In 2019, two men crossed a finish line, hand in hand, in Athens, Greece. The crowd cheered as a finish-line tape reading “Running the World 196” fluttered around the runners’ ankles.
It was the emotional end not just of a single marathon, but of an epic, global journey that began when the two men met in the Sahara Desert. One of the men, Nick Butter, had just completed a marathon in every country on Earth.
It was a task that took him two years to complete, after hundreds of flights, several kidney infections, a dog bite, two muggings, and 10 passports.
Finding Inspiration
It began while Nick, a former skier, was running the Marathon des Sables, a grueling ultramarathon held in the Sahara Desert. There he met Kevin Webber.
“Kevin is my whole inspiration behind this journey,” Nick shares. Kevin had been diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer, with a life expectancy of just two years. Kevin was running the Marathon des Sables as part of his bucket list after his diagnosis. “It was incredible for him to do it,” Nick recalls. “And he made it look easy.”
“I was moaning about having blisters or being tired,” Nick reflects. “He was facing death, and he was just happy and jolly because he understood the value of life.”
Meeting Kevin was the inspiration Nick needed to undertake a significant endeavor. “I realized, ‘I have the opportunity to do anything I want. I’m so privileged and lucky.’ So I thought, ‘You know what? I’m going to do something that will raise money for him. And I want to do something that nobody’s really done before in the running world.’”
The Challenge of Running the World
Nick’s first task was administrative. “I didn’t even know how many countries there were,” he admits. So, he set about researching and planning.
“Everybody assumes that I didn’t do the dangerous countries,” Nick explains. “But no, every country means every country.” This meant sorting out visas to war zones and hermit countries (yep, North Korea has a marathon).
Nick’s inaugural marathon was in Toronto, which wasn’t a smooth start to his journey. “It was about 15 degrees colder than I was expecting,” he recalls. “I had to borrow a load of kit and clothes from local people. But before I knew it, I was weeks into the trip and heading further south to the Caribbean.”
The most difficult run? Hard to say. “Yemen was pretty tough because it was obviously very volatile and dangerous, and also hot and hilly. And I didn’t have much water.”
Then there was Iran, where he was promised water just around the corner, but it wasn’t there. “I did 24 miles without any water,” Nick recounts.
Or Bangladesh, where he endured food poisoning and a kidney infection. “I was throwing up every single mile of the run.”
Often, it wasn’t the physicality of the challenge that made him want to throw in the towel. It was the frustration and stress of dealing with a multi-year journey around the world aimed at raising money for cancer research.
“It wasn’t that we had an endless pot of money and time,” Nick says. “We needed to do this in a particular time, and we only had a limited amount of money. Very quickly we knew we weren’t going to accomplish this with the funds we had.”
But his friend Kevin continued to serve as inspiration. “Ultimately I kept going because it was a clear message from Kevin, just completely ingrained in me, that you start this and we get to the end. You start a marathon; you finish it. You start another marathon; you finish it, and you keep going until you’ve done the world.”
The Home Stretch
And so we return to Athens, chosen as Nick’s last race due to its history as the birthplace of the marathon. According to legend, Pheidippides ran from Marathon to Athens to deliver news of the Greek victory over the Persians in 490 BCE.
Nick arrived on the day of the race but wasn’t even certain if he would be allowed into the country. “I didn’t know if I was going to be let in because of my visa stamps from different places.”
However, he was allowed to race, and he wasn’t alone. “Loads of people from around the world that I met along the journey came out to Athens to meet and run with me,” Nick recalls. “It was probably one of the best days of my life.”
And Kevin was there, too, a full five years and six days after his diagnosis. “I felt a combination of relief and euphoric joy from experiencing the last few footsteps with Kevin, because Kevin was only given two years to live,” Nick reflects. “And we crossed the finish line hand in hand in Greece. It was emotional. We cried, laughed, and cheered—it was every emotion under the sun during that run.”
After Running the World
Nick’s not stopping at one world record. “I’m setting some smaller world records where I’m achieving world firsts and some world records by running around countries and running the length of countries,” he shares.
He’s circumnavigating Iceland and Bali, as well as planning to run the length of Malawi and Italy. In 2022, he’s planning a major expedition, but details remain under wraps. “I can’t say too much about the big one, but another four world records are in the pipeline.”
Nick’s book about his experience, Running the World, is on shelves globally. He’s also planning an upcoming tour to share his inspiring journey running around the world.
