How to run 242 marathons around the world and stay married
Ben Pobjoy chose to “obliterate [his] life for a year” by quitting his job to run 242 marathons in 70 countries. He emerged with his creative lens more focused than ever, and an intact marriage.
The first thing I wondered after reading Ben Pobjoy’s brilliant story about quitting his job to run 242 marathons around the world - The Marathon Earth Challenge - was how he remained married.
It’s one of the reasons I haven’t (yet?) run a marathon. First, I run primarily for my health, and I don’t necessarily see running extremely long distances as healthy for me. Secondly, I have two young kids at home, and I fear that the hours-long, family-free training runs and subsequent lying down on the sofa might cause unnecessary resentment. I enjoy being married, and would rather like to keep it that way.
So Ben Pobjoy taking 75 flights and five boats around the world and staying away from home for 299 nights without his wife leaving him was something I was very curious about.
About Ben Pobjoy
Now back living in Toronto, Canada, Ben is a punk rock success story. After completing university, he started a branding agency simply because he had so many talented creative photographer and illustrator friends. He then started a record label, and then an art gallery, before diving deep into the ad agency world.
“Ten years in, I was like, ‘I’m going to obliterate my life and go do my marathoner challenge project.’ All chips in on a project where I am athletically and creatively on the hook.” Ben Pobjoy
Ben started running a decade ago because he was “morbidly obese.” He credits not caring about sports while growing up for a lack of physical literacy, so when he found himself overweight as an adult, he was “too embarrassed to go to the gym,” so, as a New Year’s resolution, in the middle of the Canadian winter, he just started walking.
He talks about the gamification of progress of pace and distance initially getting him hooked, leading to him adding in walks, runs, and errands wherever he could throughout his day, but now he runs because he can find beauty around him through movement.
“Success isn't about pace for me. It’s about moments of magic and serendipity that reveal themselves over the course of anything above 42.195 km. It's a vehicle for me to be out in the physical world. There's nothing better for observing the human condition. Being on your feet, you can stop and be incentivized by your senses. If you pick up a smell or see a sight, you can take a detour.”
“I say that the world is like the best movie ever made, and that's how I want people to move through it. I think where we suffer in the endurance space community is framing it [through an athletic lens] as these superhumans doing superhuman things. It’s so difficult to grasp for someone who's running a mile. If we can introduce greater notions of play, camaraderie, exploration and creativity it allows the endurance sports space to be this genre beyond just action and adventure. It can be romantic, it can be comedy.”
It’s clear that Ben uses movement for thinking - maybe for thinking about movement. He talks of being inspired by artist Richard Long, the conceptual artist who created work inspired by walking and was nominated for the Turner Prize four times. He talks about reaching the flow state and revealing “new findings and meditations” through movement.
Leaving home
So how did this gentle, playful approach to endurance sports lead to an extreme endeavor like The Marathon Earth Challenge?
“The pandemic upended life and affected travel. The world was always my muse. I didn’t know if I’d ever have the opportunity to do this again, so the pandemic was the catalyst to quit the job, sell all the shit, and self-fund the adventure of a lifetime.”
The catalyst was a video call with work at the start of 2022 celebrating Ben’s eight years with the company. He says that saw an infinity sign in the 8. That night he went on a walk to clear his head and think.
“I'm a big fan of reinvention and productive self-destruction. I came home to my wife and I was like, ‘Yo, I'm gonna quit my job and do something new. I don't know what that's going to be.’”
He did have some ideas, though, and a little bit of history. When Ben turned 40 he ran nine marathons in nine days, he also ran five ultras in five cities in five days across Oceania. Then, in 2021 he tried doing 10,000 km by foot, and did 173 marathons “just as a way to find joy in a miserable time.” He submitted an application to get a Guinness World Record but it was rejected for being too niche.
“But they were like, ‘Hey, the global record is only 239.’ I thought if i just quit my job…”
“The funny thing is, if you're crazy, it's hard to recognize that you're insane. But for me, prior to this project, I had already done 63,000 km (39,000 miles) by foot across six continents and done 600 freestyle marathons, so, for me, it was logical.”
“Being an ad man, there's what's called a Big Idea, and then there's making that big idea work. So, I told my [newspaper editor] wife and she said, ‘As a newswoman, I love this idea - it's amazing. As your wife, it's gonna take some workshopping.’”
Naturally, and according to his DIY philosophies, meticulous planning took place. The year was arranged continentally, and into four quarters for ideal weather patterns. Then the necessary promises were made:
Between each quarter, Ben “would come home to Toronto to see her, and do the dishes.”
Once a quarter, she would choose somewhere and fly out to meet Ben.
“Every day, I called her at 7pm her time, which was great when I was in the longitude sync with her. But for the other three quarters of the year I never got a full night's sleep. I remember being in Cairo and Azerbaijan waking up at 2am and calling her.”
He can expect no sympathy from me on the third one. Living with a two-year-old who thunders into my bed every night at some point between 1am and 5am, a once-nightly wakeup to talk to my wife sounds great.
Travel insurance
Ben is repeatedly thankful to his family for his “real fun prance around the world.” The planning was necessary, however. He says that he ran in either 70 or 62 countries.
“It's controversial what is considered a country, right? The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is only recognized by Turkey, and the same goes to Palestine.”
As a globetrotter myself, I found myself incredibly envious of his travels (not of the 242 marathons part). He talks about the street life of Mumbai, the nomad-related pollution of Ulaanbaatar, and the map perception problems of La Paz, but he completed that meticulous plan. He got his world record.
Ben’s a fully-grown man with a loving, supportive family, though. All those months away from home, away from the people that care about him must’ve been difficult for all.
“When you have important stakeholders in your life, you’ve got to negotiate proper parameters with them so they have peace of mind. Part of that was wearing a Garmin GPS device, so my family could track my whereabouts in real time. That’s fine, but there's also parts of the world where the police are the most untrustworthy gang that happens to have a uniform. So if we hit that SOS button, you're just inviting trouble.”
Going back to those “moments of interactions and engagement,” however, Ben enjoyed the full gamut. From a lack of public restrooms in one country leading to him choosing to relieve himself in his pants rather than suffer corporal punishment (“Pissing in a bush works in a democracy.”), getting jumped, and visiting countries with ongoing genocides (“There's parts of the Middle East I like, but theocratic kingdoms don't pass the vibe check for me.”), to his humungous beard acting as both sun protection and a conversation starter.
“I like to see the dignity and sometimes undignified situations but failures in those moments are as scary as twisting an ankle. Truthfully, that's just the price you pay. Adventure is a full spectrum, you can’t go out there just for the good of it. There's bad in adventure, and that's getting slashed by a knife sometimes.”
“As a white dude who's tattooed, I fully recognize that I can move through the world in a totally different way. We can never mistake leisure for real life. Firstly, I have the means to be able to move before or after work, which a single mother or someone who's working multiple jobs might not have, and secondly, travel in and of itself is such a privilege.”
Having completed his incredible, self-funded year abroad, Ben Pobjoy talks about how he found more similarities than differences
“99% of the world, you wake up, you go to your job that you hate just to get paid, you run some errands, and then you just want to hang out with your family, and eat your favorite food, do a bit of leisure.”
“Our difference is 1%: language, ethnicity, religion. I found that really beautiful at a time where I'm trying to reconcile the physical and digital worlds. I feel like we’re in this blur right now. Having spent so much time in the physical world last year, I realized people are just trying to do their thing and live, and I just think that's so beautiful.”
Yes, he got that Guinness World Record under his belt, but more than that, he’s back on the job market with a new wealth of human experience, and some rich fully-formed perspectives on the world of endurance sports - and the world.
The beneficiaries of Ben Pobjoy’s next big idea can count themselves very lucky. Until then, he can enjoy going back to the world of unbroken nights of sleep and doing the dishes.
Ways to make running suck less covered today
Run to get (and stay) healthy
Use running to think deeply
Run to play and find camaraderie
Run to explore and observe the human condition
Run to find serendipitous moments of magic
Treat running like a romcom rather than a billion-dollar blockbuster
Run an appropriate amount that you remain married
Running Sucks Haiku of the Week
I got diagnosed:
It’s spinal inflammation.
I’ve got a weak butt…
It sounds gnarly, but it doesn’t require surgery (phew - quite a relief). The good news is that I mainly need to do a variety of hip and glute strengthening exercises. Luckily, I remember the Rover’s Revenge from my mum’s old Jane Fonda VHS, so it’s all under control, and I’ll be back to definitely not running marathons quite soon.
Any injuries in your life? No? Great. Good for you.
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An incredible achievement ! would be interested to know if a 75 flight carbon footprint was ever considered in the planning phase and if there were ways to mitigate it through overland travel?
I love your haikus. Thank you!
Not so lovely is that spinal inflammation. The good news: there are loads of beautiful people with beautiful (butt) cheeks on the internet to watch perform exercises and to repeat after :) happy recovery!! 🌄