The Triple 7 Quest has concluded but was delayed by weather for the final leg so the total duration was 11 days to complete all 7. Congrats to all the participants on finishing all of these marathons!
The Triple 7 Quest
As one who ran 5 solo marathons on 5 continents in 5 days (missing the 6th because of logistical problems in Cairo), I can tell you that it is not an easy experience! The travel alone can make you exhausted (I flew over 40,000 miles in that timeframe) and then you are running 26.2 miles every day – without sleeping in a bed! Complicate that even further by the varying weather conditions and dealing with curious immigration officers that are wondering why you are bouncing around like this and it can be quite a fun time! 🙂
So, I understand a little bit about what goes into the training for an event like this and the logistics of booking the travel since I did all of that on my own as well. If I was in a position to sign-up for this event, I would sign-up tomorrow! This sounds like an awesome event and I have had some time go back and forth with the organizer and you can tell he really loves what he does (the travel organizing and the marathons).
So, what is the Triple 7 Quest?
In February of 2015, runners will have the chance to run 7 organized marathons on 7 continents in just 7 days. The travel will all take place together and organized by Marathon Adventures. Here is the itinerary:
- Melbourne, Australia – February 8
- Abu Dhabi, UAE – February 9
- Paris, France – February 10
- Tunis, Tunisia – February 11
- New York, USA – February 12
- Punta Arenas, Chile – February 13
- King George Island, Antarctica – February 14
When I did my event, I did it in December and had avoided having to do anything in the Northeast US for fear of weather. Hopefully, there will not be any type of weather delays in the NYC area for their event! Given how much they are investing in this to make it a success, I am sure they have a great plan to deal with anything unforeseen like that.
Travel
They are not telling until all travel is booked what airlines they are using for what legs. There will be some bookings on all three major alliances – Oneworld, Skyteam, and Star. All fares will be eligible for mileage accrual so that might help it appear more like a mileage run. 🙂 The downside is that this is after Delta and United have gone to their revenue-based earning chart, so elite miles will be the real prize from the travel portion.
Steve Hibbs, the owner of Marathon Adventures, did tell me that flyers will be able to apply upgrade certificates (space available, of course) to the tickets, so that should help those of you who may want to do this but would like to do it more comfortably.
Cost
Now we get to the big part – what does this once-in-a-lifetime adventure cost? It rings up at $16,000 per person. Yes, that is a lot of money, but it is also reasonable considering that they are not booking mistake fares and tickets for just one or two people. My travel to 6 continents in 5 days had cost around $2,800, but that was just me with a couple of cheap tickets thrown in (no miles). Consider that they are paying for the organizing of the races, in addition to all of the travel, and you may start to see it add up.
Of course, you have big cost as well that figures in – the flight to Antarctica. Those tickets are not cheap! If you book a flight on your own, it is in the range of $5K per person so that helps to justify the overall cost.
Here is what they say on what the cost covers:
Your entry covers the cost of your flights from Australia to Asia, Asia to Europe, Europe to Africa, Africa to North America, North America to South America, South America to Antarctica, Antarctica to South America, South America to North America. In addition, your entry covers your ground transportation between the airports and the race sites, all of your race entry fees, one night hotel in Australia, one night hotel in North America, one night hotel in South America, camping overnight in Antarctica. Your entry also covers most of your meals between the end of the first race and the end of your last race.
Given the amount of money it will cost, I understand that this will be limited to a small group of people are able and willing to pay that for this. I will say this, if any of you want to see if I can make it through this event, maybe place near the top, I will gladly accept a dare – I run and you pay! 🙂
More Information
If you are interested in this, check out this website. I like what I know about Steve Hibbs and Marathon Adventures and I think they have what it takes to pull this out. It is always nice to find a person/company that loves both aspects of their niche – in this case, Steve is a highly qualified marathoner so he understands the running part as much as the travel network.
I’ve met Steve Hibbs and he’s a very serious runner and traveler. I ran Antarctica marathon with him and am glad he’s organizing this! I’m taking a pass though since I already have an award trip booked already in mid-Feb. I, too, think that the NYC part of the trip may be challenging.
This is really interesting since I know Richard Donovan is also organizing a similar trip in January 2015. He organizes the Antarctic Ice marathon and North Pole marathon each year (well-organized races and are absolutely amazing!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ4jc453rEg&feature=youtu.be
Awesome! Have you done one of Richard’s events? I know he is splitting them off this year (the half/full Ice Marathon and the 100K) and putting the 100K in January. That is actually the race I will hopefully be able to do one day! Big plans on my part 🙂
yes I’ve done both of Richard’s events. Awesome guy as well. Very down-to-earth and competitive runner. When you do the marathon at Union Glacier, you’ll be flying a Russian Ilyushin-76 plane. Up at the north, you’d be flying there on an Antonov-24. Very cool (literally!)
A correction: The world record is actually 4 days 22 hours 3 minutes. Triple 7 Quest have not delivered on the above either, but the World Marathon Challenge delivered on its promise of 7 marathons on 7 continents within 7 days
Hi I was part of the world Marathon challenge the Richard Donovan event which was organised in January we completed seven marathons on seven continents in seven days and broke all records. The Tripleseven quest event however did not complete in the seven days and failed but have since gone on to rubbish our own event claiming it didn’t really happen this is laughable. The world Marathon challenge is the only event that got anyone round in under seven days. Richard Donovan is a true gentleman who always keeps his word.
Congrats on completing such a wonderful event! I certainly enjoyed following along over the course of it. I also had written a post about your event as well. I know of the disagreements going on with both events and I have no desire to introduce it here on my blog since my goal is to help people runners travel and I have no desire to put anyone’s accomplishments down. Everyone in the World Marathon Challenge did something amazing and certainly did something no group has ever done (at least of that size as there was a group of 4 that did 50Ks a number of years ago). The Triple 7 runners also did a wonderful thing with their running accomplishments and, while I am sure that many are disappointed they were unable to complete their 7th continent/marathon in the 7 days, their efforts in running are to be commended as well.