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British Runner Completes His 401st Marathon

For many of us, running a marathon would be (or has been) a huge accomplishment. Twenty-six miles? That's impressive.

But then there's Ben Smith of Portishead, Britain. The thirty-four-year-old recently completed his 401st marathon—in 401 days. Yes, you heard that right. According to BBC News, Smith started out his ambitious endeavor in September 2015, hoping to raise £250,000 for anti-bullying charities after having been "bullied for eight years of my life at school." In 284 days, he ran 284 marathons, then trouble struck: "He then developed an umbilical hernia in June which forced him to stop for 10 days to recover before resuming and making up the lost mileage." On October 5, he completed the last marathon, having run 10,500 miles since he first began.

But don't worry—Smith is planning on taking it easy for a while. "After the final marathon, his team have put together a three-month 'cool down' involving a month of back-to-back half marathons, followed by a month of 10km runs and a month of daily 5km runs."

Potential Preaching Angles: Smith's feat parallels the spiritual discipline and action required of believers—in the words of Paul, we must "press on toward the goal to win the prize" (Phil. 3:14), and that "pressing on" doesn't just happen in a short sprint.

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