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ABOUT
DEDICATED TO HELPING HUMANITY
"Each and every one of us can achieve anything that we set our mind to, if we take it just one step at a time." Pat Farmer
Pat has been awarded the high honour of the Order of Australia, AM for his contribution to ultra marathon running, politics and charitable works. He was winner of “Achiever of the Year” (2000), awarded by Prime Minister, John Howard and National Geographic's Adventurer of the Year in 2012. Pat has raised millions of dollars for causes during his 30-year running career including Lifeline, Cancer Council, The Red Cross, Diabetes Australia and the Nanhi Kali foundation for the education of India's girl child.
Pat is a professional ultra marathon runner. Inspired by the great Cliffy Young, Pat ran the Sydney to Melbourne Ultra back when he was just 18 years old.
Since then, Pat has accomplished some of the greatest feats on Earth. In 2011/12 Pat ran over 20 000km from the North Pole to the South Pole, through Canada, America, Central America and South America. Taking 10 months and 13 days, Pat ran every day, averaging 80km a day.
Pat has broken world records and created some of his own. In 2016, Pat ran 4417km in 65 days in his Spirit of India run from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, to raise awareness of the beauty of India and its people and to raise funds for the Nanhi Kali foundation, supporting the education of the Indian girl child.
The Middle East Peace Run of 2014, encompassed Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and Palestine. It was a distance of approximately 1450km in 19 days. The purpose of this endurance run was not to raise funds but to create awareness of the desire for peace in these nations. Mission for the Middle East Peace Run “The purpose of the run is to unite all people through my footsteps regardless of borders and to encourage as many people as possible to simply run with me and not be concerned with what country any of us come from, but to simply draw on our commonality of love of running and humanity. This run is purely symbolic of unity through sport and I will not be raising funds for particular causes, the message is cause enough. I am hoping to run with thousands of people over the 20 days”_- Pat Farmer
In yet another monumental achievement and in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the friendship agreement between Australia and Vietnam, in Dec 2012- Jan 2013, Pat ran the length of Vietnam, a distance of 3200km.
Pat served 8 years as a Member of Australia’s Parliament, with 3 years as Parliamentary Secretary for Education, Science and Training.
OTHER SPORTING ACHIEVEMENTS
2006 - Pat revisited his 24-hour vertical climbing record, raising over $500,000 for the Millennium Foundation’s ovarian cancer research program at Westmead Hospital. He first completed the climb in 1998, becoming the first person to run 24 hours vertically, climbing both up and down Sydney Tower, which was described as “running Mount Everest in 24 hours”.
1999 - Pat established the fastest around-Australia record of continuous running in 191 days and 10 minutes (around 6 months) over 14,662.4km during his Centenary of Federation run.
Also, during that run Pat set a new world 10,000km record in 129 days, broke a long- standing Australian record of more than 13,383km in 174 days, set a total of 10 international records including the Western Australia border to border run, the Brisbane to Darwin run, and the world record for the longest tropics run (6307km in 83 days).
1993 - A virtually unknown Pat Farmer secured second place in his first attempt at the Trans-America Road Race - 4719km from Huntington Beach, California to New York, 80km per day for 64 days.
IN ADDITION PAT IS
Twice - record holder for crossing the Simpson Desert,
Ranked third in the world for 1000 miles on a track.
He also ran 2500km around NSW for charity in 42 consecutive days as well as numerous international and national ultra marathons, including the first 1,000 mile track race in Australia – the second race of its kind anywhere in the world.
