| Summary: | WORLD April 7, 2000 6 British man attempting to run around the world CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) He dodged bullets in Russia, got robbed in Brazil, collapsed from heat exhaustion in Australia and went to jail in China. But that hasn't stopped Robert Garside, a 33-year-old former psychology student from Britain, from chasing his goal of becom-ing the first person to run the length of the Earth's seven conti-nents. Garside, who calls himself the Running Man on his Web site, has already run across Australia, Asia, Europe and South America in a three-year journey that has taken him more than 20,000 miles and earned him the world record in long-distance running. "It's very powerful, very per-sonal," Garside said in an inter-view after arriving in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas — on the northern tip of South America — following an 11- month transcontinental run that began in Punta Arenas, Chile. "After a while you can get into your thoughts and relax and forget that you're running," he said. To complete his goal within two years, Garside must still run across North America, Africa and Antarctica, where it's far from clear how he'll be able to traverse 3,500 miles of icy, uninhabited land mass in sub zero tempera-tures, all the while maintaining an average speed of at least 6 mph to avoid being classified as a walker. "I imagine a 6-foot-long aero-dynamic fiberglass egg on skis^" he said of an as yet uninvented, solar-heated contraption he plans to sleep in during his run across Antarctica. When he gets to California, hopefully by July, he said he expects thousands of people to join him in his run across the United States — a spectacle that conjures up images of the fiction-al character Forrest Gump. But first he must cross Colombia en route to Central America and Mexico. Colombia is where a Russian cyclist on a similar mission was murdered four years ago, and where leftist guerrillas, right-wing death squads and drug runners rule large swaths of territory. A Colombian friend arranged for Garside to meet guerrilla lead-ers and the Colombian ambas-sador in Caracas on Wednesday in an effort to secure safe passage through Colombia, Garside said. He hoped to meet Colombian guerrilla leaders in Caracas Wednesday, but that did not hap-pen. However,. Garside said his friend spoke by telephone with representatives of the Colombia' s National Liberation Army who offered safety guarantees, but said they could not speak for the coun-try's largest rebel outfit, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. "My message to the Colombian powers is that I am just a runner wishing to run north," Garside posted on his Web site on Tuesday. "I am not a preacher of peace, nor religious or political in any way. I am running around the world and will mind my own business." It wouldn't be Garside's first brush with danger. He said he "ran for his life" when he was shot at three times by bandits in Russia, and that Chinese police, con-vinced he was a spy, nabbed him and threw him in jail for five days. "A huge mass of wriggling maggots were spilling over the sides," Garside wrote of the urinal in his cell. But the dangers can seem mild compared to the loneliness, he said. He's left behind girlfriends all over the world, including three women in Brazil who proposed marriage, he said. When he set off from London's Piccadilly Circus of Dec. 7, 1996, Garside said most of his friends and family thought he was crazy. But the Running Man says he merely wants a little adventure, and "maybe even to make a con-tribution." "I just wanted to do something different. I'm a very normal per-son," he said, adding that 30 per-cent of the proceeds he plans to earn from three book projects and a planned sportswear line will go to charity. When he started out, he had virtually no money — in Nepal he slept on prison floors because he couldn't afford a hotel — but his fortunes changed recently when a donor in Hong Kong agreed to back his project for a percentage of any future profits. „, That donor recently persuaded ' a friend to put another $150,000 into the project, Garside said. In Caracas this week, Garside bought a change of clothes (he runs with only one) and a video camera to film himself every 90 minutes or so to prove he's actual-ly running. He's also collecting witness statements along the way. Garside broke the world long-distance running record in September 1998 in Australia, where he eclipsed the old mark of 11,134 miles, held by American Sarah Lovington-Fulcher. Carrying a 15-pound backpack, Garside runs to the music of Pavarotti, Beethoven, Dire Straits and Enya. 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