood this test, and others. Running the globe acquired an urgency as he got older. “I was reading lots of very obscure travel books, about people who’d walked around the world, run across Australia. I emailed some of these people, like a Canadian guy who’s shortly finishing an 11-year walk around the world. Three of these people had stayed in my house when they were in Ireland. So I was feeding it, and they gave me some inspiration.”

The broad quixotic sweep of the expedition was all very fine, but there were nuts and bolts to be considered. “The problem 20 years ago was that we didn’t have any of the kind of buggy I’m using. You had to use a backpack. There’s cumbersome stuff like sleeping bags, tents, apart from clothes. Unless you had a crew it wasn’t really possible. This stroller is designed for parents who want to go for a jog and bring their kids with them. But this has been hijacked by people who have walked around the world.”

Using this stroller, christened Nirvana, he could carry his worldly goods in relative comfort.

And so the day arrived following fevered edgy months of preparation. After the marathon, he crossed Ireland to Dunquin in Kerry, to within a single careless footstep of the Atlantic. Ten days, a merry jaunt of 380kms. The next, current, leg takes him across North America, the three eastern Canadian provinces of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, followed by a roughly diagonal path across the US and down into central and South America.

Advantages of jogging alone through Canadian winter: hospitality of locals, native confection by name of Big Turk, starkly beautiful vistas. Disadvantages: scything wind, occasional absence of drinking water, tendency of Royal Canadian Mounted Police to presume buggy being pushed by jogger along highway hard shoulder contains baby. He chronicles it on his blog at www.theworldjog.com.

“There’s not one single day that I’ve considered it a chore. I bounce out onto the road. I love it. Part of me did wonder whether I’d do it, because I’m 53 now and it gets harder every year.”

He’s been covering around 40kms a day, sometimes more, since he began running in Canada on November 9th. Is he fatigued?

“Hills can be tough, half an hour or 40 minutes up, and they’re only pimples compared to the Rockies or the Andes. There’ll be periods of tiredness, of course. But I’ve run 68kms one day. Went out the next day and there was zero stiffness. When I did 20-mile training runs for marathons I’d feel it in my legs the next day. So, my body’s adapting to it.”

Adapting, hustling, surviving, a lone traveller stalking the Canadian countryside. Some nights he’s had a bed, some not. His funds simply don’t stretch to paid accommodation. He’s slept in a fishing cabin, under church steps, in family homes, camped, simply bedded on his tarp. He does whatever he must, because he is driven to this and has no choice but to accept that he’s utterly exposed to the will of strangers. So far, enough milk of human kindness has flowed.

“They’re incredible people. Just zany. They’re very obliging, give hospitality. Total strangers give me donations for myself or the charity (he is collecting for Aware). A drunk guy in a pick-up gave me $20 and told me, ‘Go get yourself some beers, and cop onto yourself!’”

You could paint a desolate picture, of a single speck traversing the frozen arteries in the heart of the Canadian winter. Is it lonely? “No. I’m not in a relationship. The last few years I was probably avoiding relationships. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that this is the most important thing in my life and everything I do is centred around this. And I meet people all the time. My passion and drive keep me going. If there’s any downside to this, they outweigh that.”

The road ahead looms hugely in space and time. It will twist and it will dip. The whole expedition is unknowably vast. Part of its epic romance. Part of its menace.

“I think about the trip when I’m running. I’m about three per cent of the distance and I’m still in this tiny corner of North America; it’s nothing on the map. I think, ‘My God, I’m in an area that’s English-speaking too; what’s it going to be like when I get down into Central and South America or through China?’ But I can’t really think too much because that kind of stuff wears you down. You’ve got to take one day at a time.”

He leaves a trail of his savings in his wake. Even Spartan living costs, and his sponsorship is minimal. His will, though, is fierce. He is determined not to be run off the road by money.

“There are people who do these trips on almost nothing. If you’re willing to cook rice and porridge and you stay out of restaurants and hotels and you camp . . . I don’t have to do that now, but when the time comes I can. I’ll get around. Money won’t stop me. If I have to max out my credit card I’ll do it.”

He had a tattoo inked on his left arm prior to his departure. It comprised The World Jog logo and the legend ‘Start: Dublin 25/10/10’. Below this the word ‘Finish’ and a small blank canvas of skin onto which he would etch a huge dream.

LONG WAY AROUND: Tony Mangan's World Tour

DUBLINER Tony Mangan (53) has broken numerous world records in ultra running. Among his achievements are establishing new records of 426kms for a 48-hour run in the Czech Republic in 2007, and of 405kms, the greatest distance covered over 48 hours on a treadmill, established in Longford in 2008. He was also the first athlete recorded as running over 200kms on consecutive days. Over a 15-month period between 1978 and 1979, he cycled around the world.
His global expedition, The World Jog, began with his participation in the Dublin Marathon on October 25th this year.

It is moving from west to east, commencing in North America, before proceeding to Central and South America and on to Australia, Asia and Europe before returning to Ireland.

Mangan’s current goal is to complete a distance of around 42,000kms over a three-year period of near-continuous travel. This involves running roughly the distance of a marathon per day. Mangan is collecting for the depression charity, Aware.

Donations can be made at www.theworldjog.com where his progress can be tracked via a GPS-linked map.

Slogger Jogger

Nice to see Tony getting some news attention. I've the blog link saved as a favorite and I dip into it every few days. Its a great read. Parts of Canada sound almost Irish like and the people too seem ever ready to help for the most part.

ocnoc

The guy seems like a complete legend!
The logistics would be a complete b**ch i'd say.

Enduro.. have 4 free years?

Fluorescence

Wow. This is amazing! I'll be watching his progress over the next 4 years anyway :P

ronnie085

Just to give this a bump, has a song written about him now, although I think the charts are safe enough The irishman upon your floor(the ballad of Tony Mangan)

Mac Cormaic

I hope Tony is 1,000% successful with this. I think he will be an inspiration to all marathon runners, and an icon for young people to take up athletics and keep fit.

donothoponpop

Over 5000km ran. I love the account of getting meeting a Congressman in the bar, and asking him to close the one bridge out of Missouri to traffic, so Tony could run it:D

gerard65

He made it across the USA. Taken a couple of weeks out now. Great reading so far.

couerdelion

A drunk guy in a pick-up gave me $20 and told me, ‘Go get yourself some beers, and cop onto yourself!’”

Brilliant

gerard65

'Shameless bump';)
The Mexician leg is great reading. I'd say its going to be very interesting as he gets into the more out of the way places on his world jog.

There's a rumour that a 'world jog' is RQ's secret 'race':eek:

plodder

gerard65 wrote: »

'Shameless bump';)
The Mexician leg is great reading. I'd say its going to be very interesting as he gets into the more out of the way places on his world jog.

There's a rumour that a 'world jog' is RQ's secret 'race':eek:

Thanks for bumping that. I'd forgotten to check back after the break at San Diego. It's amazing the stuff you learn from reading this - like apparently there's no road linking central America with South America! He's going to have to take a ferry the short distance. Columbia should be interesting too.

ecoli

plodder wrote: »

Columbia should be interesting too.

Definitely a few fast marathons down there. Needs a bit of "speed work" after last few months of "base building":D

TFBubendorfer

ecoli wrote: »

Definitely a few fast marathons down there. Needs a bit of "speed work" after last few months of "base building":D

The likes of Mexico, Guatemala and Panama should be the ideal preparation for that.
He's having the time of his life. You can feel his enthusiasm in every word he writes in the blog.

plodder

I think there's been a few threads on it, but I thought I'd bump this one.

some interesting reports over the last few months. Colombia wasn't the hell-hole I thought it might be. He's in Peru now and of the recent reports "Cockroach Heaven" was fascinating and a bit surreal. Don't read it while eating your lunch though!

http://www.theworldjog.com/blog/