Running a marathon (26.2 miles) is no small achievement. But 100 marathons in 100 days? That’s epic. One Australian activist was attempting the exploit to highlight the importance of conserving water. Now a leg injury is preventing her from going the distance.
Mina Guli founded Thirst, a non-profit group focused on teaching youth in China about sustainable water use.
Guli had already run and walked 62 marathons on several continents as part of her #RunningDry campaign. But on Monday, a doctor diagnosed multiple stress fractures in her right femur. Ouch! The 48-year-old Guli needed to stop. Doctors said she’d never run again if she continued.
Her last marathon was Friday. It was taking her 12 hours to complete the daily distance. “I need a break, or I’m going to break,” she tweeted.
Lewis Pugh, a long-distance swimmer, met Guli at a Cape Town hospital. He urged her to quit her 100-marathon attempt—but continue her activism. “She had covered 62 marathons. But each day she was experiencing extreme pain in her legs. She tried shuffling. Finally, she was walking with sticks,” Pugh says.
Now Guli will focus on recovery. She’s working out in a pool and doing “intensive rehab.” She will keep trying to raise awareness about global water scarcity by meeting with people struggling without enough water and innovators trying to solve water shortages. She hopes to finish her #RunningDry campaign—slated to end February 11—“on my feet.”
God may not choose to renew physical strength, but He always gives grace and stamina for Christians to follow His commands, endure trials, and maintain hope and peace.
They who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. —Isaiah 40:31
(In this Monday, December 31, 2018, photo, Mina Guli, an Australian activist seeking to highlight global water shortages, makes her way across a dried up Leeu Gamka Dam, in Beaufort West, South Africa. Kelvin Trautman, Flux Communications via AP)
