British man runs 200 marathons in 200 days with his dogs

A 40-year-old British man and his two dogs have hit a marathon milestone, completing their 200th 42.2-km run in 200 days. Aaron Robinson of London, along with his border collies—one-year-old Inca and two-year-old River—hit their 200th consecutive day of running the marathon distance on Thursday.

The streak has already more than doubled the men’s official world record for the most consecutive days running the marathon distance—82, set by India’s Devdutt Sharma in January. But Robinson told BBC News he doesn’t plan to stop as long as his dogs remain eager to go on their extended mornining walks, which Robinson says typically last five hours. “I just want to run and push myself and do as many as we can,” he said. If the dogs want to run in the morning, then we’ll run.”

Robinson said he has stayed injury free so far during the streak, and that he’s consistently resisted the temptation to sleep in—he and the dogs get up at 3 a.m. to fit in the run before Robinson goes to work—but that he came very close to giving up on Day 171. “I did five miles and I thought, ‘I’ve had enough of this, I can’t do this any more,'” he told BBC News, adding that he then stopped and posted on Strava that his record attempt was over. “Then my dogs had a very stern word with me—words I couldn’t possibly repeat … and said, ‘Get back out there and finish this.’ So that’s what we did and now we’re still going. So it’s thanks to my dogs that we’re still doing this.”

Border collies are known to be exceptional runners that can easily outpace their owners. The number of kilometres a dog can run can vary depending on the dog’s breed, health, attention span and training.

Earlier in his streak, Robinson told the Daily Mail that he faced a lot of heat online for putting this mileage on his dogs, but he defended himself: “Since border collies are working dogs, if they weren’t pets they would be used to working on a farm all day, so they’re very used to running and working hard, and actually the cruel thing is just to keep them inside,” said Robinson. “They love it.”

Robinson is using the streak to raise funds for the charity he works for, Hope for Justice, which fights against modern-day slavery and human trafficking

posted Saturday July 8th
by Running Magazine