The Seven Greatest Endurance Accomplishments

Abe's 100k record has got to be on any serious list. On the other hand, any list with Dean K on it is not a list to be taken seriously.

Have you ever done anything half as amazing as the listed things Dean Karnazes has? i highly doubt it.

Yiannis Kouros does not get a mention.

1000 miles in 10 days and 10 hours is apparently insignificant.

286.463 km. in 24hours.

What a totally crap list (aside from Geb). How can it not include the 24 hour record of Yiannis Kouros - 303.506 km or 188 miles 1308 yards. Kouros himself said he expects this record to last for centuries and no-one has got remotely close to it. It is 10% (or 27.3km) further than any other human has achieved for the distance and equates to running over 7 3:20 marathons without stopping.

Not that great of a list really...

Although Dean's 350mi running straight is pretty awesome it's nothing compared to the likes of many other ultra-marathoners.... Why does the media keep rewarding his mediocrity in the sport?!?

Two words: Terry Fox

Also, legless Vietnam veteran Bob Weiland walking across the United States on his hands has to be also added to the list.

Maybe it won't be broken because no one cares about the 24 hour record! I mean, seriously, how many elite gifted athletes focus on it or attempt it?

as it is wrote:

What a totally crap list (aside from Geb). How can it not include the 24 hour record of Yiannis Kouros - 303.506 km or 188 miles 1308 yards. Kouros himself said he expects this record to last for centuries and no-one has got remotely close to it. It is 10% (or 27.3km) further than any other human has achieved for the distance and equates to running over 7 3:20 marathons without stopping.

Check this old guy out.

Operation Run 131 (this year...2007)

Pretty impressive!

Nice work, Letsrunners. The omission has already been corrected.

``Quote:

HUGE add on that I can’t believe I forgot. (thanks to the great readers of letsrun.com)

Somehow I forgot the “Running God” Yiannis Kouros, who ran 303.506 km or 188 miles in 24 hours. He owns over 113 world records for endurance running and this 24 hour record most likely will be one of the longest standing endurance running records of all times. There was and never has been a runner like Kouros and in his prime he certainly would put Karnazes to shame. Karnazes is just a better marketer which to me is still good for the sport.%%

Where is DEAN KARNAZES?? A list of greatest endurance accomplishments is incomplete without mention of DEAN!

What about Ted Corbitt, 200,000 lifetime miles?

Was ultra running before there was ultra running.

I banged three chicks in less than 12 hours once.

In one of the events mentioned, the 7 marathons in 7 continents, one of that couple, Sir Ranulph Fiennes, is quite a character.

A sort of Indiana Jones and then some.

Ex SAS, specialising in explosives, he left the army and became an ‘adventurer’ with such success that the Guinness book of records named him the ‘world’s greatest living explorer.’

I haven’t that much interest in polar exploration, so I’m not sure of all the details - but he was one of those chaps one sees clips of walking, usually dragging sleds to the poles and I think he was the first to visit both poles by land - amongst all sorts of other feats, which may seem a bit neither here nor there - but we do still admire poor old Scott and his companions who heroically failed to reach the South Pole first and subsequently died on the return journey, back here in Britain.

I first noticed his activities when he attempted to walk all the way across Antarctica. I think he made it, but was forced to call for help after 95 days, frostbitten and starving.

After that, he got warm finding some ancient lost city in Arabia somwhere.

Then he tried to walk solo and unsupported to the North Pole and was going well when his sled fell through the thin ice and he was forced to pull it out by hand sustaining frostbite.

Then followed a insight into just what sort of character he is, when returning home, his surgeon insisted his frostbitten fingertips must be retained for several months to allow for some regrowth of healthy tissue - he became so impatient at the pain the dying fingertips caused - he went into his garden shed and sawed them off himself with an old saw.

Then he had a heart attack and underwent double bypass surgery just 4 months before undertaking the 7 marathons in 7 days as recorded in the article.

After that, he tried to climb Everest - but got heart trouble again at 28,500 feet.

And early this year, now aged 63, he actually succeeded in climbing the notorious North Wall of the Eiger.

I saw sections of his climb on TV and found out he also suffered from vertigo!

He was climbing for a cancer charity - and had he not - I’m sure he would have given up, because the weather was awful and with the vertigo,he was really shitting himself up there.

British history is full of characters like him - as is the US, with it’s British heritage.

I suppose there’ll be the usual sneering and abuse from LetsRun readers - but I feel the world would certainly be a lot duller and a more dreary place if it wasn’t for eccentrics like Sir Ranulph.

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