Following his 23 marathons in 2013, the 49-year-old raised the target last month by completing his 27th marathon for 2014 at Lilydale in Victoria, in a time of 3:49.

This is the most official marathons ever completed on Australian soil in a calendar year.

What made the achievement even more remarkable is that his final 17 marathons since June were run with a two-centimetre tear in his left achilles.

Patzold said the injury meant his times were about 40 minutes slower than usual for the second half of the year, but there were still positives to be gained.

"My goal for the year was to run a minimum of one marathon in the 3:20 range for the 13th consecutive year and this was achieved with a 3:25 finish at the Barossa Valley in May," he said.

The injury only seemed to hinder Patzold for the first 15 kilometres or so of most runs until it warmed up.

"I actually found that the achilles with the tear was my strong leg," he said.

"The over compensation meant that the other achilles developed the inflammation that was holding me back."

Throughout the year Patzold managed to run sub-four hours on 11 occasions, but he said running over the four-hour mark 16 times made him draw a new appreciation for those runners that regularly exceed the four-hour mark and battle home in the warmer conditions.

To put things into perspective, Patzold said that there were "far crazier" people out there than himself.

"I have a mate from the Gold Coast who earlier this year ran across France.

"He was running close to two marathons a day for 19 consecutive days, yet at the completion of the event he counts this as just one Ultra Marathon to add to his 300-plus ultras to date."

Patzold's marathon tally now sits at 162 in just 13 years of running.

He hopes a couple of months' rest in the off-season will enable him to come back stronger next year, as he sets out to become just the fifth Australian to have completed 200 marathons - a goal he plans to reach some time in 2017.