Mario Was A Leisure Jogger

Staying on the whole premise of Desert Bus- you play a video game in marathon form for charity- let's go back to one of the early legends of the game industry, Super Mario Bros. 1. You know, 8 worlds, 4 stages, 7 times you're told the princess is in another castle. It's long been established as a classically frustrating 'how many more castles do I have to bust into' gaming gag.

But how much running around is Mario actually doing? That's the question Nick Greene of Mental Floss was asked by a reader, and so he set out to determine exactly how far Mario travels in the game. As it turns out, it isn't very far at all. Scaling Mario to the environment and an average human build in his basic, pre-mushroom phase (which, well, okay, if you say so), and taking into account his stance, Nick measured out the total area of the maps Mario traverses and determined that he travels 17,835 feet from 1-1 giddy-up to 8-4 woah, which translates to only 3.4 miles, or 5.4 kilometers. If you toss in bonus areas, up it to 3.7 miles.

As he alludes to, this is a good way to think about that 5K color run you've been planning.

Or Desert Bus, which features a route of 360 miles, which Mario could complete by saving the princess 105.88 times. (That 106th princess might be a tad disappointed.)