It’s a gamble, but one worth taking for Ben Pobjoy.
The Mississauga, Ont., native embarked on a journey to break the Guinness World Record for the most marathons run by a man in one year (239), held by American Larry Macon.
Pobjoy, who launched on New Year’s Day, plans to achieve the feat by running marathon-length distances in 90 countries, including Canada, while filming the content of all his discoveries along the way.
After leaving his job as executive creative director at advertising company Behavior last August, Pobjoy felt it was time for a change.
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“This world where you have a steady paycheck is really comfortable,” he told The Canadian Press. “But I just found that there wasn’t a lot of growth in that and I kind of broke away from that and threw myself into the world and just had that ultimate pressure where it’s totally up to me to create something, it just felt like it was extreme time.
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“Life is short. The pandemic showed me how quickly the world can change and, you know, if I’m going to bet, I might as well bet on myself.”
Shortly after leaving, he founded Kilometers International Inc. The extra ‘L’ adds to the meaning of the name – ‘really, just to kill as many kilometers as possible’.
“It’s setting up for this year and then hopefully I can develop this thing in other ways,” Pobjoy said. “For now the focus is just to get the business through this year and as far as what happens after that, I think the future is unwritten.”
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The idea to chase the record came about in 2021, while much of the Greater Toronto Area suffered long periods of time under lockdown as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Not wanting the year to count for nothing, the 41-year-old decided to travel as often and as far as he could. The result is 174 marathons and over 11,500 kilometers traveled.
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As a “joke”, he paid five pounds ($8.16) to the Guinness Book of World Records to be certified as an Ontario record. Instead, he was told he was “too niche” and that he should aim for the world record.
“I put up 174 with work. So if I quit this job and I’m unemployed, I just have to work some more (66),” Pobjoy said of his thinking at the time. “(It) was like (a) no-brainer to me.”
After a discussion with his wife, Christine, he has split it into four legs where she will join him for parts of each and he will visit her home at certain stages. To give his family peace of mind, he also carries a satellite communicator that broadcasts a signal every two minutes to a portal they can access, along with a button he can push in circumstances where he could be injured or kidnapped.
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His journey as a runner began roughly a decade ago, when he says he was “morbidly obese” and “super uncomfortable” going to the gym. He started walking and, as he describes it, became a “real-life Forrest Gump story.”
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“I’ve just been interested in seeing, not only how much further I can go, but enjoying crushing marathons around the world. No athletic pedigree, just a regular guy taking one step in front of the other to some pretty insane results.”
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The influence behind his approach to life stems from his punk rock background. Pobjoy was a member of two bands earlier in his life – one at the end of high school and the other while he was at university.
The concepts of not needing any accreditation, doing it yourself and just making it up were things he immersed himself in.
“I’ve pretty much applied that way of working to my non-linear career path as well as the project itself, which is essentially just me,” he said. “I planned everything, I’m here alone, it’s super DIY.
“And if I hadn’t gotten into punk, I don’t think I would have had the ability or maybe even the madness to do anything I’m doing now.”
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