Ricardo Abad Martínez (

Tafalla Tafalla is a town and municipality located in the province and autonomous community of Navarre, northern Spain. The Postal code is 31300. Tafalla is an industrial and agricultural town. It produces beef, mutton, pork and chicken. History P ...

, January 8, 1971) is a Spanish ultrarunner. He holds the

world record A world record is usually the best global and most important performance that is ever recorded and officially verified in a specific skill, sport, or other kind of activity. The book ''Guinness World Records'' and other world records organization ...

for consecutive marathons run on consecutive days, 607. He is famous for executing the project "500 marathons in 500 days", in which he completed 500 marathons in 500 consecutive days. He started on the 1st of October 2010 and finished on February 12, 2012. He ran at least one marathon in every one of the 50

provinces of Spain A province in Spain * es, provincias, ; sing. ''provincia'') * Basque (, sing. ''probintzia''. * Catalan (), sing. ''província''. * Galician (), sing. ''provincia''. is a territorial division defined as a collection of municipalitie ...

. Abad sold each of the 21,000 km he ran at the rate of one euro each and donated the money to ANFAS, a Spanish organization that works in favour of people with intellectual disabilities. Ricardo broke the

for consecutive marathons (366) on 1 October 2011 in Madrid. Before him, the record was held by the Belgian

Stefaan Engels Stefaan Engels (born 7 April 1961, Ghent, Belgium), also known as "marathon man", is a Belgian marathoner and triathlete, the first man to run the marathon distance 365 consecutive times in a single year. He previously held the record for the most ...

(365). And before Engels, the record was held by Ricardo Abad with 150 marathons in a row in 2009. After breaking the record he went on to complete 500 marathons in Barcelona on February 12, 2012. The day after that he announced that he wanted to double the number and would continue running for another 500 days to complete 1000 marathons in 1000 days. He set May 22, 2012 as the deadline to find the necessary funding for the project, which included running a marathon in every continent in the world. Finally, after failing to find financing, he abandoned the project on 29 May 2012 after 607 marathons, which is the current world record. Ricardo ran all these marathons in a row even though he works in a factory 8 hours per day in shifts: for one week during the mornings, for another week during the evening and for another week during the night. When he worked in the morning or at night, he would run in the afternoon. When he worked in the evenings, he ran during the morning. Because of this, he would sometimes run two marathons in less than 12 hours. In 2012 he has been nominated for the

Prince of Asturias Awards The Princess of Asturias Awards ( es, Premios Princesa de Asturias, links=no, ast, Premios Princesa d'Asturies, links=no), formerly the Prince of Asturias Awards from 1981 to 2014 ( es, Premios Príncipe de Asturias, links=no), are a series of a ...

, as he already was in 2009.

Challenges

Among the most important challenges Ricardo Abad has completed are: * 150 marathons in 150 consecutive days (2009). * Caring peninsula (''Peninsula Solidaria''): Ricardo covered the Spanish perimeter in multiple stages in two phases. The first part started in September 2009 and ended in Motril. The second part started the 1st of May 2010. Many runners joined him for some kilometers along the way. * 500 marathons in 500 days.

500 marathons in 500 days

The challenge consists of running 500 marathons in 500 consecutive days. He completed 21,097.5 kilometers in a year and almost 5 months. * Number 1: October 1, 2010

* Number 200: April 18, 2011

* Number 268: June 25, 2011 Granada * Number 269: June 26, 2011 Málaga * Number 345: September 10, 2011 in Avila. * Number 346: September 11, 2011

Segovia Segovia ( , , ) is a city in the autonomous community of Castile and León, Spain. It is the capital and most populated municipality of the Province of Segovia. Segovia is in the Inner Plateau ('' Meseta central''), near the northern slopes of t ...

* Number 350: September 15, 2011

Santiago de Compostela Santiago de Compostela is the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia, in northwestern Spain. The city has its origin in the shrine of Saint James the Great, now the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, as the destination of the Way of S ...

* Number 351: September 16, 2011 Zamora * Number 352: September 17, 2011

Salamanca Salamanca () is a city in western Spain and is the capital of the Province of Salamanca in the autonomous community of Castile and León. The city lies on several rolling hills by the Tormes River. Its Old City was declared a UNESCO World Herit ...

* Number 353: September 18, 2011 Caceres * Number 360: September 25, 2011

Huesca Huesca (; an, Uesca) is a city in north-eastern Spain, within the autonomous community of Aragon. It is also the capital of the Spanish province of the same name and of the comarca of Hoya de Huesca. In 2009 it had a population of 52,059, almo ...

* Número 366: October 1, 2011

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...

. * Number 373: October 8, 2011

* Number 377: October 12, 2011

Zaragoza Zaragoza, also known in English as Saragossa,''Encyclopædia Britannica'"Zaragoza (conventional Saragossa)" is the capital city of the Zaragoza Province and of the autonomous community of Aragon, Spain. It lies by the Ebro river and its tributari ...

* Number 380: October 15, 2011

Palencia Palencia () is a city of Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is the capital and most populated municipality of the province of Palencia. Located in the Northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, in the northern half o ...

* Number 381: October 16, 2011 León * Number 387: October 22, 2011 Lleida * Number 394: October 29, 2011 Toledo * Number 395: October 30, 2011 Ciudad Real * Number 396: October 31, 2011

Badajoz Badajoz (; formerly written ''Badajos'' in English) is the capital of the Province of Badajoz in the autonomous community of Extremadura, Spain. It is situated close to the Portuguese border, on the left bank of the river Guadiana. The populatio ...

* December 3, 2011

Bilbao ) , motto = , image_map = , mapsize = 275 px , map_caption = Interactive map outlining Bilbao , pushpin_map = Spain Basque Country#Spain#Europe , pushpin_map_caption ...

* December 4, 2011

Santander Santander may refer to: Places * Santander, Spain, a port city and capital of the autonomous community of Cantabria, Spain * Santander Department, a department of Colombia * Santander State, former state of Colombia * Santander de Quilichao, a m ...

* December 10, 2011

Alicante Alicante ( ca-valencia, Alacant) is a city and municipality in the Valencian Community, Spain. It is the capital of the province of Alicante and a historic Mediterranean port. The population of the city was 337,482 , the second-largest in t ...

* December 11, 2011

Albacete Albacete (, also , ; ar, ﭐَلبَسِيط, Al-Basīṭ) is a city and municipality in the Spanish autonomous community of Castilla–La Mancha, and capital of the province of Albacete. Lying in the south-east of the Iberian Peninsula, the ...

* December 15, 2011

Lisboa Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administrative limits w ...

* January 14 and 15, 2012 Mallorca * January 22, 2012 Guadalajara * January 26, 2012

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Las Palmas (, ; ), officially Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, is a Spanish city and capital of Gran Canaria, in the Canary Islands, on the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital (jointly with Santa Cruz de Tenerife), the most populous city in the auto ...

* Number 500: February 12, 2012

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

Personal records

Half Marathon A half marathon is a road running event of —half the distance of a marathon. It is common for a half marathon event to be held concurrently with a marathon or a 5K race, using almost the same course with a late start, an early finish or shortcut ...

: 01h 19´48´´ Trubia 2008 * Marathon: 02h 46´11´´ San Sebastián 2009 * 100 km: 08h 36´44´´

* 24 hours (trail): 189 km * 24 hours (road): 194,5 km

Challenges

500 marathons in 500 days

Personal records

See also

References

External links