GRAFTON, Mass. - Bill Murphy of Grafton, MA is preparing to run The Great World Race - seven marathons on seven continents in seven days.

Murphy said he wasn’t always a runner.

“I hated running. I was as an athlete but a gym guy, you know, I like the gym and the quick, short workouts and be done," Murphy said. "And the running is endurance, it’s long and it's arduous and it's tedious and it can be boring”

But he said things started to click for him the longer he ran.

“What I started to realize is on all these long runs like these ideas, these epiphanies, this adrenaline hit would just overtake me with these good feelings, and I’d have problems solved because it would all just come flowing to me," Murphy said. "And I was like, ‘This is kind of a feel-good thing.’”

Murphy, who has written a book about overcoming adversity, said he’s constantly pushing to see how far he can go. Now he’s getting ready to run seven marathons in one week.

“Can we keep pushing? And then that led to an Iron Man and that led to an ultramarathon, and that led to a 24-hour race," Murphy said. "And then now we're doing The Great World Race and we're going to seven continents in seven days.”

The Great World Race starts in Antarctica and ends in Miami, with a marathon on all seven continents. Murphy is running for a charity organization he’s supported for about 20 years.

“We're going to Run the World for Wishes for Make-A-Wish; that's the 'why' behind it," Murphy said. "If I want to push my limits, I can change within, I can change the world, but let's do it for the greater good. And that's how I started, the wheels started turning - probably on a long run - about tying this in like Run the World for Wishes and creating the fundraiser and awareness for Make-A-Wish.”

His goal is to raise $50,000 for Make-A-Wish while raising awareness for the organization. He said helping the families they support is the motivation to keep pushing him forward as he runs around the world.

“Anything you do, when you hit some dark times and some dark areas and you want to quit, it's like, what am I doing this for? And then if you can attach it to something beyond yourself and you're doing it for someone else or something else that's just going to make the world a better place, then that can help you keep going," Murphy said. "Taking another step and another step and another step just moving and not giving up.”