Meet the Milwaukee surgical oncologist running 7 marathons on 7 continents in 7 days through the World Marathon Challenge

 

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- It's a beautifully sunny weekday afternoon, and Clark Gamblin is perched on a wooden bench, lacing up his brightly colored HOKA sneakers.

After the final knot is tied, the surgical oncologist is off, running laps outside of Froedtert Hospital's Clinical Cancer Center.

"I think running has always been a part of my life," the doctor told CBS 58's Ellie Nakamoto-White.

Nowadays, he gets up early to run for a couple of hours before he heads to work.

“Most of the time, you feel fabulous by doing it and it really gets your day off to a whole different start," Dr. Gamblin said.

His passion for the sport began decades ago when he was in middle school.

“I was kinda fast and I’d run the 100 meters and then everyone else, they got faster," Dr. Gamblin said laughingly. "I didn’t get faster and so, all of a sudden, distance running kind of became something that I had to gravitate to because I just wasn’t that quick!"

While in his second year of medical school, he ran in the Mississippi marathon to prepare for his next one in Napa Valley.

"I ran in memory of one of my friend's dads who had passed away," Dr. Gamblin recalled. “I think it’s always been an opportunity for me in a therapeutic way to say, let me expend some energy."

Now, he has a total of nine marathons under his belt.

“I’m not an elite athlete. I have a full-time job. I’m a normal person," Dr. Gamblin said. “You know there’s training that’s required to do something like this. There’s also a huge amount of mental grit to it all too, to say what is the body capable of doing?”

But it's his next adventure that will truly test if he can go the distance.

“When we begin our marathon, they’ll start the clock. 168 hours so seven days we will have to do this challenge," Dr. Gamblin said.

And that would be the 2025 World Marathon Challenge, where 60 runners from across the globe have to run around 180 miles on seven continents in just one week.

Gamblin is one of 17 Americans participating.

“I read about it, and I thought, this is unbelievable, right?" Dr. Gamblin said. "This is going to be a flight around the world, 60 hours in an airplane in a week is a lot of time on an airplane.”

The challenge will kick off at the end of January in Antarctica, which he believes will be the hardest to complete due to the wind and cold weather.

Then, runners will take a private plane to participate in marathons in South Africa, Australia, the United Arab Emirates, Spain, and Brazil, before finishing in Miami.

“I just want to do something that’s a little out of bounds, a little different, and I think it’s completely feasible," Dr. Gamblin said. “I think we’re much more capable of a lot of things we don’t even consider sometimes.”

Plus, he's not just running for the honor -- instead, he's hoping to raise awareness for testicular cancer and men's health in general.

“Men tend to ignore their health for some reason, I don’t know why exactly," Dr. Gamblin said. “Testicular cancer is the number one cancer that affects males aged 15 to 44. Every hour, someone is being diagnosed. Every day, someone in our country dies of testicular cancer.”

But it's also 95% curable if detected early -- something he knows first-hand, after being diagnosed in 2018.

"I remember just leaning in on not only treatment team, but my family and my friends," Dr. Gamblin said. “You can imagine as a cancer physician; you give a lot of advice for 20 years and all of a sudden you’re having to listen to your own advice.”

Thankfully, after chemotherapy and multiple operations, he is now cancer-free.

“Even this health challenge for me has enabled me to think about it differently personally when I take care of my patients and so it’s made me, I think, a better doctor," Dr. Gamblin said. “I think as a cancer surgeon, there’s a certain amount of optimism that one needs to be able to help patients and give them hope.”

Funds raised through his marathon challenge will go toward the Testicular Cancer Awareness Foundation -- a nonprofit dedicated to highlighting health education and reducing stigma around the disease.

So far, he's raised more than $70,000 out of his $250,000 dollar goal.

“I hope that my story will inspire people to think about their own personal journey and that cancer can be a dark time that you can come out of," Dr. Gamblin said. “I think that life is fragile, and life is hard. It’s not easy. We have to lean on each other, we have to help each other and I’m grateful for the people that helped me. I’m grateful to be a person who gets to help people on their journeys, and the race is focused on inspiring people.”

To keep up with his journey via Instagram, click here. 

To donate, click here.