Hebel to continue on epic journey

Carl Hebel will kiss his wife goodbye later this year as he sets off on an epic, record-breaking heritage run around the world. Carl and his wife are pictured above with Gympie Harvey World Travel consultant Rochelle Byrne, who has been expertly handling the logistics of booking the many flights around the world.

WHILE Australia marvelled at the incredible achievements of athletes competing in the Sydney World Masters Games late last year, Gympie man Carl Hebel took things to a new dimension.

Hebel, 70, did much more than compete in long distance events in Sydney in the 65-69 years category.

Instead, the long distance runner opted to walk both to and from the games – a mind-blowing 1110km trek.

Many motorists stopped to ask what he was doing during his epic journey.

After a while, word got out and Hebel became something of a celebrity of the Sydney World Masters Games.

“A lot of people would pull over and ask if I was that silly bugger on the television,” he said.

“It was on the television and radio and what I was doing attracted a lot of interest.”

Gympie’s own self proclaimed Forrest Gump, who would run away from bullies as a child that resented his Native American Indian heritage, is planning on a run later this year that will take him around the world.

The Gympie runner said he was calling his journey a “heritage run”.

“I’m planning to run from Hebel Queensland to Hebel Germany, starting on my 71st birthday on October 23,” he said.

Hebel’s ancestry traces right back to the foundation of the German town that shares his surname.

The total distance of the trip, taking nearly two years to complete, will cover 20,000km and equate to a full marathon a day for 500 days.

There are those who dismiss the mission as being impossible.

“I can do it, that’s for sure,” Hebel said.

So far, five years of painstaking planning have gone into making the run of a lifetime a reality. And if successful, it will break a record in its own right.

Initially, Hebel was concerned he would not obtain sponsorship for the Australian leg of his journey, but Kellogs have all but jumped on board over the last week.

Had Australian sponsorship not been forthcoming, Hebel, ever resourceful, was planning to add extra distance to his long haul in Pittsburg, America.

In the last 20 years, Hebel estimates he has run 60,000km and by the end of this epic journey, that total will be significantly greater.