Tom Denniss Close to Circumnavigating

TOM DENNISS CLOSE TO CIRCUMNAVIGATING  

To heck with Carmen Sandiego, where in the world is Tom Denniss?

If you’re keeping up with your tomsnextstep.com and his Tom Tracker, you’ll know he’s back in Australia, just miles to Sydney on his quest to be the fastest guy to run away from home. And by run away from home I meant go east without turning back. Just keep going east on foot… everyday… for at least a marathon each day for close to two years. He expects to be home Sept 13.

Are you tired, yet, reader? On the day you’re resting, Tom is running 26 to 40 miles. He’s a running fiend raising money for OxFam.  His goal is 26,000 km and to do it in less than 662 days. All he needed to do was run the entire length of New Zealand, across South America, North America, Europe, Asia and finish with Australia. And, by the way, while doing so he crossed a few mountain ranges and his best to not to slip off an ice cliff.

I’m worn out, almost out of breath, not sure I can write anymore. Plus, my mind is exploding trying to figure what kind of shoes I need to run in for mountainous ice slopes and still make good time, probably not Keds.

Okay, you might be asking, this Denniss guy is one crazy jogger but who is he? Well let’s see, 52, PhD in math and oceanography, Aussie, former teacher, investment banker, a wife named Carmel, father of two. He invented something to convert ocean waves into electricity.

Checking in on tomsnextstep.com we find Tom has put in 52 and 57 km days (for the metric impaired that’s about 37 miles) and he’s on his goal to hit Sept 13. If he does, he’ll beat the 662 days Jesper Olsen established BY 40. That should inspire you to send a little donation to www.oxfam.org (eradicate poverty, provide disaster relief, associate yourself with Oxford University). Tom says if everyone who wanted to go around the world did so by foot instead of cars, we’d have the oil and greenhouse gases problems solved, plus we’d provide a lot of jobs for the little Asian children making shoes.

I guess this is one way to tell your grandkids you’ve seen the world, and not just from a car or a hotel room. Not only seen it but smelled it and saw the plants and animals close up. We imagine quite a few cows and antelopes have remarked about this crazy Tom guy and why couldn’t he afford a vehicle like all the other humans.

The thing we enjoyed about Tom’s blog and his website was we got to travel around the world with him. See the pictures, share his adventures, watch the Youtubes, watch his daughters run with him, listen to the car horns squawking for him to get off the road and then we get to drink a beverage, go to bed, check our feet and be thankful they’re not swollen. Life is good. I’m willing to let someone else do my running around the world for me. And I couldn’t have picked a nicer guy.

Thanks, Tom.