Kevin Carr breaks record for fastest run around the world

Kevin Carr has just become the fastest person to travel around the world by foot.

The 34-year-old returned to his South of England home in Dartmoor National Park on Thursday evening. He left on July 28, 2013 meaning his trip (which he has dubbed Hard Way Round) took a total of 621 days.

In that time, he ran through 26 countries covering India, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, North America and South America. His distance covered totaled 16,300 miles. He did the run self-supported bringing with him over 100 pounds of food, water, running and camping gear.

If the record is confirmed, this will mean that he has beat Australian runner Tom Denniss’ record by a matter of hours. That’s something that’s especially impressive considering that unlike the Australian ultrarunner, Carr ran across the globe without support. Denniss had his wife accompany him. Carr is also the fourth runner to have completed the challenge.

Carr has been a runner since the age of 11 when he joined his school cross-country team in Devon which is still where he lives and trains today. He wanted to become an endurance athlete first trying his hand in cycling. He cycled the south island of New Zealand before bringing his focus back to running. When he was 29, he took on a running trip from Land’s End to John O’Groats becoming the first person in the UK to run the 1,250 off-road and unsupported through the coastal and moore trails and tracks in the Highland Mountains.

When he took on this challenge, his goals were to break the record for the youngest and fastest runner to run around the world. And he wanted to be the first to do it self-supported. Looks like he met his goals!

Here are some shots of his around the world adventure. All photos courtesy of hardwayround.com. For more information, visit Carr’s site or Facebook page here: