by Jedd Ferris

Sean Burch has always lived and trained in the flatlands of Northern Virginia, but that hasn’t stopped him from becoming one of best high-altitude mountaineers in the world.

On June 7 the 35-year-old expert climber and fitness instructor from Oakton,Va., set a new world record for the fastest ascent of the famed Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania-running the 34-kilometer route in five hours, 28 minutes, and 48 seconds. Burch gained nearly 15,000 vertical feet along the 19-mile route, facing hypothermia, pulmonary edema, a blinding wind storm, pouring rain, sleet, and snow as he ran through five different ecosystems to reach the 19,340-foot summit. More than 22,000 people attempt to reach the highest peak in Africa each year, but nearly half of those who try don’t reach the summit. Those who do finish usually take multiple days or even a week or more to do what Burch did in mere hours.

“The climate change is the toughest thing,” Burch says. “You start out in a rainforest with 80-90 degree weather, and you end up in bitter cold at the top. I’ve never experienced anything like those kinds of changes, so it was pretty intense.”

Near the end with just a few yards to go, Burch excitedly made a sprint dash for the summit. Premature spirit proved to be a mistake a few minutes later when he suddenly puked at the pinnacle.

“I totally exhausted myself,” he says. ”My muscles were shaking. So I sat atop the summit for about an hour and enjoyed the views. It was probably the best hur of my life. When I finally tried to get up I could barely move, so I slowly walked down to one of the high camps.”

Burch trained for a year on a regimen of trail running, plyometric training, and muscle endurance workouts. Before setting the world record, he acclimatized on the mountain for eight days by running laps around the crater rim at 18,500 feet and jumping rope for extended periods of time on the summit. He carried a six-pound pack up the mountain and only had one cookie, five gels, and two liters of water through the entire ascent.

“That lasted me until I got back down to 12,000 feet,” he says. “I was really dehydrated and some edema was kicking in, but at that point I knew I was safe.”

While the accomplishment is no less than amazing, it’s really just another addition to the mountaineer’s extensive resume. In a front-page story, USA Today called Burch the second fittest athlete on the planet behind Lance Armstrong. Last year he set a world-record time of 3:43 at the North Pole Marathon, and he’s summited the world’s highest peaks including Argentina’s Aconcagua, Tibet’s Shishapangma, and his personal crowning achievement, a 2003 summit of the world’s highest mountain, Mount Everest, which he nearly completed without supportive oxygen.

At home, Burch is an expert fitness instructor, who teaches his own creation of “Hyperfitness,” which focuses on a balance of mental and nutritional training, as well as physical exercises stemming from Burch’s 14-year training in martial arts.

“I’ve seen some people that are in great shape that can’t do squat, because mentally they don’t have the desire,” says Burch. “It’s taken years of physical fitness and dissecting myself to hone that mental discipline.”