Marathon man completes seven runs in seven days

A RUNNER from Wargrave ran a personal best time while completing a challenge to run seven marathons in seven days in seven continents.

Sam Jolly, 23, who works at Hurlingham Stretch Tents, an events company in Maidensgrove, finished the first marathon in Cape Town setting a pace of 3.20 minutes per kilometre to place fifth.

Mr Jolly finished ninth overall in the challenge which also included marathons in Wolf’s Gang in Antarctica, Perth in Australia, Abu Dhabi in Asia, the Algarve in Europe, Cartagena in South America and Miami in North America.

He completed the final marathon in Miami on Saturday, where he said the energy and the weather, as well as support from his sister, helped him across the finish line.

He completed the run in a pace of 4.11 minutes per kilometre to place 11th.

Mr Jolly said: “Miami was brilliant, we had a short sleep the night before because we got in at midnight then I think we started the run at 7am so I think we had like five hours of sleep in a hotel.

“There were so many supporters because most of the people doing it were from the US so a lot of them had family and friends there.

“My sister and some of her university friends had come down from Boston to meet me, so there was a lot of energy on the course.

“We ran up and down the boardwalk on the beach. The weather was good, it was hot again it was probably
30 again.”

Mr Jolly said that runners endured weather extremes on both ends of the spectrum.

After a schedule change meant that the Antarctica marathon was moved from the start of the challenge to then take place after Cape Town, runners landed in the continent at 2am, taking off from the start line in -27C temperatures and 30mph winds.

Mr Jolly said: “Antarctica was so hard, it was 10, 4.2km loops, and about half the time we were running into the wind.

“It got a bit more manageable later in the race, but at the start it was so hard, it was so cold, and the wind was pretty rough. It was beautiful, it was a crazy place, but the actual running of it was so hard. I took a lot longer in Antarctica than I did anywhere else.”

Mr Jolly said his pace in Antarctica, where he ran
5.28 minutes per kilometre, was much slower than his other races, where he averaged around 4.10 minutes per kilometre.

He said he wore four or five layers for the race including gloves, a snood and hats.

Mr Jolly said: “Any bit of skin that was a bit exposed was pretty freezing.

“My glasses, they would steam up if I had my snood up, so I had to either take my snood down and get a really cold face or just not be able to see.

“A few people were going around, and they were like getting frostnip and stuff on their noses and things and the doctors were telling them that they had to layer up more.”

Mr Jolly said that the demanding travel schedule meant that at times runners were awake for 24 hours, which was the case when they flew from Faro to Cartagena.

He said: “That was actually really tough to be fair because we had just finished Portugal, we landed in Cartagena at 1am and we started running at 3.30pm and I finished by about 8pm.

“It was quite a long one, it was so humid, we landed and it was about 27 degrees and then when the sun had come up it was in the 30s and about 100 per cent humidity, we were sweating so much.

“Portugal was lovely, Portugal was probably the best conditions of any of them.

“Because we were in a smaller town, the whole town came out, there was a school that came out and watched a load of it, that was fun. The kids put a lot of energy. They were all cheering, and we were high-fiving all of them as we went past.”

Mr Jolly said he wore Alphaflys for the first two races but that while the highly cushioned shoes, fitted with a propulsive carbon fibre plate, may have helped his speed, his legs felt “wrecked” as a result.

He said the fatigue in his legs meant he had to walk for some portions of the Cartagena race.

Mr Jolly said: “It wasn’t slow, but I had to walk bits. My legs by that point were pretty messed up, they were pretty bad in Portugal.

“I didn’t have any issues with blisters or anything like that, it was just my left knee was getting pretty bad.

“I don’t know if there was anything really structurally wrong but it was just so painful. Ibuprofen was helping out an awful lot.

“I would go to the physios after and they are two quite bulky men and they would just take a lot of pleasure in seeing you in a lot of pain.

“Everyone would be wincing at these guys but it helped a lot, but I had physio after most of them.

“I would normally put my feet in an ice bath at the end just to get the swelling down in my legs.”

Mr Jolly said that although he was still have trouble walking, he would “definitely” take on the challenge again if given the opportunity.

He said: “I met some brilliant people, there was a really good spirit between everyone. It was a culmination of a lot of effort put in by everyone.

“I was mainly just happy to be there and to finish it all, to be honest.”