A Buddhist priest dubbed the marathon monk has completed a 24,800-mile running ritual in Japan after seven years.

　　Genshin Fujinami covered a distance equivalent to a trip round the globe, wearing only a white robe and straw sandals. The 44-year-old monk returned from the Hiei mountains, a range of five peaks that rise above the ancient capital of Kyoto. Fujinami was greeted at the end of his journey by a crowd of worshippers, who knelt to receive his blessings. He said: "I entrusted everything to God. I am satisfied."

　　Since 1885, only 46 other so-called "marathon monks" of the Tendai sect have lived through the ritual, which dates to the 8th century and is believed to be a path to enlightenment. The last monk to complete it returned in 1994. Traditionally, the monks who can't complete the task must take their own lives either by hanging or disembowelment.

　　A rigorous regimen dictates that in each of the journey's first three years, the pilgrim must rise at midnight for 100 consecutive days to pray, run along an 18-mile trail around Mount Hiei - stopping 250 times to pray along the way. He can carry only candles, a prayer book and a sack of vegetarian food. In the next two years, he has to extend his runs to 200 days.

　　His most difficult trial comes during the fifth year when he must sit and chant mantras for nine days without food, water or sleep, in a trial called "doiri". In the sixth year, he walks 37.5 miles - slightly longer than a marathon race - every day for 100 days. And in the seventh, he goes 52.5 miles for 100 days and then 18 miles for another 100 days, before returning to the temple, located in Otsu city, about 234 miles southwest of Tokyo.