Paris

In April 2017 Nick Butter kicked off with what he calls “a gentle training run” from London to Paris. He trotted the 300K route from central London to the Eiffel Tower in 3 days with a few friends, while camping along the way. This trip was preparation for his bigger plan to run a marathon in all 196 countries in the world, starting the following year! Nick wrote “6.5 Marathons from #LondontoParis Done! 168 miles of sunshine, sweat, soreness and long straight roads. Enjoyed my 38 hours running from London to Paris.”

In 1991 Sjaak Bril wanted to run the Rotterdam Marathon but an injury got in the way and he had to give up. His friend Peter van der Noord belittled the marathon and claimed that it was only real if you ran to Paris. They made a bet to find out or it was possible and in 1992 the Rotterdam-Paris Run (RoPaRun) was born. Sjaak and Peter decided to look for sponsors for this challenge, which went surprisingly well. After it was over, and after the expenses were deducted, it turned out they had 45,000 guilders left. They wanted to...