From the North to the South Pole on foot

Pat Farmer may be the fittest man on the planet, said Melissa Romero in Washingtonian. Farmer, 48, who’s earned the nickname “Australia’s Forrest Gump,” has been running about 26 miles a day—the equivalent of a marathon—while training for an insanely challenging goal: He will soon try to become the first person ever to run pole to pole—an 11-month, 13,049-mile journey over three continents and 14 countries, from the Arctic, through North, Central, and South America, and down to the Antarctic. “Nobody has ever backed up this sort of mileage day after day for such an extended period of time,” Farmer says. “Nobody on the face of the earth has ever done that.”

Farmer plans to run about 50 miles a day and sleep just four hours a night. He’ll burn an estimated 12,000 calories a day, which he’ll replace by drinking “liters and liters” of olive oil, which is high in fat and calories. Farmer, who says he has a “God-given gift” to run long distances, hopes to raise $100 million on his run to help provide safe drinking water in developing countries. “This is not about putting a gold medal around my neck,” he says. “I’m going to use that gift to support other people.”

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up