Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
MAN WHO RAN The E globe trotter..
Runner did marathon in all 196 countries for charity fundraiser
INSPIRATION Nick with his friend Kevin
Ultra-runner Nick Butter was held up at gunpoint with a knife to his throat in Lagos and suffered a heart attack in Samoa, but he never gave up on his mission to do a marathon in all 196 nations of the world.
He ran through war zones, including Syria and Yemen, and along dangerous roads, but completed the incredible 5,139-mile challenge in 23 months.
And he did it all with the words of his friend in his head. Fellow ultra-runner Kevin Webber, who was diagnosed with incurable prostate cancer in 2014, told Nick: “Don’t wait for a diagnosis. Get out there and do what you love.”
Nick says: “Kevin is such a good example of being woken up and almost reborn. He is the most amazing man.
“Even if you don’t know what you’re doing or how to do it, just do it. You don’t know when it’s going to be your last day.”
Nick, 31, wanted to challenge himself while raising money for Prostate Cancer UK and found out that no one had ever run a marathon in all 196 countries.
He says: “It was so shocking to me that nobody had done it. I thought, why not? We have been to the Moon.
“And now I realise why – it was very difficult and costly. But my mind was made up and I spent a few weeks thinking about logistics and sat my parents down and told them the idea.”
It took two years of planning and a lot of support from his parents, but on November 10, 2019, Nick completed the challenge and has now written a book about his incredible journey, which has so far raised £142,000 for the charity.
The first leg began in Toronto, Canada, and from there he travelled to the US, on to Central America then South America with a quick jaunt to North Korea between his runs in Peru and Ecuador.
He explains: “Pyongyang hosts an annual marathon, one of the very few ways to enter the country without huge difficulty. Their race, however, takes place in late March, early April, meaning I had to whip around South America quick enough to tag this on.”
His route zigzagged over the continents, not necessarily going from one country to its neighbour. He had to take account of how far along visa applications were and any dangerous situations that flared up along the way.
During his adventure, Nick ran through some of the world’s most spec
Time check during a run in Africa tacular l andscapes and met kind , welcoming people, many of them running alongside him for support.
He says: “In Guatemala, in a village called Antigua, I went to bed not knowing anyone and when I woke up I went to reception and met loads of people that had seen my run on Facebook – random people turning up wanting to run with me.
“That was really great. We were running around an erupting volcano, it was spewing, it was so beautiful.”
He ran through the mountains in Nepal, along the white sandy beaches of the Seychelles and past ancient temples in Cambodia. But there were moments
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where things went very wrong. He says: “There was a very threatening encounter in the centre of os market in Nigeria, with a knife to hroat and gun to my head. My heart was thumping, I don’t think ny point I believed I was going to get d, but I knew I was in a situation I ’t know how to get out of.” ck’s camera had drawn attention a gang of thieves kicked him to ground, damaging his ribs, and e his possessions, though not the era. Strangers who had joined on his run paid the gang to stop beating and Nick ran for safety. e still finished the marathon and wed true grit again after he had a or heart attack in Samoa. ck says: “I probably got a bit placent with my sugar content
and my hydration. I had this guy cycling with me to provide water over some hilly terrain, but he was too unfit to cycle. So I ended up pushing the bike for him.
“And because I was pushing the bike while running I overexerted myself and had some pretty strong pain in my chest.” Doctors advised Nick to stop, but with
Support from UN peacekeepers three miles left he carried on. He says: “It was as if, well, if I’m going to go then at least it will be doing something I love.”
The last leg took him into the hostile environments of Libya, Iran, Sudan, Yemen and Syria. There was grave concern ahead of Syria’s marathon after a driver was shot and killed taking a client on the route Nick was to travel.
His worried parents advised him to delay the run, but Nick carried on.
He says: “I was stupidly just thinking about the mission, not my safety, but I was focused on the finish line. I have no idea how my poor parents coped. Having the relief of me getting out of Yemen, they had to hold their breath while I transited from Beirut, in the throes of civil unrest, to Damascus in wartorn Syria, and back again.”
He was lucky. Nick entered Syria safely and ran his marathon around a football stadium in Damascus, accompanied by the under-19s national women’s team.
For his final run in Athens, Greece, he was reunited with Kevin, who is a Sunday Mirror columnist, and they ran the marathon together.
Having well-earned nap in transit
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Three local boys join him on run
Nick says: “We cried, we sang, we laughed. We were skipping for some of it. It was elation and surprise that we made it. We were running hand in hand over the finish line – and doctors told him he should have died three years ago.”
Nick hopes his story will inspire others to live life to the full.
He says: “Time’s too short to sit around not doing what you’re passionate about.”
Running the World by Nick Butter is out now (Bantam Press, £14.99). To donate to his appeal, go to justgiving. com/fundraising/runningtheworld