The Madman, the Marathoner: The Life of Marathoner Donald P. McNelly Paperback - 2010

From the publisher

Don McNelly is nearly ninety years old and has run 713 marathons.... The normal marathoner runs in two marathons per year. To match Don, a marathoner would have to run fifty-nine years doing one marathon per month....' Don McNelly is the world record holder for the number of marathons completed over the age of eighty. In 1969, he began his long-distance running career in an effort to lose weight after a college friend died of a heart attack. Since then, Don has run in every state and every province in Canada. And true to the meaning of his name, 'ruler of the world, ' he has run in France, England, Germany, Portugal, Thailand, Holland, Italy, Argentina, Antarctica, Norway, Mexico, and Japan. In one year alone he completed twenty-seven marathons! The Madman and the Marathon by Juanita Tischendorf sums up this incredible man's running history, painting vivid and inspiring pictures of race days-including what it looks (and smells) like when sixteen men pack into two vans and relay across the country-and answering questions that aspiring runners have always wanted to know about what it takes to go the distance. What is the method to Don McNelly's madness? Did he do it all without injury? What does his family think about his running crazy? Is he still running? Find out in The Madman and the Marathon.