Next week Lithuania will celebrate 100th independence anniversary. On this occasion Lithuanian firefighter and Ultra runner Aidas Ardzijauskas challenged himself to run from Dakar (Senegal) to Vilnius (Lithuania). It is not 150 kilometers... On 25th of October, 2017 Aidas started in Dakar, Senegal. He ran through Senegal, Mauritania, Western Sahara, Morocco, Spain, France, Italy, Czech Republic, Poland and yesterday Aidas finished in Vilnius city hall completing his 7138 km journey. It took 102 days and 10 hours (~70 km/day). He ran in the heat, he ran in a rain, he ran in a snow. And he is my hero! This is the great way to mark this wonderful date to all Lithuanians.
finish of the journey source: www.15min.lt
This is not first Aidas Ardzijauskas ultra challenge. He started from smaller challenges. In 2012 he ran around Lithuania 1045 km in 24 days. Next year he ran around the Baltic sea 3266 km in 44 days and in 2014 he challenged himself even more. He named his challenge "Crossing USA 2014" and ran from Los Angeles to New York (5013 km) in 62 days. He also did a lot of other ultra runs. More info: https://www.aidasardzijauskas.com/
Aidas already have plans for future. In 2019/20 he plans to run around the wolrd. ~27500 km in 365 days.
Last summer I had a chance to meet Aidas Ardzijauskas in personal. My running club coach invited Aidas to the training to tell us some stories from previous runs and plans for Dakar-Vilnius run.