Show Notes

• Taking up running at the age of 41
• Difference between an elite runner and a recreational runner
• Can anyone become an ultra runner?
• Pushing the limits of human potential
• Running a marathon a day… for a year!
• The logistics involved in setting a Guinness World Record
• How many pairs of shoes Hilde went through in 2024
• Staying mentally focused through adverse conditions
• Raising money for breast cancer research
• Determination and resilience
• How to reach a big goal

Connect With Hilde Dosogne

✩ Website – https://www.hildedosogne.be/en
✩ Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/marathonwoman366/
✩ Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/marathonwoman.2024/
✩ LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/hilde-dosogne-9609714/

Summary

Hilde Dosogne is a Belgian ultrarunner who started running at 41 and quickly evolved into a world-class endurance athlete. In 2024, she set an extraordinary Guinness World Record by running 366 consecutive marathons! Hilde discusses how she stays mentally focused in the midst of adversity, and how many pairs of shoes she went through in breaking the Guinness World Record.

Full Transcript

Brian  

Welcome to another episode of LifeExcellence with Brian Bartes. Join me as I talk with amazing athletes, entrepreneurs, authors, entertainers and others who have achieved excellence in their chosen field, so you can learn their tools, techniques and strategies for improving performance and achieving greater success. Hilde Dosogne is a Belgian ultra runner who started running at the age of 41 and quickly evolved into a world class endurance athlete. Hilde rose to prominence in the running world by completing the Spartathalon, a historic 246 kilometer race held every year in Greece. Hilde is the only Belgian woman to have completed that race twice, and she holds the course record. Hilde was also the Belgian 100 kilometer champion. In 2023 she has conquered extreme ultra challenges like the Marathon des Sables, a grueling seven day 250 kilometer (155 mile) race held annually in the Sahara desert in southern Morocco. That race is often referred to as the toughest foot race on Earth. As if those accomplishments weren’t enough, in 2024 Hilde set an extraordinary Guinness world record by running 366 consecutive marathons, or a marathon a day for every day of the leap year. She crushed the previous record of 150 consecutive marathons and raised close to $90,000 in support of breast cancer research. Hilde is a dedicated athlete and an inspiration to many. She continues to push the limits of human endurance, and it’s an honor to have her on the show. Welcome Hilde, and thanks for joining us on LifeExcellence.

Hilde  

Thanks for the very nice introduction, Brian, and I’m very happy to be on your podcast.

Brian  

I’m happy to have you, Hilde. You’re a bio-engineer by trade. You’re married and the mother of four children. It seems like life was going pretty well and then you decided at the age of 41 that you’re going to become a runner. What prompted you to take up running?

Hilde  

At first, I was more dedicated to having a career and building my family. But then at the age of 40, I realized I had sacrificed my life to my family, and then I decided that I had to do something for myself, and also to become fit again, because I gained some weight. So that’s why me, and my husband, we decided to start running. At the beginning I said I want to start running but I don’t want to do any races. Then, after all, I did my first race and my first marathon, and I liked it so much that I wanted more and more of that. I also discovered that I was quite competitive, and I enjoyed being able to keep pushing my limits and to being successful at that. Of course, I was very careful in choosing my challenges and gradually building it up, because I’ve been injured at the beginning, and then I was more careful. But I realized if I make realistic goals, I can gradually keep pushing my limits, and it gives a lot of self confidence when you see that you can realize your goals. That’s why I enjoyed running so much, and it’s not only the physical aspect, but also the social aspect, because when you join a running club, you meet a lot of new people. The new friends that I have now, mostly they are also runners. It’s like a community even, in the group of ultra running we’ve become kind of friends. That’s also what I like so much about running.

Brian  

You mentioned in the beginning, when you first started running that you didn’t want to run in any races. How long after you started running did you compete in your first marathon?

Hilda  

That was two years later. I started running in 2011 and my first marathon was in 2013.

Brian  

So it didn’t take long.

Hilde  

Not very long, no, but I had always been running a little bit, so I didn’t start from scratch, but the running more than one time per week started in 2011.

Brian  

Full disclosure, Hilde, I completed one marathon many years ago, and that’s when I learned that I’m a half marathoner, not a marathoner. My daughter and son-in-law are both ultra marathoners so I’ve seen firsthand how quickly one can evolve from shorter distances to a marathon and then eventually to ultras. What qualities separate elite runners from other runners? In other words, what does it take to compete effectively at such a high level like you have, as opposed to being a recreational runner?

Hilde  

I think it requires a lot of dedication, because you need a lot of training. It’s not just the race that you do, because that’s just the tip of the iceberg. It takes a lot of training and dedication, but you also have to be passionate about the running, otherwise it doesn’t work. If you see the training as an effort, then it’s not going to work. You have to just enjoy running a lot. There are a lot of people who just run to keep themselves fit, and I have all the respect for them, because it’s still much better than people that are watching TV every evening. But some people have that. Sometimes it’s also just that they enjoy the nature. Most ultra runners are trail runners and they enjoy being in nature. I think it gives a lot of satisfaction when you can achieve your goals. But you have to have this ability to stand the pain sometimes, and the fatigue, and you have to have quite a high pain threshold level because you know it’s going to hurt. You have to to be able to deal with that.

Brian  

I’ve always felt like some people are built for running long distances, for ultra marathons, but not everybody is. Would you agree with that or do you think that anybody can become a long distance runner, an ultra marathoner, by just building up time, building up distance?

Hilde  

I think anybody can do it, as long as they are willing to train for it and to eat healthy as well. And I think even age doesn’t matter, because if you look at me, I’m already 55. I started only at 41 so I’m not young anymore, and I’m still improving. Saying that you’re too old is not an excuse. If you think you’re over weight you have maybe a longer way to go, but then you can start with maybe walking or cycling and first losing some weight. It’s a goal that you can still achieve. If you’re dreaming about something I’m always telling people you should just go for it if that’s your dream to do that. I think anybody can do it. But it requires, of course, a lot of dedication to achieve your goal.

Brian  

And a high pain tolerance, right? I appreciate the mindset and the encouragement; that they just get out there and start. That’s the hardest thing for people, I think. A lot of the time they’re thinking about this goal, maybe it’s a marathon, or maybe it’s even a 10k or a 5k but if they’re on the couch watching television, overweight, out of shape, then it’s hard to see that future. So I love what you said – just get out there and start – whether it’s starting by a walk, starting with a short run, or whatever it is, just get out there and and do it. We can make a lot of excuses on why we can’t do something. By the way, now we’re not just talking about running, we’re talking about life and goals and excuses that we make and obstacles that we have and overcoming those.

Hilde  

For example, today I wasn’t feeling very well. I have had some stomach and gut problems since I was in Spain, and it’s still not over today, but I have to do two trainings of 20 kilometers. So I’m not feeling very well, but I know it’s a good training if I still go out there to do my training. Even if I don’t feel good, I still do it. It requires a lot of discipline.

Brian  

Yes, and I appreciate you coming on the show not feeling well too. Hilde, I mentioned in your introduction that you completed the Spartathalon in Greece twice – in 2022 and 2023 – and you also completed the Marathon des Sables race in the Sahara desert in southern Morocco. What did you learn about yourself and about the limits of human potential from those races? Because they had to have been incredibly challenging.

Hilde  

Yeah, also there I wasn’t feeling well, because you have to sleep in open tents with eight persons, and sometimes there was a sandstorm overnight. So my all my sleeping bag was full of sand. I almost didn’t sleep the whole week. Even if I was very tired in the morning I still did complete the race every day. A technique that you can use is to divide it in small parts, so you have these checkpoints. And for each stage, there was every ten kilometers a checkpoint. And you just say to yourself, I will go to the first checkpoint and then I will see and just every time you think, I’m not going to give up. That’s also how I did it last year. Every day I was telling myself I’m not going to give up today and that’s how I made it. So just look at it with small steps; if you have to climb a mountain and just maybe look at your feet and take some steps. And then if you are tens steps further, you look behind yourself and you’re surprised how far you got already. So just take it step by step. That’s the lesson.

Brian  

You make it sound so easy.

Hilde  

It’s not easy, but if you just go for it and don’t think about it too much. Just take it day by day or step by step and then you will get there. 

Brian  

Completing those races were amazing accomplishments, Hilde, and you would undertake a challenge in 2024, last year, that makes the others pale by comparison. I think running a marathon every day for the entire year… where did the idea originate to run 366 consecutive marathons, one day for each day of the Leap Year?

Hilde  

Well, there have been people who did the same. I had been looking at that world record for several years, and first it was at 100 marathons. But by the time that I decided to do it, it was already improved, up to 150 marathons by Erchana Murray-Bartlett, but I thought it was still doable for me to break that record. So I was following these people on social media, and I thought if I want to do something big, then maybe that’s the thing to do for me. I was thinking I can do it, but I have to say that I really under underestimated what it was like to run a marathon every day. It wasn’t just the running for four hours, but also, like two hours before, I already had to start to prepare for it, because I wasn’t running in my hometown. I was running in Ghent, so I had to go there by car. I had to make my preparations. And then, of course, after the marathon, I had to collect witness statements and then go back home. So that was then already one hour later that I arrived home, and then when I got home, I had the administration to do because I had to take photos and videos during the marathons as an evidence for the official record. When I got home, I had to download all the photos on my computer and do social media posts and so on. It was a lot of extra work, and I was also still working part time last year, so it was really hard.

Brian  

It’s amazing to me that you would work in the morning, and then, as you said, you’d have to leave two hours before you started the the run, then you would run for about four hours, and everything else that went into it. But even the advanced planning had to have been an incredible undertaking. When did that planning start? When did you decide that you were going to to start on January 1, 2024 and what was required in that planning even before you started?

Hilde  

We were looking for sponsors for my sports nutrition and for my clothing and shoes, and then also for preparing the event. I was running in Ghent usually at the same location so we had an accommodation there for other people who wanted to run with me. I started the preparation, I think it was in July, August. What else… we had to announce it to Guinness World Records that I was going to do that. There was the application and then finding the sponsors for the event.

Brian  

There’s a lot of work that went into that. I’m curious what was your mindset like. You started planning the summer before, you’re gearing up for it, probably training from a running standpoint, from a physical standpoint, but also getting everything in place to start on January 1. What was your mindset like at the end of 2023 as you were approaching the start of what would be an entire year of running a marathon a day?

Hilde  

Well, it involved some preparations at work, because I was at work leading a team of six people. We changed that to make sure; we hired another person to take over my job. I got a new function, which is more scientific work now, rather than leading the team because I couldn’t do that when I was working part time. There was a preparation at work and then at home. For the training, I didn’t really train for the marathons, because I was still running the sport that year in the beginning of October, so I rather reduced my training to make sure that I wasn’t really tired when I started the marathons. Usually I would still run a 100 mile race in December, but I didn’t do that because that was too close to the starting of the marathons. So I didn’t really train for it. What I did was running every day to get used to the idea of running everyday a marathon. But I was already used to running a lot, so I didn’t expect too many problems with that.

Brian  

I was thinking about it and wondering… it sounds like this wasn’t the case, but were any of the marathons organized races?

Hilde  

I did run a few races, most of the city marathons in Belgium and I also ran the marathon of Berlin and one in the Netherlands. Then I also went to Spain last year for about eight or nine days but that was also very stressful because when you’re traveling, when you take a flight, you have to make sure that your flight isn’t delayed, otherwise it could be possible that you’re not able to run the marathon that day. I was always very stressed when I had to travel, so I limited that. For example, when we went to Spain, we went there by car, so I had to run a marathon in France once because that was on the way. Then after running the marathon, just have to get back in the car, I couldn’t shower; that wasn’t very comfortable. When I took the plane back from Berlin to home, I got sick. Berlin was in September. So after Berlin, I decided not to to travel anymore, because when I got sick, it always took a long time for me to recover, I couldn’t rest of course so it took me longer to recover from disease. But it all went well.

Brian  

That’s interesting, because I was thinking that participating in organized races would be a nice way to mix it up.

Hilde  

It was always nice to have a race in between because you’re not running alone. When I was running on weekdays, there was usually not a lot of people running with me. Of course, the atmosphere is very nice on races. It’s different when you’re running alone.

Brian  

Sure. I was going to ask you about people running with you, other than the organized races. Was that something that was organized by your team, or did people simply come out and start running? Some people would run 10k, some a half marathon, maybe for a particular day some people would run the full marathon with you. What was that like?

Hilde  

Usually on the weekends, I always have people running full marathon with me. But on weekdays, sometimes, but mostly not, they were running like five or ten kilometers with me, and I was running loops of five kilometers. I always published the time and the place where I was running, so people knew they could jump in every half hour when I was passing by the starting point again. They would run like five, ten, or 20 kilometers with me.

Brian  

A 5k loop, that’s a lot of loops. Were you running that same course every day?

Hilde  

Mostly, yes. Beginning of the year, I was always running in Ghent around a water course, and that’s five kilometers loop, and then I did an extra loop of two and a half kilometers. But then in August, I got Corona, so then I decided to run from home until I got better. But after that, I decided also to run two days per week at home, because it was better for me. I could sleep more, and then the other days I was still running in Ghent, and also on the weekends.

Brian  

It seems incredibly monotonous to not just run one marathon once in five mile loops or shorter loops like that, but to do that continuously. How do you get over the monotony? Did that bother you at all?

Hilde  

It was just practical, because if I would be running one big loop, then I would have to take all my food and drink with me. The five kilometer loops were practical because I could take my food every half hour, especially in the summer, when I had to drink more. If you have to carry all the water with you, then it’s a lot of weight so that was just practical. And indeed, it was monotonous. Also the fact of running a marathon every day is also monotonous, but fortunately,when people were running with me, then I was talking with them and they would tell me their life stories. It makes the time go by faster. When there was nobody running with me, then I would listen to music or podcasts.

Brian  

This is a random question, but how many pairs of shoes did you go through in 2024?

Hilde  

It’s a frequently asked question. I was using two pairs per month, and I was always changing shoes, never running on the same shoes two days in a row. So for one month, I would use two pairs, alternating the pairs every day.

Brian  

You mentioned in the beginning of the show that you were looking for sponsors. Did you have a sponsor for the shoes?

Hilde  

I’ve been running with Hoka for several years without any injuries, so I really like the brand lots and they offered, fortunately.

Brian  

That is fortunate. Hilde, I asked you earlier about your mindset at the start of the year. Over the course of 366 days of running, a lot can happen, obviously, both mentally and physically. How quickly did you begin to encounter adversity and what forms did that take?

Hilde  

The first of January, it was a big party and all the press was there so that was fun. But then the day after ,second of January, it was raining and I was driving to Ghent, and then I just realized, oh my god, that I really have to decide to do this every day of this year. But then, in the beginning, I told myself I can’t stop now because it’s going to be embarrassing if she already stopped after two or three marathons. I couldn’t really do that. Then I was just telling myself, okay, let’s just go for one month and then see. Then when the first month is over, then you start thinking, okay, I will go on until end of February, that was the 29th, the Leap Day. That was also a special event. And then you just make these little milestones. The next milestone was 100 marathons and then I started thinking about breaking the official records. That was the first important milestone that I wanted to achieve, at least that. But after that, of course, before I saw it, I already announced that I would run every day of the whole year, and it had also been in the newspapers and in the news. So it would be like giving up, even though I had already broken the official world record. The fact that I announced in advance that I would do that, it made me continue. But it got really hard, especially by the end of the year, like November, December; I was really tired of it and I got more and more pain in my feet. I cannot stand pain. It was really building up and then the last week, I got a hamstring injury. Then they were preparing the event of the 31st of December, so I also didn’t want to stop them. But the last week was really hard. On Christmas, I had to call my husband to bring a spray to relieve the pain in my hamstring, because otherwise I don’t think I would have finished that marathon. I just continued until the last day with pain. It really had to be ended.

Brian  

Was it harder physically or mentally? You talked about some of the physical challenges that you had, especially toward the end of the year, but I’m sure mentally it was challenging as well.

Hilde  

The mental part was harder because I was really tired of it. The last half of the year, I had some physical issues, but not really injuries, except for the last week. But I think the mental part is sort of well…

Brian  

Even if you don’t have injuries, the physical part is so demanding, the level of perseverance required to endure just running a marathon every day for 366 days is astounding. How do you stay mentally focused and motivated through the intense physical demands of so much running?

Hilde  

It helped a lot that I did this for charity. I did this for breast cancer research, and I also motivated myself by telling me that these people with breast cancer have to fight against their disease every day. It’s not just for one year that they have to do that, but until they are cured, or in some cases with bad prognosis, until they are deceased. My neighbor last year, she died from breast cancer. I was doing this for them, so that helped me to continue. 

Brian  

What’s your connection to breast cancer that caused Breast International Group, BIG, to be the recipient of your fundraising efforts?

Hilde  

I know somebody who works there, she was a volunteer at Marathon des Sables and her friend had metastatic breast cancer, so she asked me to collect funds for them, and I said yes. I wrote a small book about my participation in Marathon des Sables and I sold that and [the] profit [given to] BIG against breast cancer, now also with the year of marathons, I wanted to support them. I wanted to do a big stunt to help them. I collected 75,000 euros so they can use that money to support a certain study on breast cancer with metastasis in the brain. That particular type of breast cancer is very difficult to treat because the medication… it’s hard to reach the brain because of the blood brain barrier. The study can help the victims of that type of breast cancer.

Brian  

It’s admirable that you would would choose breast cancer research as the recipient for fundraising and that you would use that opportunity to raise money for breast cancer research; I really applaud you for that. Hilde, I wonder, was stopping even a remote possibility at any time during the year? Did you ever think, you know what, I’ve had enough; I can’t do this. I know you talked about day two, and already you were thinking, oh, please, what have I gotten myself into? But through the year was there ever a point where – just because of physical demands or mental exhaustion or maybe just a momentary mental lapse – you thought, you know what, I can’t do this. I’m just going to stop.

Hilde  

Yeah, before I started, I told myself, the only valid reason for me to stop is if I have a serious injury. Fortunately, that didn’t happen, but I did have several minor injuries. I told you already I had Corona, and then one day after 27 kilometers, I fell and my finger was dislocated. At that point, I thought I had to give up because I thought it was broken. I called my husband, and he brought me to the emergency room and they just put my finger straight again. Also my knee was hurt badly, but there was still time, and my husband told me maybe you should just restart. Sometimes people tell me you could just have done the remaining kilometers but I had been away for about two hours to the hospital. The rules are that you can’t take a break longer than five minutes, so I had to restart. And that day, I started in the evening at 6:30 so I could still finish the marathon in time. But in total, I ran about 70 kilometers that day, so I was really determined not to give up. I was always thinking how bad I would feel if I give up, and usually that was enough for me to continue.

Brian  

You are so disciplined, I know that about you, and so determined. Where does the resilience come from when things aren’t going as well as you’d like? How do you tap into the mental toughness needed to push through those times when you’re just not sure you can make it? You said you ran 27 kilometers before you had to go to the hospital. To even do a marathon and a half rather than a marathon in a particular day; where does that persistence and that resilience come from?

Hilde  

I don’t know. I think it’s just something that I have in me. Maybe it’s also because I want to show that I’m strong, and that comes from the time when I was a teenager, I was bullied at school. Also at home, they were telling me I was weak. I still want to prove that I’m not weak, I’m strong and I don’t want to give up. So it’s something, maybe a trauma from my youth that I’m still fighting against.

Brian  

Sure. If you would – and this is related what we were just talking about – your thoughts on the limits of human potential, and what you’ve learned about your own potential after completing two Spartathalons, the Marathon des Sables and from setting the Guinness world record for consecutive marathons.

Hilde  

I think that humans are only using part of their potential, and they are capable of doing much more than they think they can. You just have to believe in yourself and know that when things aren’t feeling good, or when you think you can’t anymore, you still can. So that’s strange. You have to believe that you’re going to get better, even if you’re not feeling well now; maybe later there’s a chance that it will be better. It’s always been like that. Last year there were days that I was really feeling very sick but in that moment it’s not good to then decide to give up. You just have to to believe that things will get better, that when you’re at your lowest point and you think you can’t get any worse, then you know it will get better, and it did. 

Brian  

What are the most important lessons? You just mentioned one of them. But what are other important life lessons, maybe that you would want your four children to take away from seeing what you’ve accomplished and that we can all take away from your amazing career and life?

Hilde  

Well, the thing that I said about the mountain; that when you take it just step by step, you will get there. Don’t look up too high, but just look at your every step that you take, and with small steps, you will get there. You can reach a big goal if you break it in smaller parts.

Brian  

That’s really such a powerful lesson. There’s a saying, or it’s a question; how do you eat an elephant? And you’ve heard that:  one one bite at a time. It’s a very simple concept, isn’t it? But it’s so powerful when we’re talking about goal achievement, because again, if somebody is a novice runner and they think, oh, I’d like to run a 10k or a half marathon or a marathon, that seems like a huge goal for someone. But if you just break it down, and you’ve said it in a few different ways:  breaking down your goals, just get to the next checkpoint, just literally take the next step right when you’re running, and as long as you’re moving forward, then you’ll complete whatever race it is that that you’re running. When you stop, then you’re done. But as long as you’re moving forward, whether you’re walking, jogging, sprinting, whatever it is, as long as you’re moving forward and toward… in a race, a literal race or a metaphorical race, if we’re trying to accomplish any goal, if we just break it down step by step, then we can accomplish that goal. Hilde, as you know, our show is called LifeExcellence and I wonder, what does excellence mean to you?

Hilde  

Well, I don’t think it should be a goal by itself, but I think if you do what you do with passion, then you will become excellent. I haven’t done this to achieve a lot of attention from the press or to be successful. Because I was passionate about running and achieving my goals, then you will become successful. But excellence, I think if you’re dedicated, then you will become excellent.

Brian  

I love that and and that’s very true. Hilde, you more than doubled the previous Guinness world record for consecutive marathons run by a woman. You mentioned that when you first started thinking about breaking the record it was 100 and then somebody else ran 150, and you not only broke the record, you crushed it by more than doubling the previous record. What does that accomplishment mean to you and what impact do you hope it has on others who strive to push their own limits?

Hilde  

What it means to me, I think it’s the highest thing that I can and will achieve in this life. It is not going to get more crazy than this. I was thinking about it a long time and I’m very happy that I achieved it now. I still sometimes wonder how I did it because it was a very long year. To inspire other people, I think I actually did do that, because last year a lot of people who came running with me, and they were telling me that they were also dreaming of the races that I did, and I gave them some tips. So I think I did inspire other people, even just starting to run or running half marathon. So I’m very happy that this happened, because one of the goals that I had was also to inspire other people to start running. I wanted to share the experience that I have with running. It’s helped me a lot feeling better physically and mentally. That’s what I wanted to do to other people and to help them, maybe also to improve their life quality.

Brian  

Well, you certainly inspired us today. Hilde, thank you so much for being on the show. It’s wonderful to meet and get to know you, and you’ve certainly inspired me and many others to redefine impossible in our own lives, just as you’ve done in yours.

Hilde  

You’re welcome, Brian.

Brian  

It’s been great to have you. Thanks for tuning in to LifeExcellence. Please support the show by subscribing, sharing it with others, posting about today’s show with ultra runner Hilde Dosogne on social media and leaving a rating and review. You can also learn more about me at BrianBartes.com Until next time, dream big dreams and make each day your masterpiece.