Meet the Man Who Just Ran the Entire Tour de France Route

From Bicycling

The Tour de France is a beast of a bike race: Over the course of 23 days, the riders climb through the Alps and Pyrenees mountain ranges, completing 21 stages and logging a total of 2,082 miles.

It’s a heck of a course on a bike. But what if you were to try to make the trek on foot?

Sounds crazy, but one British runner has done just that. On May 19, Peter Thompson of Bournemouth, England, set out to run the exact entirety of the Tour’s course. On Wednesday, after 68 days of running, he finished it successfully-three days ahead of schedule (The cyclists will finish their race on July 29).

Thompson is the second person to run the Tour’s entire course. American runner Zoe Romano became the first to do so in 2013.

Testing running boundaries isn’t something new for Thompson. After scoring a 2:25 marathon PB, he hit a running block. He spent every second of his day obsessing over times, his training, and what he was eating.

“I stopped enjoying running,” Thompson says. “I needed a break.”

He decided it wasn’t so much that he needed to stop running, but that he needed to find a different direction for it-Thompson wanted the focus to be less about times, and more about the pure joy of pounding the pavement every day.

So he devised his first challenge: running a marathon in every European country on consecutive days. Thompson ran a marathon every day for 44 days in each one of the 44 countries in Europe, and donated the $25,000 he raised for mental health support and awareness. He finished that challenge about a year ago.

Thompson enjoyed exploring Europe in such an atypical way, and was touched by all of the people he encountered who ran with and supported him throughout the journey. When the time came to come up with a next test, he immediately thought of the Tour.

“I love the Tour de France,” Thompson says. “I’ve been following it the last four years. It’s just an iconic event. I love the scenery that the route goes through, and I love the teamwork involved.”

About six months out from the start of his Tour challenge, he began to prep. He slowly ramped up his mileage, until he was consistently running 80 to 90 miles a week. Because the course consists of crazy hills-which he anticipated to be the hardest part of the challenge-Thompson also included a lot of hill training and gym work to strengthen his legs.

His training paid off. He averaged about 30 miles a day, sometimes up to 35, at a 9:00 to 10:00 minute per mile pace. But getting used to that sheer number of miles was the hardest part.

“You don’t run 30 miles a day even when you train a lot,” Thompson says. “You have to adjust physically and mentally. Every day, I have the muscle soreness as if I’ve just run a marathon, and I’m really tired and hurting. I cannot think, I’ve got x number of days left. Every day is a bonus. Every day I’m out here is a blessing.”

Each day, he woke up at 6 a.m., traveled to the start line, and ran his 30 or so miles, stopping here and there for small water or food breaks provided by his girlfriend, who had traveled with him for the entirety of the challenge. Afterwards, he iced his feet and legs, downed about 6,000 calories-lots of pasta, Clif Bars, chocolate, and brioche-and headed to bed early to begin it all over again the next day. Sometimes that was in an actual bed, like at a hotel, a friend’s place, or a mobile home, but other times, it was at a campsite.

While the schedule was grueling, this doesn’t seem like it’s going to be Thompson’s last challenge. He doesn’t know what’s on the docket next, but he’s really enjoyed experiencing different countries, meeting different people, and learning about himself.

He’s also solidified his charity fund and mental health awareness program with a name: “Marathons for the Mind.” Through social media, he’s been able to spread awareness not only for his Tour running challenge, but, perhaps even more importantly to him, his cause.

Throughout his journey, he had been posting pictures and videos of what he’s doing and why he’s doing it on his Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and website, where he links to the donation page and shares his goal of raising 20,000 pounds for mental health support and awareness-that’s one thousand more pounds than his last challenge raised. Thompson hopes this visibility will also help spark crucial conversations focusing on mental health.

As for his next journey? It’s still too soon to tell, but we can be sure there will be a new challenge in his future soon-we’ll just have to wait and see what it is.

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