The 55-year-old ran 15,444 kilometers (9,596 miles) over the course of a year.
Finally stopping on the last day of 2024, Belgian ultrarunner Hilde Dosogne felt she had done what she needed to do to take the world record as the first woman to run marathon every day of the year.
Tired but seemingly far from exhausted from the weight of the marathon’s relentless running, Dosogne emerged from the cold, gray light to cross the line as a crowd of fellow runners celebrated the remarkable feat.
“I’m glad it’s over,” she said after crossing the line on Tuesday, leaving behind the latest crash of many when she collided with a spectator during her final run.
On top of the award for her persistence in running at least 15,444 kilometers (9,596 miles) in one year, the 55-year-old also raised around 60,000 euros ($62,438) in breast cancer research funds.
Now comes the archiving of GPS data, photo and video evidence, and reports from independent witnesses that she had to collect daily to meet the requirements of the Guinness World Records organization. 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 men’s record of 366 days, which he achieved in Sao Paulo, Brazil on August 28, 2023.
In the women’s category, Dosogne would be alone in the league, as the current record held by Australia’s Erchana Murray-Bartlett is 150 days.
One thing is certain: she does not want her feat to become a bright example of a healthy life – more of personal perseverance, because she had to fight the flu, COVID-19, more than a dozen crashes, blisters and even bursitis. All in all, though, the brain took the hardest beating.
“Mental effort is more difficult than physical effort. Of course, physically everything must be in order. Otherwise, you can’t run for four hours every day. But it was more mental to be on the starting line every day,” she told The Associated Press news agency.
She managed to run most of her marathons on a flat loop around a stretch of water, not far from the university town of Ghent, where a strong headwind could be her strongest competition.
Even there, she said, she wasn’t going to take any statistical risks and instead of 42.195 km (26.2 miles) a day, she made sure her run was 42.5 km (26.4 miles) – just to be safe.
She really wishes she could extend her days in the same way.
As a bioengineer at a chemical company, she started extra early so she could squeeze in a marathon every afternoon. And since she couldn’t run at top speed every day, she kept to a leisurely 10 km/h (6.2 mph), which also allowed friends and witnesses to run with her.
The only time her daughter Lucie felt she might not make it was the day she crashed after 27km (16.7 miles), had to be taken to the emergency room with a dislocated finger and spent too much time there to finish the marathon according to the rulebook. decision? “She’s starting from scratch again,” Lucie said.
“It’s still a little crooked,” Dosogne said.
