— Evren, you've already completed runs across seven Emirates, and now you're setting a new goal. What inspired this decision?

— I never want to be the guy who talks about the things he’s done in past too much, I think its always important to set new goals and have something to look forward to. It was great to break the record, but now its time to move on to something bigger.

— When considering your new goal, what other options did you explore? Why did you ultimately choose running on a treadmill?

— The truth is I cannot stand running on the treadmill, I hate every minute of it. The whole reason I started running was because I really hate it. At the time I was battling addiction problems and I had just gotten sober. I knew that if I was going to stay clean for the long term I would have to build some mental toughness, which I had absolutely none of at the time. Running has become a part of my life and daily routine, it’s my therapy, my meditation. This time around I decided to hold myself accountable and take running one step further, I hate running on a treadmill so I want to to the longest possible run possible and really get out of my comfort zone.

— Why did you select this specific distance? 

— The current world record is 845km so I want to break it. I’m only going to do this once so I’m going for 900km. It’s an ambitious goal, but I want to really push myself and see what I’m capable of, and if I don’t put myself in situations like this I’ll never know. 

— Are you planning to run the 900 km in complete silence, or will you find ways to entertain yourself? I remember you dislike running, and running on a treadmill while staring at a wall might be quite challenging.

— Yes it’s going to be incredibly mentally challenging, but thats why I’m doing it. There is no plan right now in terms of entertainment, I will probably just run in silence as I usually do. I’ll also plan 1-2 hours per day for urgent calls with my team while I’m running... work never stops!

— How are you preparing for this challenge? Could you share your training schedule with us?

— Just running, running a lot! I am going to incorporate a lot of lower body strength training as well during the training. It is all about getting used to running on tired legs, so I will plan heavy 2–3 hour weight sessions twice a week in the gym followed immediately by 30–50km runs. I am currently at around 140 km per week and will be getting up to 200 km per week.

— What are the main challenges you anticipate with this experience?

— Just the sheer distance of the challenge. It is 130km per day so its going to be really brutal on the body. The possibility of failure is extremely high here and I am going to have to run well every single day in order to break the record. On the last record we had the weather to contend with, this time on the treadmill we can control the environment perfectly. So although the distance is a lot more than I have run before, we can really optimise the conditions and hopefully that will lead to a better performance. 

— Last time, you filmed your run. Will you be doing the same this time?

— Yes, definitely. We’ve also started a miniseries on YouTube where each episode focuses on a specific aspect of the buildup — training, nutrition, recovery, etc. I did something similar for a triathlon I completed last summer in Canada (The Ultraman), and the response was that the videos were very helpful to people doing similar activities.

— Are you going to change sneakers during the run? Or it is not unnecessary?

— On the last record attempt I was changing shoes constantly because my feet kept on swelling up but this time around I’m going for a different approach. I have a luxury sneaker brand called Mallet, usually we don’t make running shoes but I’m working on a special concept just for this run. If it works, we may just bring it to market.