Running Man Tom Rounds Globe For Record

By Fleur Castlereagh on January 25, 2012 in News

About two years ago, Randwick resident Tom Dennis began thinking about the concept of running around the world.

He had just run from Sydney to Melbourne and enjoyed it so much that shortly afterwards he set the date and started planning.

Tom decided that he would kill three birds with one stone.

He wanted to have an amazing cultural and physical experience, raise money for one of his favourite charities, Oxfam, and attempt to be the first person to officially achieve the Guinness World Record for circumnavigating the world.

When I spoke to Tom he was literally on the road, running in Dunedin, New Zealand, at the most southerly point of his entire run around the world.

Chatting to me on the phone he seemed relaxed and excited and not even breathless as he began Day 8 of his journey of a lifetime.

“You couldn’t find a better way to see the world, at a slow pace, seeing, smelling, hearing everything along the way. Meeting the people, having a beer at night at the local pub with the local people, ” Tom said.

Tom will be aiming to complete the equivalent of 700 marathons in approximately 700 days – that’s a total of 29 000 kilometres – so he still has a long way to go.

The basic Guinness World Record rules for running around the world are that you must start and finish at the same place, always maintain an easterly or westerly component (no back tracking), pass through two antipodal points (two places that are exactly the opposite side of the earth from each other) and cover 28 970km on foot.

As well as this, Tom will endeavour to run in as many countries as possible, expected to be more than twenty.

Despite the obvious lure of a Guinness World Record, Tom stated adamantly that, “the run is not for the record, that’s just a bonus”.

Tom reckons that if he can accomplish this run then pretty much anyone can, and hopefully he may inspire others to take on similar challenges.

As well as boasting amazing physical strength, Tom is also blessed with significant intellectual prowess.

He has a PhD in Mathematics and Oceanography and combining this knowledge he founded a company called Oceanlinx in 1997, which has developed a technology to convert the energy in ocean waves into electricity – a pretty impressive bloke all round really.

To follow Tom’s progress or to make a donation visit www.tomsnextstep.com.