Within the early hours of Could 15, 2025, Shannon-Leigh Litt laced up her sneakers for the five hundredth time in as many days and headed out to finish a 52km run in Whangārei, New Zealand. The 46-year-old felony defence lawyer has been on a relentless journey since January 1, 2024, operating an extremely of a minimum of 50km each single day, with the objective of setting a brand new world file.
Balancing the courtroom and the course
Juggling her demanding authorized profession with this time-consuming bodily problem, Litt has discovered revolutionary methods to handle each. She makes use of know-how to remain on high of her work, telling the New Zealand information outlet Stuff, “It’s synthetic intelligence that lets me add recordsdata and hear whereas I run.” This method permits her to organize for court docket circumstances throughout her day by day runs. After finishing her five hundredth extremely, she rewarded herself with a facial earlier than heading again to court docket for a bail listening to.
The emotional terrain
Litt’s journey has been emotionally taxing in addition to bodily. “The final couple of months have been fairly robust emotionally. I’ve gone by extra life modifications up to now 500 days than I’ve within the final decade,” she advised Stuff. Regardless of the challenges, she feels remodeled: “This entire expertise has modified me—I really feel extra linked to folks and it’s made me develop.”
Eyes on the subsequent milestone
Whereas 500 ultras is a monumental achievement, Litt isn’t stopping there. She goals to succeed in a minimum of 603 consecutive ultras, surpassing the lads’s file for consecutive marathons. Litt blew previous U.S. ultrarunner and race director Candice Burt’s world file of 200 days in July 2024, however she hasn’t made issues official but. To make sure that her file will likely be acknowledged, she’s meticulously documenting every run, together with GPS information, witness statements and video footage. “I gained’t say it’s an official world file till all the paperwork, over 200 witnesses, log e book and photographs is all submitted and I can solely try this once I end operating 51km a day.”
