He put his experience in the Marines to good use in The Great Escape, in which his character, Hilts, attempted to jump a barbwire fence on a motorcycle.
These are usually one day affairs and are typically based on a running race of 3-12 miles, but those miles are fraught with hazards not found on any normal marathon or half-marathon course, from mud pits to vertical walls, fiery flame barriers to electric shocks, ice plunges to crawls under barbwire.