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Many people would struggle to run just one marathon. They would need months of training to get into shape to last the 42.195-km distance. However, marathons are no problem for Australian runner Erchana Murray-Bartlett. She has just run 150 of them – every day for 150 days. The 32-year-old ran 6,329 km from Queensland, at the top of Australia, to Melbourne, at the bottom. Her five-month coast-to-coast run set a new world record. It's the most consecutive daily marathons ever run by a woman. She smashed the previous record of 106 marathons in 106 days. Ms Murray-Bartlett is a professional runner. She missed out on qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics, so she set her sights on a record-breaking challenge.
Murray-Bartlett embarked on her marathon number of marathons to raise awareness of the extinction crisis in Australia. Many species of animals and plants are dying out in her country. Australia is rich in biodiversity, but has the worst rate of mammal loss of any country. Her run has raised $70,000 for the conservation charity the Wilderness Society. She said it was an incredibly tough five months, but she knew she could do it. She said: "Even though sometimes you are covered in sweat and flies, and everything ached, I thought: 'No, I can go one more kilometre' or: 'No, I can go 500 more metres'. If you keep stringing together little tiny goals, you can make it." This is a lesson for us all.
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