An unofficial guide to running seven marathons in seven days in melting madness of Bangkok
- Hong Kong-based Ukrainian Oleksii Melnyk completes the feat because he was ‘bored’ while ‘stuck in Thailand’
- The ultramarathon runner documents his one litre Coca-Cola diet, 7-Eleven ice stops and breaking government curfews
A litre of Coca-Cola, lots of chicken breast and a decent pair of running shoes. These are just some of the things you need if you want to embark on a mind-boggling seven marathons in seven days. That is 42.195km per day – 295.365km overall.
Hong Kong-based Ukrainian Oleksii Melnyk – who dabbles in trail running, modelling and acting – found himself stranded in Thailand in April by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Doing “seven-seven” was not part of the plan, but things took off after the 33-year-old casually completed a full marathon one day. His last feat of endurance was completing his first 100-mile trail run in Hong Kong at the end of last year.
“I thought, ‘maybe I can do more [of these] in a row’, so I tried. I was bored. Usually I do training or endurance for competitions in a few months, but with this situation no-one knows. So I just wanted to see if I could do seven marathons in a row.”