Dorota Giżyńska

It’s 2nd May 2022. Since mid‑January, 46‑year‑old Jacky Hunt‑Broersma, has run 41.84 kilometres every day, which would often take her five hours. She ran her 104th marathon in as many days, an achievementachievementachievement she hopes she will be recognisedrecognised [recognise]recognised for by Guinness World Records. According to a spokeswomanspokeswomanspokeswoman, it will take around three months to certify the record. On Sunday, Jacky finally had a day off, and she woke up with a strange feeling. From her home in Arizona, she tells the BBC that “Part of me was really happy to be done. And another part kept thinking “I need to go running.” Despite the fact that she has stopped, her body is still recovering fromrecovering from [recover from]recovering from the record‑breaking physical effortphysical effortphysical effort. However, she acknowledgesacknowledges [acknowledge]acknowledges that she feels better than she did before the whole 104 marathons. Jacky is extremely grateful forgrateful forgrateful for what she has achieved. She was terrified she would never get back her confidence, but running has given her that.

In 2002, she was diagnosed withwas diagnosed with [be diagnosed with]was diagnosed with a rarerarerare bone cancer. To save her life, she had her leg amputatedamputated [amputate]amputated two weeks after the diagnosis. She was only 26 years old at the time. She remembers the time as one big roller coaster. Jacky couldn’t accept such a massive change in her life for the first few years. She was upset that she had developed cancer and grew ashamed of being different. In order to hide the prosthesisprosthesisprosthesis, she covered it up by wearing long trousers. And then, in 2016, she started running, out of the blueout of the blueout of the blue. Before, she had supported her husband in long‑distance running competitions, but she had never given it any thought for herself since she believed it was for madmadmad people only. She invested in a uniqueuniqueunique prosthesis for long‑distance runners and registered for her first 10‑kilometre race, but she changed her registration to the half‑marathon category on the night before the event. Jacky describes herself as a person who likes to test her limits to go as far as she can. That’s why she set an objectiveobjectiveobjective for the year: to break the world record for the most following marathons. The previous Guinness record belonged to Alyssa Amos Clark, a runner from Vermont, who completed 95 marathons as a way to cope withcope withcope with the pandemic.

Jacky was documentingdocumenting [document]documenting her runs on social media and has managed to raise £70,000 for Amputee Blade Runners, an organisation which helps people like Jacky. She says that running has done wonders for her mental health and has helped her realise just how powerful her body is. Jacky says “it has helped me completely definedefinedefine again who I am and how capable I am.”

1 Źródło: Dorota Giżyńska, licencja: CC BY-SA 3.0.