His original goal was 3,500 kilometers, but an injury at 300 kilometers put an end to that.

You may know Orla Isaksen Mølgaard from Facebook, where he has the page Orla Race.

Maybe you don’t know him – and if so, you might as well open your eyes now. Because 31-year-old Orla ran 1001 kilometers in May, but he’s not really satisfied with that. He had planned – hold on – 3,500 kilometers. That’s just under 113 kilometers a day.

We will return to that.

Because first we need to answer the overriding question: Why?

– In 2020 I was supposed to run an Ironman, which was canceled due to corona. And then I had nothing to do, Orla, who loves to challenge herself, tells KNR.

Here we can just note in parentheses that an Ironman is 3.8 kilometers of swimming, 180 kilometers of cycling and finally a marathon, i.e. 42.2 kilometers.

– Then I decided to run 600 kilometers.

Injured both feet

He did so in May 2020. The following year he ran 1,000 kilometers. Since then, the distance has been increased, and this year the goal was 3,500 kilometers. But it didn’t work out that way.

– I got injured at 300 kilometers. I had stepped wrong and injured both feet.

And that naturally made the road to the 3,500 kilometers even harder.

– When the body goes through something it doesn’t know, it stops. For example: You don’t have to run, why are you running… questions like that came up, and I had to compete against them, he says.

Yet he reached 1001 kilometers before May was over.

– That’s excellent. But I had imagined much more, he evaluates.  

Yet he is proud, because as he writes on Facebook, “you have to go through difficult things if you want to achieve something great.”

It is important not to let your thoughts control you – you should not be controlled by your thoughts, but control your thoughts yourself, he writes.

It may sound incredible that I was able to continue without motivation, but I was able to because I really wanted to achieve something, so I fought my way through.

Now he just needs to relax a bit, he tells KNR.

According to Orla Isaksen Mølgaard, he doesn’t just run for his own sake: 

– The purpose is to raise the standard. I hope other Greenlanders will do the same, he says.