50 marathons in 50 days: How Irish ultra-athlete Dmytro Moyseyev pushed his body to the limit

But for Dmytro Moyseyev, an indefatigable Irishman who has set several ultra-distance running records, these rules are meant to be broken. One of the highlights is running 50 marathons in 50 days.

Yes, you got it right! 50 runs over 42 kilometres in 50 consecutive days, and on the sidelines also raising over Sh680,000 for the Irish Cancer Society.

The 28-year-old Dublin lawyer was flanked by friends, supporters and family members as he completed his 50th marathon in the challenge run between January and February this year, having covered a total of 2,154 kilometres with a running time of 230 hours, burning a jaw-dropping 310,000 calories over the distance.

“For so many people to come out was very meaningful for me. I was grateful to everyone,” he told the Irish Times after completing the task on February 18 this year in his home city of Dublin.

Moyseyev had earlier pushed his body to the limit late last year, running the length of his home country of Ireland - some 570 kilometres - completing the run from Mizen Head to Malin Head after 138 hours of non-stop running, save for the “pit stops” for food, shoe change and toilet breaks.

It was dubbed “Project 555”, a run to also raise funds for the Irish Cancer Society.

He used three pairs of running shoes in the 570km “length of Ireland” run and five pairs for the 2,154km “50 marathons in 50 days”.

Training at Iten

Moyseyev has spent the last two months training at high altitude in Iten, Elgeyo Marakwet County, keeping his fans engaged on social media site, Instagram, with witty updates from the North Rift.

He leaves Iten for Europe this weekend for a simpler mission: scaled down races over the mile and 5,000 metres.

Why Iten? I sought to know when I recently caught up with the Irishman at the Iten Club, nestled in Kenya-born Dutchwoman Lornah Kiplagat’s High Altitude Training Centre.

“My background is ultra-endurance sports – 50 kilometres plus – and anyone who does marathons and ultra-marathons has heard about Kenya and about Iten,” he said in our mid-day chat after his morning session workout.

“Since I started running, some five to six years back, I’ve always dreamt about coming to Kenya and running with Kenyans and when the opportunity came up to come for a training camp here a few months back, I could not say no!”

He adds: “My marathon friend was here and said it was a great place with a track, gym, sauna, pool, and overall a great atmosphere – it was a no-brainer coming here.”

So how has his experience been in Iten? He says running with Kenyan athletes and training at altitude in Iten and at altitude has been a great experience.

“When you think of the marathon distance, you automatically think of Kenyans. I have a strong belief that if you want to succeed at anything, you need to surround yourself with people who excel at that – be it in school or business, or anything,” Moyseyev says.

He explains that he needed to come to a place that has the biggest number of elite athletes possible per capita, “and that’s why I came to Kenya and to Iten which, of course, has the biggest number of athletes training at the Kamariny track, Moiben road and so on”.

“On each day in Iten, you come across elite runners, Olympic champions. Seeing them train – the altitude is also a reason - and being able to train on the same course just pushes you mentally. It’s about dedication and hard work!” he says.

Fighting illness

Moyseyev’s love for running and specialising in the ultra-distance was a result of an illness that prompted him to fight back against his body.

And with the arrival of Covid-19, gyms and sports facilities remained closed. Having been accustomed to the rigours of training for his college rugby team, Moyseyev found solace in running.

He took a break from his legal profession “to work on some personal bucket-list projects.” He had been working at Arthur Cox LLP, covering a diverse range of areas, including litigation, technology and innovation, corporate, funds, and capital markets.

His “bucket-list projects” include the ultra-runs.

“As a rugby player, I was used to two or three training sessions a day and once everything stopped (due to Covid-19), I was going insane and the only open avenue for me to exercise was running… it was a no-brainer.

“Because of running I’m here so, in a way, I’m grateful for switching from rugby to running,” he says.

Moyseyev quickly found his running rhythm, breaking into the 5,000 metres after a few weeks, doing his first half marathon a few days later.

“I loved the feeling of pushing myself and trying to see how much more I can push myself, and longer distances just appealed,” he says.

Blood clots

Covid-19 aside, his running was also triggered by the need to prove his body wrong.

“About two years ago I had an issue with my health as I kept getting blood clots. And as someone who grew up playing a lot of sports – and many sportspeople relate to this – you take your body as an instrument such that when you eat well, train well and recover well, you expect your body to work well as well.

“But as I continued getting those blood clots and health issues, I felt like my body was betraying me. So I decided to run the entire length of Ireland – which is 570 kilometres – in five days, the main reason behind it being to prove that myself and my body were still on the same page and that I can still trust it. If I was to look after my body, it will, in turn, still provide the energy that I want it to.”

It was after that “length of Ireland” run that Moyseyev fell in love with ultra-running, and then a few months later in January and February this year, he did his 50 marathons in 50 days, once again, to prove to his body and himself were on the same page.

“I feel that at this stage I’m happy with that chapter, and what I want to do for the next few years is to focus on speed and to get my marathon (personal best) time down and my 1,500 and 5,000 metres times down, hence the shift from ultra-running to shorter stuff,” he says.

“But I’m sure my ultra-running chapter is not done yet, and I will come back to it again. While I have youth on my side, I want to go into the speed side and see what my potential is.”

Meticulous preparation

To run ultra-marathons and other endurance runs, one needs to have meticulous preparations, recovery sessions as well as well thought-out nutrition and hydration.

Moyseyev sees such challenges as the battle to cross the pain and mental barriers.

“For a lot of people who do ultra-marathons, it’s all about the mental challenge. It’s physically difficult, but your body will give in before it’s fully depleted, and that’s where the mental barrier comes in. If you push past the mental barrier, the you can actually tap into the secret source,” he explains.

“For instance, when I was doing the ‘length of Ireland’ run, on Day Two I was about 220 kilometres in and I just felt like my legs would fall off, but I realised I still have three days to go, and that I had to do it. And then, mentally, there was a switch and I realised I just need to keep going,” he says.

Moyseyev adds that there were a few incidents later on when he realised that as long as the mental game is strong, the body will keep going, and as soon as the mind gives in the body will prematurely give in even if the body hasn’t given in yet.

“So having a strong mind and a strong belief system and a goal will push you to anything, even if there are physical challenges and physical injuries. For example, when I was doing the 50 marathons in 50 days, after week one I had knee problems, after week two I had hip issues, but I knew mentally that if I kept going, the body would adapt after three weeks. That’s how our bodies respond – it takes about three weeks for the body to acclimatise to any new stimulus,” he says.

Having the belief that everything will work out and he will be fine just kept him going.

“So by the time day 30 to 40 came about, I was doing speed at a pace that someone does in a marathon. Everything is mental,” he says.

A ‘big guy’ for a runner

The pace of Moyseyev’s ultra-runs is conservative, unlike the conventional marathoners, deliberately to allow his body to recover faster.

Weighing 82kg now, having hit 90kg at the start of the 50 marathons run, Moyseyev is pretty much a ‘big guy’ for a runner, and nutrition alongside good hydration play a huge part in his runs and recovery.

“From the point of view of recovery and nutrition during those races, you just have to focus on getting the calories in,” he explains.

“I’m quite a big boy, especially for the marathons, and during the 50 marathons run, I was quite hefty and needed a lot of calories to sustain my movement. I was consuming up to 8,000 calories daily, which is quite a chore!”

At the end of the run, he had burnt more than 310,000 calories.

“I had to get innovative ways of getting the calories in – I would eat Nutella (popular, brown hazelnut spread, contains 546 calories per 100 grammes) by the jar, I was drinking maple syrup (260 calories per 100 grammes), I had donuts (253 calories per donut) for breakfast, just to get the calories in, but at the end of the day it was “calories for calories” – which means even though I was consuming everything, I burnt the calories,” he says.

He adds: “In the 50 marathons, I lost like five kilogrammes in the course of the 50 days, and so I wasn’t complaining at all – I looked leaner and more good looking!”

Talking of mental strength, how does he train his mind?

“I journal a lot,” Moyseyev explains. “It allows me to think clearly. When I need to think clearly, of think something through, I just sit down with a piece of paper and if I can put it down on paper, a lot of mental faults disappear because you can structure what your problem is and you can figure what the solution possibly can be.

“And once you have done that, then you can approach and go about solving that issue or any challenge in front of you. It’s about digging deep and having a strong belief system, strong core values and a strong “why”.

And that’s why he thinks he did the “length of Ireland” and the “50 marathons in 50 days”— his strong “why” was to prove to himself that his body was still with him and that he was capable of still doing difficult things.

The ultra-athlete adds: “If I would have stopped at any stage, I would have seen that as failure, and seen that as my body winning over me again. I just couldn’t allow that.”

“Being very stubborn and very competitive, I knew that competition was me against my body – me against me – and for a lot of challenges, that’s how it should be. It should not be about proving things to other people. It should be you against you, and if you have that, it will push you through many physical and mental challenges,” he says.

His schedule

So, how was the “50 marathons in 50 days schedule?

“Every morning I would wake up at about 5am, have my breakfast, go out and run the marathon, then come back and have some ice bath to recover, then get some calories and off to bed,” he says.

“Week one hit me very hard, because, unlike the Ireland run where I had a 20-week, well-structured training period, with the 50 marathons I had just two weeks to prepare, one week to recover and then went straight into it, so the volume of running increased dramatically quickly.”

He says he prioritised his nutrition and recovery as much as he could.

“It was very boring – eat, sleep, run, repeat! But athletes will relate to that because when they have a race coming up, that’s what they should sacrifice to achieve their goal,” he says.

Most of the days during this run he had one or two people with him and the runs were also open for the public to join.

“The good thing about that was that people could join me and either run their longest-ever distance with me or their first marathon with me,” he says.

Throughout the entire challenge, 10 to 20 people ran their first marathon with Moyseyev and 200 to 300 people ran their longest distances with him.

“It made me realise that the challenge was not just about me and that I was having a lot of positive impact on other people. Seeing that pushed me and motivated me more. By pushing through, I was not only proving a point to myself, but I was helping other people achieve their goals too,” he says.

For his “50 marathons in 50 days” challenge, Moyseyev ran on four different locations. Most of the marathons, 44 of them, were run in Dublin and six in London.
In London, it was on different routes around the city.

“London is a much flatter. The elevation of each (Dublin) marathon was about 500-600 metres which, after about a week, I felt I needed to get flatter. It was good to change the route,” he says.

At the moment, the University College Dublin alumnus is preparing for three races: two five-kilometre races – one on November 24 and the second on December 4, and a road one-mile race on November 29.

“I race a day after I arrive from altitude Iten and that could be a hit or miss from the point of view of travelling and Competing the next day. The mile race will be my first ever and will be interesting because I’ve never run such a short distance.”

Moyseyev is scaling down from the ultra-distances to focus on the 1,500m and 5,000m and the 42km marathon, the main reason being to improve his marathon time to about two hours, 20 minutes.

“One thing I like about the short races is you don’t have to spend much time the day before ‘carbing up’ and there’s much less time for recovery. After the 570km race, I was relearning how to walk. The mile race will be just a few minutes of recovery,” he says.

No long-lasting injuries

Thankfully, Moyseyev says he has no long-lasting injuries, just a herniated disc issue from rugby and weightlifting nagging him.

“But we have great physios. If you look after your body well, sleep well, have enough protein, do the basics well, you will see great results.”

His experience in Iten has been quite fulfilling.

“I’ve realised that everyone here (in Iten) is faster than me! But I’ve realised how huge the culture of running is in Iten. People eat, live and sleep running! During the weekend when there’s a race, everyone watches it because they are watching athletes who train with them and live beside them,” he says.

In Ireland, he didn’t think there was as much support. The only comparable support in Europe is perhaps in football and rugby, he says.

“It’s only Kenya, and perhaps Ethiopia, that regard running in such high esteem. It’s very refreshing and as a runner, I really appreciate it. Athletes are pushed forward and allowed to excel,” he says.

One of the “cool things” about training in Iten, he says, is that it’s not only Kenyan athletes training there but runners from all over the world and “so you get to pick knowledge here and there from all around the globe from one spot in Iten”.

“For example, we had the Italian national team here as well as the German national team and there’s a Polish team coming as well, so you can pick peoples’ brains, see how they approach recovery and training and implement that into your own regime. You get to broaden your horizons,” he says.

Moyseyev has since released two documentaries available on YouTube – “Project 555” and “50 marathons in 50 days.”