How did you close out 2024 and welcome 2025? Probably not by running the last of some 9,500+ miles. On December 31, 2024, Belgian ultra runner Hilde Dosogne felt she had a world record in the bag. She hopes to be named the first woman to run a marathon every single day for a calendar year.
“I’m glad it’s over,” she said after crossing the year’s final finish line.
In addition to the personal reward for running a bit over 9,596 miles in a single year, the 55-year-old raised around $62,337. Those funds will be donated for breast cancer research.
Now she submits GPS data, photo and video evidence, and independent witness reports to the Guinness World Records organization. All that documentation is required as proof that she really ran at least 26.2 miles every day for all of 2024’s 366 days. (Yep—she did it in a leap year!) If approved, the record should officially be hers in about three months.
Dosogne would join Hugo Farias—who holds the male consecutive marathons record—and far surpass the female recordholder. That’s currently Australia’s Erchana Murray-Bartlett. She ran a marathon per day for 150 consecutive days.
One thing is sure: Dosogne’s journey was grueling, requiring perseverance through the flu, COVID-19, blisters, and mental strain. She doesn’t want others to hold her achievement up as a shining example of healthful living. She says her goal was for personal persistence. It’s not for everyone to imitate.
“The mental strain is harder than the physical. Of course, physically, everything has to be okay. Otherwise, you can’t run for four hours every day. But it was more mental to be there at the start line every day,” she says.
Dosogne worked early shifts at her job as an engineer to fit in the daily marathons. She ran mostly on a flat loop near water where wind was her greatest obstacle. She put in 26.4 miles—which is .2 more than the official marathon length—each day to ensure data accuracy. She didn’t want a slight variation to land her short of her goal.
Her toughest day came when she crashed after 16.8 miles. She dislocated a finger and needed emergency care. The delay resulted in too much time passing for Dosogne to be allowed to finish the same marathon by the regulation. The solution?
“She started from scratch again” the same day, says her daughter and cheerleader, Lucie.
Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. — Philippians 3:13-14
