RECORD RUNNING
On Monday 26 August , at 5:30pm , South African ultra runner Henk Moen hit send on an important mail to Guinness World Records , with a 43-page attachment , to apply for a new running record he believed he had set . Where a record application process normally takes 12 weeks for a free assessment , he also paid the 850 US Dollars fee for the expedited five-day process , as he wanted to get the record in before somebody else did so , and to his huge relief , at 2:45pm the next day , he had his reply : “ We are thrilled to inform you that your application for Fastest aggregate time to run an ultra marathon on each continent has been successful , and you are now the Guinness World Records Title Holder !”
Henk in action at the 2023 Loskop Marathon in South Africa
“ I was very worried , as a competing Antarctica race organiser discredits the particular Antarctica race that I did , quoting tectonic plates and stating that King George Island is technically not part of Antarctica , and I was concerned that Guinness World Records may have the same view , even though they recognised the race I did for the female record ,” recalls Henk . “ I had a Plan B , as there is another ultra in Antarctica in early November , but it is obscenely expensive , so I really hoped they would accept the race I had done . I was so relieved when I received their e-mail less than 24 hours later , saying the record was mine .”
Seven in Seven
The seven races that Henk submitted in his record application were as follows :
• 6 May 2023 Loskop Ultra 50km ( South Africa , Africa ) 4:12:11
• 1 Oct 2023 Silesia Ultra 50km ( Poland , Europe ) 4:19:04
• 11 Mar 2024 Antarctica Ultra Marathon 50km ( Antarctica ) 5:32:11
• 22 Jun 2024 Untamed Border Run 50km ( Australia , Oceania ) 6:52:23
• 29 Jun 2024 Kackar Ultra 55km ( Turkey , Europe ) 8:17:44
• 6 Jul 2024 Buckeye Trail 50km ( USA , North America ) 6:44:58
• 13 Jul 2024 UAI 55km ( Brazil , South America ) 6:06:51
That gave him a combined time of 42:05:22 to complete the seven ultras on seven continents , all of which had to be 50km or longer , and that was comfortably faster than the previous record of 48:20:23 . But that was just the half of it . Next came the process to compile all the evidence of those seven ultras around the world , and Henk says the list of required documents was substantial : “ I had to include a timekeeper ’ s statement , two independent witness statements , photographic evidence , race results , GPS tracking data , two website links per race , and all of that in six documents per race , with a cover document , so it came to 43 pages in total ! And before submitting that , I first had to register an account on the Guinness World Records site as well .”
“ I knew I ran the record . The question was whether I could prove it , so I made a huge effort to compile all the documents . One challenge was that they asked for video evidence , but who takes a full video of an eight-hour ultra-marathon run ? I only had some short videos , but luckily , I had Strava and GPS evidence , which they accepted instead . So , I really went all out to make it as easy as possible for the records manager to see compelling evidence that I had done all the races ,” he continues .
“ It took me many , many hours to compile all the evidence , and I was dependent on other people around the world , because at least three documents per race had to be signed by independent witnesses . That ’ s where I really struggled , getting responses from some of the race organisers or timekeepers , and it was only on that Monday in August that I got my last document from America , after doing some serious hunting for contact details . And the next day I had the record !” Unsurprisingly , there ’ s an interesting story behind Henk ’ s record , including the small but vital point that he actually never set out to run this particular record ! But to tell that story , one needs to start at the beginning …
Up for the Challenge
Henk is a 53-year-old chemical engineer who is currently part of a team running a small chrome mining operation in Limpopo Province , so he says he
Tackling last year ’ s Silesia Ultra in Poland
Images : Courtesy Henk Moen
Coming home at the Loskop Marathon
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