American I ’ d met in Antarctica had run his fourth continent in April , and then his fifth continent in May . I knew his plans were to run in Madagascar on 8 June , for Africa , and then in Patagonia on 21 September for South America , and this was eating away at me , so at the end of May , I decided to see if could beat him to it . I ran the Comrades on the ninth of June , even though I hadn ’ t been able to train properly for it , but I wanted to keep my consecutive streak going , and then I said , all right , now I need to catch up … so I went online and booked four ultras in four weeks on four continents , on four consecutive Saturdays !
The four races that Henk decided to tackle were the Untamed Border Run in Australia on 22 June , followed by the Kackar Ultra in Turkey on 29 June , the Buckeye Trail 50km in the USA on 6 July and the UAI 55km in Brazil on 13 July . “ These were four very beautiful , but very difficult trail races from 50 to 55km each , and mostly in mountains , so I knew it wasn ’ t going to be easy , including needing 17 flights to pull it all off ,” he says .
Unsurprisingly , he also faced a few problems in finding these races , such as signing up for a race in Peru in South America on the third weekend , only to find out it had been shortened from 50.9km to ‘ only 48.5km , and thus would not count for his record attempt . “ It ’ s just by chance that I saw on their website a different distance on a different page , and suddenly I knew I couldn ’ t use that race , because it had to be at least 50km . I ’ d already booked my tickets to America , but now I had to find another race for South America , which I found on the next weekend in Brazil , so I then had to find a new race in North America on the fourth weekend , and swap the two weekends around !”
Having taken a week off after Comrades , Henk jetted off to Australia , where he says he was the only international entry in a small , local race , and was treated like a VIP as a result . “ Many of the locals said they couldn ’ t believe I had flown all the way to Australia for their race ,” he recalls . Next was Turkey , a scenic run in the Kackar Mountains , and this is where the story took another twist . “ While in Turkey , I was killing time and decided to visit the Guinness World Records website , because I still thought I was on course to be the first to do seven ultras on seven continents , and instead I discovered that not only had it already been done , but there were several other records associated with this challenge ,
Getting VIP treatment during the Untamed Border 50km in Australia
Enjoying the scenery of the Kackar Ultra in Turkey
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