A Buddhist priest dubbed the “marathon monk” has completed an ancient running ritual in a Japanese mountain range that took seven years and covered a distance equivalent to a trip round the globe.

A rigorous regimen dictates that in each of the journey’s first three years, the pilgrim must rise at midnight for 100 consecutive days to pray, run along an 18-mile trail around Mt. Hiei--stopping 250 times to pray along the way. In the next two years, he has to extend his runs to 200 days. During the fifth year, he must sit and chant mantras for nine days without food, water (?!?) or sleep in a trial called doiri or “entering the temple.” In the sixth year, he walks 37.5 miles every day for 100 days, and in the seventh he goes 52.5 miles for 100 days and then 18 miles for another 100 days before returning to the temple in Otsu city.

Again: Wow. Wow wow wow. That’s simply amazing. I’m awed; I never imagined that efforts of that nature existed anymore.