Robert Pope
Robert Pope is a British veterinarian, athlete, author and charity fundraiser. He is an elite distance runner, with a number of successes at the marathon and ultramarathon distances.
In 2016 he began a 422-day, 15,700-mile run comprising more than 4 complete crossings of the United States, and became the first person to trace the route run by Tom Hanks' fictional character in the film Forrest Gump. He has raised approaching £100,000 for the charities Peace Direct and the World Wildlife Fund. He attended the Royal Veterinary College, London, gaining a BVetMed(Hons.), a BScVetPath(Hons.) and finally a PhD in Veterinary Medicine. He has since worked as an emergency veterinarian including at the University of Melbourne as an instructor in ECC whilst in Australia he became the Australian Marathon Champion in 2015. He subsequently won the Liverpool Marathon in 2015 and 2016, the latter with a personal best time of 2:27:13.
He holds the Guinness World Record for the fastest marathon dressed as a film character, in a time of 2:36:28 (finishing 82 overall) while dressed as Forrest Gump. In 2019, He finished 14th and as top Northern European in one of the few races that lay claim to “The World’s Toughest Footrace” - the 6 day, self-sufficient Marathon des Sables in the Sahara desert, despite developing pneumonia during the penultimate stage! In 2022, he became the first person to run the width of Ireland in a day, with his journey taking him from Galway to Dublin, with a pint of Guinness at the start and the end!
Rob is the host of the Red Bull podcast called “How to be Superhuman”, where Rob chats to endurance athletes of all backgrounds to hear what makes them “superhuman” and author of the Harper North release “Becoming Forrest”