Mench Dizon made history when she finished the World Marathon Challenge. Here’s how she did it.
Running a marathon is a big undertaking. It takes months, sometimes even years of consistent training and preparation. And for many who have the 42.2-kilometer race written on their bucket lists, one is enough. Then there are those runners who crave a little more. Some aim to finish all the World Marathon Majors, which comprises seven of the world’s biggest marathon events. This is a feat all on its own, and it can take up to a decade or more to complete.
But then, there are runners like Mench Dizon.
Dizon impressively completed six of the World Marathon Majors in 2017 over just six years (before the Sydney Marathon was added to the list in 2024). But she did not stop there.
In 2015, the Filipina discovered the World Marathon Challenge, a series of seven 42.2-kilometer races on seven continents that participants finish in just seven days.
At this point in her running journey, she was still in the middle of finishing her goal of completing the six Majors. Yet, as she tells The GAME, “It’s obviously a very big undertaking both on the resources side, as well as on the needed time. So it was just at the back of my mind. But I said, ‘Okay, in my lifetime, maybe I’ll do it.’”
Ten years and many, many races later, Mench Dizon did what she set her mind to — she finished seven marathons on seven continents in seven days.
An unlikely starting point
Mench Dizon considers herself a “late bloomer.”
It was only in 2008, when she was 28 years old, when she got into running — but ironically, she did not start off with any real desire to run.
“I was voluntold — forced to volunteer,” she reminisces with a fond smile. She recalls that at the time, her company was hosting their annual sports competition, and since she was new to the company, she was sent to represent her department for the running event.
“It was actually quite interesting because if I wasn’t required to attend the sports competition, I wouldn’t have experienced that running was something I would enjoy.”
From there, Mench hit the ground running. She began joining races around Metro Manila back when entry fees were still just around PHP 100, and by December 2008, she was ready to run her first marathon.
It was a quick progression for someone who had just discovered her love for running a few months prior, and it seemed that nothing was going to halt Mench’s momentum — not even her first pregnancy.
“I found out that I was pregnant a month before the race,” she reveals. “So I had to check with my doctor if I could run…She said I could push through with it as long I am very mindful about how my body was feeling.
“So 2008 was my first marathon, and I was eight weeks pregnant then.”
This was enough to get her hooked on long-distance running, and funnily enough, when she signed up for her second marathon, she again found out she was pregnant before the race. “My husband said, ‘Please don’t make this a habit.’ So I have two kids and both of them have finished marathons with me.”
Two pregnancies later, Mench started taking her running shoes on international trips. In 2012, she ran the Berlin Marathon, and that was when she discovered the World Marathon Majors.
“I realized that this is like, a nice little life goal to do…So in 2012, I promised myself I’m gonna finish all the Majors.”
Not one to back out on her promises, Mench kept her vow, and in 2017, when she crossed the finish line of the famous Boston Marathon, she got that special six-star marathon medal.
With this big bucket list item checked off, what was next for Mench? The World Marathon Challenge.
“Finally, in 2024, I said, ‘I’m ready to take it on.’”
The challenge begins
Seven marathons in seven days — where would one even begin training for such a physically demanding task?
Mench Dizon turned to ultra-marathon runners to seek guidance. She asked around, searching for the best coach to help her prepare for the challenge, and she met an ultra-marathoner from the police force.
“He’s one of the elite ultra-marathoners and he says that this World Marathon Challenge is really just like a multi-stage ultra-marathon,” she explains. “So what was interesting about my training is that it actually wasn’t intense. Maybe because I’m also a much older runner…
“But in terms of training, the focus training was from August [2024] to January [2025]. Pretty much five months of training, and the progression there is very gradual. The mileage picked up towards the end, so it’s really just a steady buildup.”
Dizon further adds that her main focus was to train her legs to run even while tired.
But apart from this, the Filipina runner emphasizes the importance of recovery when training for a challenge of this scale.
“You need to be able to recover faster so that you can run again the next day. So, recovery practices, I needed to also factor into my training…I needed to have a recovery protocol I go to every single time I finished a hard run.”
Sleep, physical therapy (not the relaxing kind, she notes), supplements — there was a lot to think about on the recovery front. Not to mention that she had to add weight training to the mix to improve her muscle endurance.
But, of course, Mench also had years of marathon experience she could bank on. Having finished the World Marathon Majors, plus a good number of smaller, more scenic races — which she actually regards as “more special and more intimate” — five months was enough to get her prepped for this grueling seven-marathon series.
Never giving in
They call it the ‘World Marathon Challenge’ for a reason. Over the course of 168 hours, participants run 42.2-kilometer races in Ultima Basecamp (Antarctica), Cape Town (Africa), Perth (Australia), Dubai (Asia), Madrid (Europe), Fortaleza (South America) and Miami (North America).
Of course, the running is every bit as difficult as one might imagine, if not more so. But Mench Dizon is most often asked about the travel and jetlag aspect of it all.
“The plane and the flight time was our rest time,” she explains. “So, we didn’t have any hotel. So, it’s really just, okay, run, freshen up, go to the airport, ride the plane, sleep on the plane. And then land a few hours after.
“In the plane, we were already fixing ourselves, wearing the run gear, so that upon landing, we went through the usual sequence. We still had to go through immigration, get our luggages.
But we were supposed to be suited up so that within a couple of hours from landing, we were already ready. So, it was very hectic.”
Sleeping on a plane isn’t exactly the most comfortable experience, and when you’re running seven marathons in the span of a week, recovery is paramount. This was a big challenge for Mench.
On the first few days of the Challenge, their flight times would range from 10 to 15 hours, which was ideal. “People were able to get settled in, have enough sleep,” she recalls.
But later on, as the distances between the races decreased, the runners began to feel the reduction of the flight and recovery time. She says, “You will really feel the whole spectrum of fatigue.”
To keep her gears running through it all, Mench’s mindset was to, quite literally, take in the entire experience one step at a time.
“There was no jet lag because you didn’t know what time it was. You were just kind of like in this little bubble, where you’re just like being herded from continent to continent. So, the way I was thinking about it in between is, it’s really just after the run, you forget about it. And then you move on to your recovery protocol, so that you’re ready for the next day.
“So, it’s really just breaking up the larger goal into smaller chunks.”
Sounds simple enough — but the reality of it is far from it. In fact, Mench Dizon does not sugarcoat it at all. As she admits, “I think every single run, every single one of them, I doubted whether I would finish.
“It happens to me every single time I run. But then you keep at it. I go back to maybe my experience of training and believing that I trained for it. So when the doubt starts to creep in, I look back to my training. And that’s why the training is important so that during the race, you can muster the confidence that even as you’re feeling doubtful, you can go back and trust that your training can take you through the hard race.
“And what goes through my mind is, it’s not just for me now. It’s for the people who I have committed to do this for. It’s for the people who have supported me throughout.”
Going beyond the finish line
Landing in Antarctica for the first leg of the World Marathon Challenge was “surreal,” Mench says. “You’re surrounded by sheer white wilderness, and you’re running like a tiny speck.”
Madrid, on the other hand, was one of the most difficult according to the Filipina, because of the hilly terrain, though it was one of the most interesting circuits.
But among the most special was Dubai. “At this point, because I was by myself, I didn’t have any group of friends or I didn’t go with a family member. So I felt at that time that I’m just alone in this adventure.
“But I was so happy and pleasantly surprised when I saw that the volunteers along the course in Dubai were all Pinoy.
“It was special because normally, during these special events, us Pinoys are usually just in the background. But now, I am proud that I had a seat on the table. I actually am a participant and representing the country, not on the sidelines. And I was happy to represent them at least for this race. So they were cheering on and proud to have a Pinoy as a participant.”
These were the little things that kept Mench Dizon going when the doubt and fatigue would creep in.
But her biggest source of fuel was the cause she was supporting through this entire challenge.
Beyond marking another milestone as a runner, Mench took on the World Marathon Challenge as a fundraiser to help raise PHP 7 million for a new digital education center for the Sisters of Mary School, which provides secondary education and vocational training to up to 8,000 students from underprivileged backgrounds in the Philippines.
Mench shares, “I also grew up very poor, and I was a scholar growing up, so I said to myself, if I’m able to have some financial freedom and the capacity to give back to them, I would do so.
“So it was like coming together of my personal advocacy, my professional advocacy, and the run-related fundraising. So that harmony is something that’s truly special. And we remain to support the Sisters of Mary.
“The raise is for 7 million because that’s what they need. I got the raise, I think, 1.3, 1.4. But we continue to help them out by way of introductions to other entities who might want to sponsor a classroom.”
As a woman who works in the technology space, as the Country Head of Yield Guild Games (YGG) Pilipinas, Mench is an advocate for the ‘Metaverse Filipino Worker’ movement, which empowers Filipinos to build their careers online as an alternative to providing for their families by working abroad.
“The main mission is how can we bridge more of these jobs, bring it back home to the Philippines so the Filipinos don’t have to leave the Philippines,” she affirms.
With this serving as her fuel throughout the entire journey of completing the World Marathon Challenge, the final stretch — the Miami course — was like a “cocktail of emotions,” as Mench puts it. She had spent an entire week running marathon after marathon, getting on flight after flight. Her husband even showed up to run the final ten kilometers with her to make it even more special.
Yet, as celebration-worthy as her accomplishment was as she approached the finish line, Mench recalls that crossing that threshold prompted a moment of reflection.
“Actually the entire seven-day challenge was a time to just record what’s important — how would I want to live the rest of my life? And as I crossed the finish line, it was just further clarity that the work that I’m doing, the life that we’re leading, is really in alignment with this mission and how we could direct our efforts towards just providing a work that matters to our community and to the world at large.
“So it wasn’t like very big emotions. It was really just a coming to terms of, okay, this big challenge is done, so what do we do next? And what to do next wasn’t about what’s the next race, what’s the next challenge for my other marathons. But it was more of, okay, now that this is done, we go back to work and apply everything that we learned during this epic adventure in the work that we’re doing.”
It was truly a full-circle moment for Mench Dizon, who began this entire journey by simply getting thrown into running. Now, she is the first Filipina to finish both the prestigious World Marathon Majors and the World Marathon Challenge.
But accolades aside, and the finishers’ medals she’s accumulated over the years, the biggest thing she has earned from all the marathons is this:
“Having that skill to do difficult things gives me the confidence and the self-belief that I can take on difficult challenges and not to shy away from difficult conversations, difficult challenges. And I guess it gives me that confidence as well that we could figure things out. A big part of the challenge was adapting to the varying schedules, to the varying terrains and temperature.
“That adaptability is important as you go through life, and the capacity to just keep yourself centered amidst the chaos.”
Images taken by Richard Ducker, Lucas Abreu;©️Runbuk/ World Marathon Challenge