55-year-old Hilde Dosogne of Belgium recently set a new world record for most consecutive marathons after running 366 full marathons (over 15,000 km) in 2024.

On May 30, 2024, Hilde Dosogne had already broken the women’s world record for most consecutive marathons – 150, set by Erchana Murray Bartlett – but she didn’t stop running until December 31st, when she recorded her 366th consecutive full marathon of the year. It’s a monumental achievement on par with that of the men’s category set in 2023 by Brazilian runner Hugo Farias who also completed 366 marathons. As you can imagine, running 42.195 km per day, every day, for a year is incredibly taxing on the body, but while Hilde had to overcome fatigue and bursitis (painful inflammation of the joints), she claims that the mental stress of having to show up at the starting line every day was her most difficult challenge.

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“Mentally, I underestimated it,” Hilde said about the challenge. “It’s harder to prepare for that. I started each marathon at an agreed time so that people always knew when they could join me running. Of course, that doesn’t leave much room for flexibility. You always have to be there: in the dark, in the cold, rain, you name it. The free feeling of running is completely gone.”

Hilde completed most of her marathons around the Watersportbaan, a large rowing training complex in Ghent, running 8 laps of 5 km each time, with an extra 2.5 kilometers to reach 42.195 km. In practice, she always ran until her GPS watch showed 42.5 km, just to be sure. It is estimated that the 55-year-old Belgian woman ran at least 2,000 laps around the Watersportbaan last year.

Believe it or not, Hilde Dosogne also worked part-time the entire year, getting up early to go to work and also running for about four hours every day, before returning home. It drained her energy, but she had a plan drawn up with a dietician to make sure her body had the necessary resources to push through. For breakfast, she had pancakes with extra protein powder mixed into the batter, she consumed energy gels during the daily marathons, drank a recovery shake afterward, and then in the evening she had a sandwich and a warm meal.

“Fortunately your body adapts quickly. For example, during my first marathons, I still had to take 7 gels, gradually 5 per marathon were enough,” Hilde told Running Magazine (Dutch).

 

The 55-year-old runner went through two pairs of running shoes every month and relied heavily on compression socks to prevent lactic acid buildup in her calf muscles. There were several times when Hilde literally had to crawl up and keep running after several falls, but her hardest moment came one day when she fell after running about 25 km and feared that she had broken a finger. She rushed to the hospital to have it checked out and then ran a full 42.195 km to make sure her record attempt was still valid. She ended up running 69 km that day.

Apart from setting a new world record for women, Hilde Dosogne also managed to raise over 65,000 euros through donations for the non-profit organization BIG Against Breast Cancer. Speaking about her achievement, the 55-year-old said that she would like her record “to be considered not a shining example of a healthy lifestyle, but an example of personal perseverance.”