Don Kern

Who is Don Kern?

Don Kern is an adventure runner, IT Consultant, freelance writer, and the director of the Metro Health Grand Rapids Marathon. He has run 229 marathons or longer races, in each of fifty states of the USA twice, in twenty-five countries, and at the North Pole. On January 22, 2002 he also completed a half-marathon on the South Pole as a part of the Adventure Network's inaugural South Pole Marathon. In 2007 he embarked on a quest to set a world record by completing marathons on each of the seven continents in the shortest period of time, but while completing them in 35 days was beaten to the record by Richard Takata of Canada. A second attempt later in 2007 was unsuccessful as well, due to a delay of eight days en route to Antarctica. The record was finally broken by Kern on 1 December 2011 in 25 days, 18 hours, 10 minutes.

It was Kern’s third attempt at the record. In 2007, he tried to beat the then-record of 99 days with a 35-day schedule. Then, he found out Takata—who had run in four marathons with Kern during that time—had finished in less than 30 days, and Kern still had two marathons to remaining. Later that same year, Kern tried to finish in 25 days, but he got stuck in Punta Arenas, Chile, for eight days before his seventh and final run due to bad weather that prevented him from traveling to Antarctica.Kern did manage to run a marathon on all seven continents twice in a 307-day span.