Tom Denniss: Circumnavigator

This past Monday night, I had the privilege of meeting someone who is in the middle of a pretty remarkable journey.

Tom Denniss, native of Sydney, Australia, is trying to become the first person to run around the world by Guinness World Record standards.  This is a man who has been running almost nonstop since December 31, 2011, and has clocked 10,000 kilometers already.  He's got about 19,000 more kilometers to go, and he's ticking that number downward by putting in an average of 50 kilometers a day.

He met me and a bunch of the Breakaway folks downtown for the Salty Dogs run that leaves from Bardog Tavern here in Memphis every Monday night.  He didn't run (no one expected him to) and I was happy to skip the run myself to socialize because I'd put in 16 miles in the previous two days.  I was "tired."

This man runs twice that - 32 miles - EVERY FREAKING DAY, seven days a week.  And he's committed to doing this for the almost two years it's going to take him to complete his journey.

And no one seems to know that he's doing it!  So I'm going to tell you he's doing it, because an accomplishment of that caliber is something so unfathomable I can't even wrap my head around it; I have nothing but admiration and awe for what he's doing.

Check out his website HERE, his blog entry about Monday night HERE (not only does he run an ultramarathon every single day, he also blogs every single day...that's almost more grueling for me to think about than the running), and if you're a member of the Memphis Runners Track Club, watch for my article about him in next month's magazine.

Pretty damn amazing, if you ask me...