Mensen Ernst (1795 – 22 January 1843) was born as Mons Monsen Øyri, in the summer of 1795 in the village of Fresvik along the

Sognefjord The Sognefjord or Sognefjorden (, en, Sogn Fjord), nicknamed the King of the Fjords ( no, Fjordenes konge), is the largest and deepest fjord in Norway. Located in Vestland county in Western Norway, it stretches inland from the ocean to the sm ...

, in the municipality of Vik in

Sogn og Fjordane Sogn og Fjordane (; English: "Sogn and Fjordane") was, up to 1 January 2020, a county in western Norway, when it was merged to become part of Vestland county. Bordering previous counties Møre og Romsdal, Oppland, Buskerud, and Hordaland, the c ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. He was a road runner and

ultramarathon An ultramarathon, also called ultra distance or ultra running, is any footrace longer than the traditional marathon length of . Various distances are raced competitively, from the shortest common ultramarathon of to over . 50k and 100k are bot ...

ist and one of the first sport professionals and employed as a courier. He made his living running, mainly through placing bets on himself being able to run a certain distance within a period of time.

Trips

He was reputed to have run about from

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

. It took him 14 days starting on 11 June 1832—averaging over a day. On a later trip, from

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comm ...

and back again, lasting 59 days, he ran per day. On his trips he took very little rest and never slept on a bed. When he did rest it was short naps, between ten and fifteen minutes at a time, and he took them standing or leaning against a tree with a handkerchief over his face.https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87068192/1891-05-21/ed-1/seq-3/print/image_681x648_from_1779%2C3761_to_3241%2C5153/ His last trip started in Bad Muskau, and went through

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

and

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo met ...

, from where he intended to run along the

Nile The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin language, Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered ...

until he found its source. He died in January 1843 from

dysentery Dysentery (UK pronunciation: , US: ), historically known as the bloody flux, is a type of gastroenteritis that results in bloody diarrhea. Other symptoms may include fever, abdominal pain, and a feeling of incomplete defecation. Complication ...

, close to the border between

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Med ...

and Sudan, where he was buried a few days later. The place of his death is now buried by the

Aswan Dam The Aswan Dam, or more specifically since the 1960s, the Aswan High Dam, is one of the world's largest embankment dams, which was built across the Nile in Aswan, Egypt, between 1960 and 1970. Its significance largely eclipsed the previous Aswan L ...

Notes

External links

Mensen Ernst - Original GlobetrotterA Wonderful Runner - NY Times, 1879Mensen Ernst - King of the Runners
1795 births 1843 deaths Norwegian male long-distance runners Norwegian ultramarathon runners Endurance games Male ultramarathon runners {{Norway-athletics-bio-stub