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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Lifestyle
Barney Riley

Man completes mountain marathon before clocking on for bar shift

Ben Rowe / SWNS

A Canadian man casually completed a mountain marathon before clocking on for a shift at his job.

Ben Rowe, 27, finished the run before starting work as a cocktail bar server in Whistler, British Columbia.

Ben explains that he likes to come up with “ridiculous” ideas of things to do before he heads to work in the evening.

This time, it was to complete a marathon (26.2 miles/42 kilometres) atop Mount Overlord.

The mammoth task boasted an elevation of 2,400 metres on top of the already lengthy route and arduous inclines to contend with.

Ben reached the peak of Overlord in just three hours and 45 minutes.

He then made his way back down and completed the marathon in six hours and 45 minutes before changing for his shift.

On that day, he ran and walked over 50 kilometres, which included his time at work.

Ben said: “About a year ago, I decided to start documenting the climbing, hiking and skiing activities I could do before I work.

“As this progressed I decided to take it further and further, I wasn’t really interested at first in documenting these things because I was doing them purely because I enjoyed it.”

(Ben Rowe / SWNS)

He continued: “The motivation behind doing cool things before work is to show the average person that just because your working a regular 9-5, doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of your day.

“I thought through showcasing what I could do before work other people would feel the same, cause I found that often they are saying their weekends aren’t long enough or the days are too short.

“The more I committed to doing these cool objectives the more I wanted to push it and go bigger and bigger.

“In the video shown, I decided to try to do a marathon - in the mountains - hitting two different peaks, gaining over 2400m in elevation gain, navigating tight ridge lines and some glaciers.”

(Ben Rowe / SWNS)

Rowe says he has grown accustomed to being exhausted and that it doesn’t affect his work performance that much - adding it’s more of a mental battle.

“Coffee helps, also doing it a bunch you become accustomed to these mega long days.

“I’m borderline exhausted but it’s a mental battle and the bar I work in is high volume and fast-paced so there’s no room to be sleepy.”

He said his colleagues and company are aware that he is doing these challenges prior.

“It’s hard to explain how I’m able to be productive after i do these things, and they still can’t quite figure that out.”

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