The Madman the Marathoner

Don McNelly was 96 years old at his death in 2017 and completed 744 marathons. The normal marathoner runs in two marathons per year. To match Don, a marathoner would have to run fifty-nine years doing one marathon per month. Don McNelly is the world record holder for the number of marathons completed over the age of eighty. Don has run in every state and every province in Canada. And true to the meaning of his name, 'ruler of the world, ' he has run in France, England, Germany, Portugal, Thailand, Holland, Italy, Argentina, Antarctica, Norway, Mexico, and Japan. In one year alone he completed twenty-seven marathons! The Madman and the Marathon by Juanita Tischendorf sums up this incredible man's running history, painting vivid and inspiring pictures of race days-including what it looks (and smells) like when sixteen men pack into two vans and relay across the country.