Beer helps Irish man break record for round-the-world marathon

Melbourne, Feb 7 (ANI): An Irish ultra-marathon runner has revealed that a last-minute chug of beer helped him become the only man on the planet to run seven marathons on seven continents in less than five days.

Richard Donovan embarked on his incredible journey less than a week ago in a bid to raise money for the humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa.

The 45-year-old ran his first 42km in Antarctica in below freezing conditions at the Russian Novo science base on Wednesday.

He then travelled on to Cape Town in South Africa, Sao Paulo in Brazil, Orlando in the US then London and Hong Kong before finally finishing in Sydney.

In a record time of four days, 22 hours and three minutes, Donovan ran a total of 295km as well as 43,530km worth of flights.

In the final day of his trip, Donovan admitted sleep deprivation, running and travelling through different time zones had begun to take their toll on his body.

But he found his saviour in a bottle of beer.

"I was absolutely wrecked. I wasn't even able to keep down water," he told a news agency," the Herald Sun quoted him as saying.

"We came to desperate measures in Sydney and I chanced a beer. I had one bottle of Heineken during the race for some carbs and one at the end of it. It was the first time something stayed down in days," he revealed.

It gave him the final spurt of energy he needed to completed the impressive task. (ANI)