If you are all inspired by the ultra-marathon running scene, you likely have heard of Candice Burt, arguably one of the greatest women ultrarunners to date.
While it is always exciting to watch Candice Burt race in official ultramarathon events, this intrepid runner is often up to some pretty incredible feats behind the scenes with her own training.
Her latest venture has been nothing short of remarkable and something that probably feels superhuman and completely unattainable to even the most seasoned marathon runners.
For 200 consecutive days, spanning from November 5, 2022, to May 23, 2023, ultrarunner Candice Burt has been running 32 miles every single day.
Over this 6 1/2-month time frame, Candice Burt ran an incredible 6400 miles (10,300 kilometers), which is roughly the distance from Seattle, Washington to Fort Myers, Florida round trip, or the distance from Los Angeles, California, to New York City, New York and back and then some.
For 200 consecutive days, come rain, sleet, snow, hail, wind, hot Arizonan sun, or any other weather conditions, ultrarunner Candice Burt got out there and got her 32 miles in the books.
Day 200 / 6,436 miles / 32 miles a day
— Candice (@runcandice) May 24, 2023
“I’m pretty tired… I think I’ll go home now” —Forrest Gump pic.twitter.com/XNTdUaDT5f
Why 32 miles? The shortest standard ultramarathon race distance is 50 km, which works out to 31.068 miles.
Because Burt was seeking to run an ultramarathon distance every day, she wanted to log at least 32 miles per day to give herself some padding or a buffer around the daily mileage to ensure that she would be covering at least the official 50km distance every day.
Her daily ultramarathon run would usually take somewhere between five and six hours and sometimes had to take place in the wee hours of the morning or late at night based on her travel schedule and other obligations.
In what can only be described as an exemplary performance of pure grit and determination, the 41-year-old mother of two Candice Burt achieved what she believes no other runner has yet to accomplish in terms of the most consecutive days of completing an ultramarathon distance run.
In fact, she intends to submit her meticulous running stats for each of the 200 consecutive ultramarathon days to the Guinness Book of World Records for ratification as an official world record.
Candice Burt is now a fixture in the ultramarathon scene, and even helps organize epic ultramarathon events like 200-mile races.
Burt grew up running cross country and track in high school, and had run a handful of marathons in her young adult years, but had no aspirations of being an ultra marathon runner.
Reportedly that changed when Candice Burt read Christopher McDougall’s bestseller Born to Run, which was released in 2009, and met a woman who had finished a 100-mile race.
The confluence of learning about the Tarahumara tribe who run epic distances and meeting someone in person not much unlike herself who had indeed become a 100-mile finisher compelled Burt to venture into the world of ultrarunning.
Although running streaks (running consecutively every day without taking a rest day) are not necessarily uncommon among dedicated endurance runners, running an ultramarathon distance every day in a row takes the basic running streak to epic proportions.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Candice Burt shared that her goal to run an ultra marathon distance for 200 consecutive days was primarily an exercise in curiosity in terms of testing her own physical and mental strength to see what her body could do.
As she said in the interview, the ultrarunning streak became “the little snowball at the top of the hill that just started gathering more snow and got bigger and bigger and bigger.”
Because she was hoping that her ultramarathon running streak would be ratified as an official world record, she had to do all of her runs outdoors rather than use a treadmill, and had to be steadfast in recording each and every run with a GPS running watch.
In fact, Burt even wore two GPS watches every day to ensure that she had a backup in case one failed due to the length of every run and the possibility of losing an accurate GPS signal.
She also took photos and videos to document her journey, both for her own personal digital “scrapbook“ of her adventure as well as for evidence and record-keeping purposes.
After the 200th day of running 32 miles per day every single day, you would think that Candice Burt would kick back on day 201 and lay around on the couch.
However, she once again laced up her running shoes and ran the full marathon distance (26.2 miles), a bucket list running goal that most recreational runners work months, if not years, to be able to cover without stopping.
Day 201 / one day after world record / 26.2 miles today
— Candice (@runcandice) May 25, 2023
One thing that is really surprising to me is that a marathon today (26.2 miles) felt way easier than doing an ultramarathon (32 miles). It also felt like a lot less stress on my body. I’m currently doing a reverse taper! pic.twitter.com/88IDE9ROtA
On her Instagram, she wrote:
“One thing that is really surprising to me is that a marathon today (26.2 miles) felt way easier than doing an ultramarathon. It also felt like a lot less stress on my body. Normally the last 1-2hrs can feel quite tedious as time seems to slow down and the miles get longer…Knowing I had 6 fewer miles and no rules to follow felt so freeing! The day felt light and fun.”
Clearly, this superwoman demonstrates that anything is possible with hard work and a whole bunch of grit.
We can’t wait to see where her running journey and running goals take her next.
You can keep abreast of ultrarunner Candice Burt’s running adventures on her Instagram account here or personal website here.
To learn more about training for an ultramarathon, check out our ultramarathon training plans here.
