Martin Parnell: Man Running 250 Marathons for 2010 Resolution

by Amy Judd | December 31, 2009 at 10:46 am

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Martin Parnell from Alberta, Canada, has already decided on his New Year's resolution, he is going to run 250 marathons in 2010, that's five marathons a week, every week, for the whole year.

Parnell, 54-years-old and semi-retired will begin his first marathon tomorrow, on January 1st.

"I'll be running five a week from Sunday to Thursday, basically every week in 2010," Parnell said in a recent interview with the The Canadian Press.

"I think it's possible. I'm going to give it a darn good try and yeah, I've put in a lot of planning in the last six months trying to get this prepared."

He is not a newcomer to the sport however, he has previously run in Ironman competitions and began competitive running about seven years ago. He has been training on the 42.2 kilometre Cochrane-Foothills marathon course in the Rocky Mountains and has run that 20 times in 2009.

His goal is to raise $250,000 for Right to Play, an organization that uses sports and teams to improve the health and life of children around the world from poorer communities.

"Five years ago I did a cycling trip across Africa and cycled from Cairo to Cape Town and it was a real eye-opener for me. I met a lot of kids along the way and I've done a lot of sport in my life," Parnell explained.

"I met kids and we played soccer and table tennis and that was a real inspiration for me of how sport can help kids."

If Martin Parnell runs all 250 marathons, he will have covered 10,500 kilometres, which would be the same as running from Cochrane, Alberta, to Boston, then over to Seattle, then up to Vancouver, then back to Cochrane.

He originally wanted to run 365 marathons in 365 days, but his doctor said no.

"I think I'm in pretty fair shape. I'm going to be monitored for the whole year. I'm getting medical tests every month. I'm using some GPS data that will monitor me physically and if there's something untoward we'll have to address that."

He will run mostly around Cochrane, but he has signed up to run the Vancouver Marathon, Boston Marathon, Victoria Marathon, Las Vegas Marathon and the San Francisco Marathon, plus snowshoe race in Yellowknife.

Martin knows that he has the weather up against him, especially in the early months when the temperatures can get down to almost -40 degrees.

John Stanton, founder of the Running Room said that what Parnell wants to do is possible, but he wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

Probably the most famous Canadian proved things are possible - Terry Fox ran a marathon every day until he got to Thunder Bay," Stanton said from his office in Edmonton.

If you want to track Martin's progress or donate to his cause, you can check out his website Marathon Quest 250.