On January 31, Mike Wardian boarded an airplane that once carried rock ‘n’ roll legends Guns N’ Roses and Metallica on worldwide concert tours. Seven days later he deplaned with a rock star ultrarunning world record that could be hard to beat.
The 51-year-old Arlington, Virginia-based runner has built a reputation for his prolific and adventurous running endeavors, having run in 50 countries around the world and accomplished numerous multi-run feats of endurance—including averaging 2:31 for six marathons to set a World Marathon Majors record in 2016, running both Colorado’s Leadville 100 and the Pikes Peak Marathon in the span of 30 hours in 2017, and running 3,000 miles across the U.S. in 62 days in 2022.
In addition to running many of the world’s most challenging ultra-distance races—including the Hardrock 100, Western States, H.U.R.T. 100, Marathon des Sables, UTMB, and Tarawera, etc.—he’s also twice won the World Marathon Challenge that entails running seven marathons on seven continents in seven days.
So when Wardian saw that California runner Christian Brown-Johnson ran a record-setting seven 50K races on seven continents in seven days in just 31 hours, 25 minutes and 37 seconds as part last fall’s Great World Race, Wardian heard an internal voice that screamed, “Challenge accepted!”
After the World Marathon Challenge team reached out to see if he’d like to take a crack at that record, Wardian and agent Josh Cox pitched it to Wardian’s sponsors, Teva, Bakline, Injinji, Medstar, and Squirrel’s Nut Butter, and before long he was packing his bags for another seven-day whirlwind running adventure around the planet.
He boarded an Antarctica-bound chartered Boeing 737 airplane once used by a few famous rock bands, including Guns N’ Roses, with 51 other ambitious runners and set off for a journey that would take them about 25,000 miles spread of 14 time zones in just a week’s time.
“I just thought it would be a really cool project,” Wardian said. “It was a chance for me to just see if I still had the ability to execute at the highest level, but also try to set a new world record and also run in some place I’d never run before.”
Running the Globe
In each location, Wardian would run the marathon course that all World Marathon Challenge participants would run, then proceed to run an additional 7.8K (or 4.87 miles) to complete the 50K distance. This year’s journey started at Ultima Base, Antarctica, then continued in successive days to Perth, Australia, Cape Town, South Africa, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Madrid, Spain, Forteleza, Brazil, and Miami, Florida.
While the running part was fast and challenging, the biggest variables were how to refuel and rest effectively en route to the next location before doing it all over again the next day. What made it a bit more challenging is that Wardian has been following a vegan lifestyle for the past four years, so he was limited, at times, with what he could eat. He managed by using a variety of gels and supplements on the run and eating mostly natural foods to and from airports and onboard the airplane.
Chinese runner Shengxian Wang, who was not running 50Ks courses, put up quite a challenge from the start, outrunning Wardian by 7 minutes in the initial marathon in Antarctica with an opening 3:28:24 effort. Wardian closed the deficit in Cape Town, running a 2:49:37 (his fastest marathon of the tour) to Wang’s 2:56:23, but then then he was beaten in Australia by another Chinese runner, Yusheng Ni, 3:04:15 to 3:11:29.
Then after a spell of ineffective fueling, Wardian finished third (2:58:05) to Wang (2:49:13) and Ni (2:53:50) in Dubai.
“I did a bad job fueling between Australia and Dubai, and I lost a lot of time. I just didn’t eat enough,” Wardian said. “So after that I just slammed calories like I was on the Appalachian Trail. I forced myself to eat three plates full of hummus and bread and veggies, and the next day I crushed and put like 12 minutes into the leader. Sometimes you don’t do what you need to do and, and you pay their price, right?”
From there, Wardian got into a groove, refueled much better, and didn’t lose another marathon, running 2:53:09 in Spain, 3:09:53 in Brazil, and 2:56:45 in Miami. In all he averaged 3:04:56 per marathon, edging runner-up Wang (3:06:05) and Ni in third (3:13:10).
More notably, Wardian averaged 3:49:33 per 50K. His total cumulative running time for the week was 26 hours, 40 minutes, and 16 seconds (for an average pace of 7:23 per mile), which surpassed Brown-Johnson’s total time of 31:25:37 by more than 4 hours and 38 minutes.
Amazingly, Wardian estimates he pulled it off while averaging less than 4 hours of sleep per day on the airplane. But the fun and excitement of the adventure helped offset his growing fatigue.
“I don’t think there was anything that made me happier than going out and doing 50K every day,” he said. “It’s just pure bliss for me.”
Wardian wore a variety of Teva shoes, including the Aventrail shoes and Aventrail R2T sandals, as well as a yet-to-be-released road running prototype.
While Wardian is a professional runner who is grateful for his sponsors and globetrotting opportunities, he admits he does it for the fun and adventure of it all (and to raise money for a good cause), and also takes pride in living a full life that blends his family, running, playing Pickleball, and full-time work at his shipping brokerage company.
“I think the greatest part about these events is that you have the opportunity to be in a group with really unique like-minded people in a rather harsh environment that kind of bonds you like a family. It’s like trauma bonding, I guess,” he added. “I just love the fact that people are putting themselves out there. Most of them are not professional athletes, but there is a high level of competency and growth over the course of the event. You can see that people are quite nervous at the beginning, and by the end they’re quite confident in what they’re capable of after they’ve battled each and every day to make it to the start line and then to make it to the finish line.”
Age is Just a Number
Wardian turns 52 in April and has no plans of slowing down or limiting himself. He’s planning a 200-mile run around Virginia and Washington D.C. in April and will begin running the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail from the Canadian border to the Mexican border on July 15. He’s also starting to train for a transatlantic rowing adventure in 2027.
Aside from maintaining a vegan diet (after years of being a vegetarian), he also credits lower running volume (about 60 to 80 miles per week), and a more dedicated strength regimen since he was in his mid-40s as reasons for his ability to recover and his continued success.
“I’ve always kind of pushed the envelope, but I feel like the older I am, the more capacity I have to do even bigger, longer and badass projects,” Wardian said. “Hopefully I can inspire people to keep chasing their dreams as they age and, and not give up on things just because you are older. I think the greatest part about aging is you just have more experience, which gives you the capacity and perspective to allow you to do even cooler and bigger things.”
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