2 from US join elite club: 7 marathons, 7 days, 7 continents

World Marathon Challenge winners Becca Pizzi, left, from Belmont, Mass., and Daniel Cartica, from Poughkeepsie, N.Y., pose with an American flag after the seventh and final leg of the World Marathon Challenge, Saturday, Jan. 30, 2016, in Sydney, Australia. (AP)

BOSTON (AP) — Two American endurance athletes have just redefined the meaning of the term “globetrotter.”

Daniel Cartica, of Poughkeepsie, New York, and Becca Pizzi (PEE’-zee), of Belmont, Massachusetts, won the World Marathon Challenge, completing seven marathons in seven days on all seven continents.

Each did it in world-record time, and both became the first U.S. competitors to win the strength-sapping event.

Cartica is a U.S. Marine Corps captain, and Pizzi is a day care center operator. They finished Friday with a marathon in Sydney. They and 13 others began Jan. 23 with a marathon in Antarctica and on consecutive days ran the 26.2-mile distance in Chile, Miami, Spain, Morocco and United Arab Emirates.

They now join a club more elite than those who have voyaged into space or scaled Mount Everest.