He’s 72 years old and runs a marathon each month.

At the weekend the remarkable Wes Love completed the Bermuda International Marathon for the second time, bringing his tally of 26.2 mile races to 147.

He was the oldest race entrant in Sunday’s marathon.

Love has run a marathon in every US state, all the Canadian provinces and completed a marathon on every continent except Antarctica — although he aims to book in for the 2009 Antarctica race to complete his continental odyssey.

It has been five years since Love last did a “repeat” marathon. He decided to return to Bermuda in consecutive years because his intended race in Houston had closed and sports agency Marathon Tours suggested the Island as a January alternative.

And it turned out to be a good choice for the Indiana resident as he improved his 2006 time by 11 minutes as he came home 60th overall. Love may even be tempted back for the 2008 event.

“I enjoyed the race. It is very friendly and well organised. There are the constant hills and the big one (McGall’s Hill) although that is not really big compared with other places. It is a taxing course, especially for older people and looking at the finishing times even some of the younger ones found it tough,” he said.

His extraordinary marathon tally began in 1982, shortly after the former school teacher took up running.

“I started because I was hearing that many American men were dropping dead at 40. So I thought I would start exercising. There was also the running craze at the time. By about 2000 I’d run 79 or 80 marathons.

“In April, 2001 I thought I’d do a marathon in each of the US states and then do the Canadian provinces and then each of the continents.”

The US states have now all been done, including famous marathons such as New York, Chicago (11 times), San Francisco, Honolulu, Pittsburgh as well as many more obscure events.

Overseas he has run in Siberia in Russia, Argentina, Tanzania, Canberra in Australia, New Zealand, Norway and London.

Over the past five and a half years he has chalked up 66 marathons, averaging one-a-month. At his peak he ran times of 3:40 and 3:50 but as he has got older has lost some speed and now tries to get as close to five hours as possible.

What is the attraction of running marathons as opposed to simply running or being content with shorter races?

“A marathon takes a person to the point where they are as low as they can go — down to nothing — but you walk away at the finish line and you know you have really accomplished something and then you build yourself back up again,” he said.