A Brief History
On July 10, 2007, Turkish adventurer Erden Eruç, almost 46 years old at the time, set off on what may be the greatest feat of human endurance and physical performance in history, the solo, only human powered circumnavigation of the Earth. As if this feat was not daunting enough, he threw in making it a point to climb the tallest mountain on each continent as part of his trip! For financial reasons, he ended up journeying on a route that did not include all of the tallest mountains on each continent.
Digging Deeper
Eruç accomplished this feat by hiking, biking, rowing, kayaking and canoeing, all using his own muscular power. The trip spanned over 41,000 miles and took over 5 years and 11 days to complete. His accomplishment is recognized by Guinness World Records.
Some other incredible feats of human endurance include:
In 2005, Dean Karnazes ran non-stop for over 80 hours, covering 350 miles!
And in 2017, Sarah Thomas swam a record 104.6 miles in 67 hours in open water.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Karnazes, Dean. A Runner’s High: My Life in Motion. HarperAudio, 2021.
Phillips, Georgina. The Science of Survival: OUCH!: Extreme Feats of Human Endurance. Macmillan Children’s Books, 2008.
The featured image in this article, a map of the approximate route taken by Erden Eruç during the first entirely solo and entirely human-powered circumnavigation of the Earth, is in the public domain because it contains materials that originally came from the United States Central Intelligence Agency‘s World Factbook.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.
