Two Giants Enter A New Phase

First, Ryan Hall ran his last marathon, and possibly his last race, last week.  He completed the World Marathon Challenge, 7 marathons on 7 continents in 7 days, for a charity.  While he was relatively unprepared for the ordeal compared to his days of 2:04:58 marathons, he soldiered on anyway.

One of those highly successful people was the great marathoner Ryan Hall, who holds the American record for the marathon at 2:04:58. Now retired from competition, Hall accepted an invitation from Pastor Matthew Barnett to run the challenge in order to raise funds for The Dream Center, a non-profit care center in downtown Los Angeles.

And every streak must end.  Mine ended after 5.6 years, but Ron Hill happened to beat that by a factor of more than ten, 19,032 days (52 years, 39 days).  His streak ended on Sunday when he had chest pain and staggered home for his 1 mile run in 16:00!

"It is great sadness that I have to report the end of my streak," said Dr. Hill in an statement to Streak Runners International (SRI). "I have been having heart problems and have been waiting for some time now to have the problem diagnosed and hopefully rectified. 1 Mile runs have not helped and on Saturday 28th January I ran my last 1 Mile. After less than 400 metres my heart started to hurt and over the last 800 metres the problem got worse and worse. I thought I might I die but just made it to 1 mile in 16 minutes and 34 seconds. There was no other option but to stop. I owed that to my wife family and friends plus myself."