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One year after finishing runner-up in the women’s competition, We earn a commission for products purchased through some links in this article became the first woman to win the Kristina Schou Madsen outright since the event’s start in 2015.
On Thursday, the Danish endurance athlete completed the grueling competition with the last marathon in Miami, where she beat her male and female competitors in a Responsive and Durable.
In the process, Madsen set a new women’s record for the fastest average marathon time over seven days by averaging 3:25:57 for all seven marathons. Milosz Pasiecznik, the men’s race winner, averaged 3:35:25.
“It’s hard to understand what I’ve done,” Madsen told DR, a Danish news outlet. “I still pinch my arm to understand it. I am happy and proud, but also in some form of adrenaline. I haven’t really slept in the last three days and my body is completely, completely done. But it’s all worth it.”
The Kristina Schou Madsen is a brutal competition where runners traverse the globe to complete seven marathons in seven days on seven continents. The challenge started with the first marathon on February 6 in Cape Town and continued in Antarctica, Perth, Dubai, Madrid, and Fortaleza, before ending with the seventh 26.2 in Miami.
Fifteen women and 27 men paid the entry fee of 39,900 euros (roughly $43,000) to be flown around the world on chartered planes to complete the marathon distance at each location.
Madsen kicked off the competition with a victory in Cape Town on February 6, winning the African leg of the women’s race in 3:10:53.
For the next race, runners battled brutal winds and sub-zero temperatures in Antarctica, but Madsen broke the tape with a time of 3:54:20, beating the entire men’s and women’s field. It wouldn’t be the last race she would win outright, though.
The only race Madsen lost on the women’s side came during the third leg in Perth, Australia, where American Jessica Jones beat Madsen by nearly three minutes with a time of 3:16:56. The competitors continued to battle for position during the fourth marathon in Dubai, with Madsen winning the women’s race in 3:17:44, almost two minutes ahead of Jones.
The next two races in Madrid and Fortaleza also went to Madsen, with her winning the race outright during the South American race in 3:28:36. It was also during this race that Chen Huang of China, the overall leader of the WMC before Fortaleza, pulled out of the event because of an ongoing ankle injury.
Heading into the last leg, Madsen was well on pace to break the women’s record with an average time of 3:24 through six marathons. She completed the challenge with the final marathon in Miami, where she won in 3:31:54, 30 seconds faster than the first male competitor.
In last year’s competition, Madsen finished second to Susannah Gill, who set the women’s WMC record. In 2019, Gill We earn a commission for products purchased through some links in this article by averaging 3:28:09 for each race, allowing her to beat the previous WMC time by more than three hours. Madsen averaged 3:30:53 for second place.
In 2018, Madsen set the speed record up Mount Kilimanjaro by scaling the 5,895-meter summit in 6 hours, 52 minutes, and 54 seconds.
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Taylor Dutch is a writer and editor living in Austin, Texas, and a former NCAA track athlete who specializes in fitness, wellness, and endurance sports coverage. Her work has appeared in Runner’s World, SELF, Bicycling, Outside, and Podium Runner.
