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By Ray Glier
“I run for the same reason birds fly and fish swim. It's what I do.”
Brent Weigner, 74, also said this:
“Old guys don’t do this craziness anymore."
He ran 100 miles over five days in Mozambique earlier this month. Brent, who lives in Cheyenne, Wyoming, when he is not living in airports, did not go back to a Holiday Inn each night after a leg of the race.
Weigner (WEEN-ur) rolled into a tent each night and rolled out in the morning. He took sponge baths. He had to pack in his own food and pack it all out in the morning and lug it around. Weigner competed in the Ultra Africa Race, a 261-km foot race, which included the last 20k running on a packed-sand beach along the Indian Ocean.
Brent did not run the entire 261k, but he ran 100 miles and race organizers said he could notch it in his belt as a marathon. That is 204 ISO countries where Brent has run a marathon or ultra marathon. He needs 45 more to reach his goal of running in all 249 ISO countries (International Organization for Standardization).
Yes, Brent was the oldest runner in the Mozambique event.
The man is fearless. He goes to Pakistan in January, 2024. Brent has run in Yemen and Iran and Iraq and Syria. His wife, Sue Hume, has been given simple instructions.
“If I get kidnapped, don’t negotiate. I’ll figure something out,” he says.
Welcome to Ween-ur World.
Brent was a geography teacher for 35 years in Wyoming, which figures given his love of people and cultures worldwide, and the travel that goes with it. Weigner, who started running in 1968, is a multiple cancer survivor, so you bet he runs with gratitude.
Weigner ran that Yemen marathon two months after brain surgery where a cyst the size of his fist was removed from his noggin.
And when he was 12, he was sick, really sick. Weigner didn’t find out how sick until he was when 21 and classified 4-F and tossed from the military before he could go Vietnam. The officer at the school where he was in the ROTC program, what is now Northern Colorado University, looked at his medical history and said to him, “Didn’t your parents tell you? You were supposed to die.”
Weigner was classified as “terminally ill” at 12 with six months to live because of lymphoma. The cancer has come back and retreated.
The man knows challenges, and the challenges now are not just the running, but getting to these faraway places. Cheyenne to Denver is a consistent route and then…whew!...it is a dizzying connecting and flying pace. That is not to mention the host country's process of applying for a visa before you even leave home.
When he gets wherever he is going, Brent takes it all in. He has trekked with mountain gorillas and walked cheetahs on leashes. Weigner has dodged civil wars, too.
You can write all day about this man. This 400-word hosanna is enough for now. Geezer Jock will keep you tuned in as Brent closes in on his goal.
Brent with friends in Mozambique earlier this month.
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felix allen
August 12, 2024
So far the planet Earth has hosted an estimated 117 billion people but only one, has ever, and is likely to ever, run marathons in over 200 countries. It’s an impossible and fearless task of endurance and endeavour. Did I mention logistics? I am proud to count Brent as a friend and have been lucky enough to have run some of these races with him. And enjoyed many beers together afterwards.