Young parents break world record by running half marathon every day for 77 days

A South Australian couple have broken a world record after completing a half marathon every day for 77 days.

Most couples with full-time jobs and three young children would have enough on their plate, but Justin McDonald, 37, and Kate McDonald, 34, from Penola in south-east South Australia, completed their record attempt at the weekend.

The effort was more remarkable considering Ms McDonald did not know what distance a marathon was 10 years ago.

"I thought a marathon was, like, something just for the Olympics. I didn't know that normal people just did that," she said. "I didn't know anything about running at all.  Some people thought we were crazy."

After deciding she wanted to try running marathons, Kate found an online training program for beginners and the couple got started.

In 2013 they ran their first marathon.  While running became an immediate passion, it took some time for Kate to be comfortable with the new obsession.

The goal 77 half marathons in 77 days.  Two years ago, Kate started following a woman in Canada on social media who was looking to break the same 21k-per-day record that they would attempt.

"I just couldn't stop looking [at her account] everyday," Ms McDonald said.

"Everyday I wanted to see how she'd gone … I just needed to check how she was going."

Halfway through her attempt, Kate knew she wanted to go after the record herself.

At that stage, the couple was running five kilometres every day, but six months ago that then extended to 10km in preparation for their record attempt.

"When Kate first started running she would run early in the morning or late at night so we wouldn't be seen, but now that doesn't bother us at all," Justin said.

posted Thursday June 20th