Chicago Marine 7 Marathons for Chattanooga Slain Servicemembers

CHICAGO MARINE FINISHES 7 MARATHONS IN 7 DAYS ON 7 CONTINENTS - WITH RECORD TIME
ABC News Chicago
By Ravi Baichwal
Wednesday, February 03, 2016

CHICAGO (WLS) -- A U.S. Marine from Chicago is back home after a whirlwind global tour with an athletic twist that might take a moment or two to sink in.

Daniel Cartica added more than 180 miles to his trip in one of the hardest ways you could imagine: seven marathons in seven days on seven continents.

Starting Saturday, January 23, day one was at Union Pass, Antarctica. From the icy course there, he hop-scotched the world to six other continents, finally finishing his amazing feat in Australia last Friday - and Cartica won the World Marathon Challenge in record time.

His trip around the world started at its bottom, Antarctica, then it was on to the Americas, over to Europe, down to Africa, across to the Middle East, then Down Under. Leading the pack in Antarctica was Cartica, a Marine who teaches at Northwestern University.

"I am always a guy who is trying to get out of his comfort zone," Cartica said.

That meant paying $23,000 for the chance to join a club more exclusive than Mount Everest climbers or the astronaut corps. After finishing, it was back into the group's Russian transport, where what little rest was to be gotten before the next marathon - in Punta Arenas, Chile.

"I wanted to do something for those family members of the servicemen that were killed," he said.

They were the five men who died in Chattanooga, Tenn., last July when they were ambushed by an armed gunman motivated, according to the FBI, by "foreign terrorist organization propaganda."
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