"Running the Sahara" and "Expedition 360"
[Also: Someone just told me about the insane 4 Deserts and Racing the Planet events! I wonder if anyone is crazy enough to race more than one of these 5 races.
The 4 Deserts is a global series of seven-day, 250-kilometer (155 mile) self-supported footraces across the Gobi Desert of China (Gobi March), the Atacama Desert of Chile (Atacama Crossing), the Sahara Desert of Egypt (Sahara Race) and Antarctica (The Last Desert). The events take place in the driest, hottest, coldest and windiest places on Earth. The events attract competitors from around the world and has become the most prestigious global outdoor event in the world. RacingThePlanet is a similar format however the event changes locations to a new country each year. RacingThePlanet: Vietnam 2008 is scheduled to take place in northwest Vietnam in the area of Sapa, known for its mountains and colorful hill tribes.]
I tip my hat and heart to all those involved in these incredible projects!
3 Endure 4,300-Mile Run Across Sahara (AP):
Feb. 20, 2007---Three ultra-endurance athletes have just done something most would consider insane: They ran the equivalent of two marathons a day for 111 days to become the first modern runners to cross the Sahara Desert's grueling 4,300 miles (6,900 km)....
American Charlie Engle, 44, said he, Canadian Ray Zahab, 38, and Kevin Lin, 30, of Taiwan, ran the final stretch of their journey that took them through the Giza pyramids and Cairo to the mouth of Suez Canal on four hours of sleep. Once they hit the Red Sea, they put their hands in the water to signify crossing the finish line.
In less than four months, they have run across the world's largest desert, through six countries---Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Libya and finally Egypt....
The trek is one of extremes. "They endured incredible heat with ground temperatures reaching as high as 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54 degrees Celsius), and direct sunlight stretching late into the day."...but at night it sometimes dips below freezing. Strong winds can abruptly send sand swooping in every direction, making it difficult to see and breathe....
Throughout the run, the runners have been stricken with tendinitis, severe diarrhea, cramping and knee injuries all while running through the intense heat and wind---often without a paved road in sight.
For the whole story, see the "Running the Sahara" website (National Geographic). It will come out as a documentary film, narrated by Matt Damon.
The three men also ran to support H2O Africa, the clean water initiative that is part of the "Running the Sahara" expedition and film project. H2O Africa will create widespread public awareness of the water crisis in Africa and gather support for clean water programs in critical areas, particularly in the communities without clean water along the Running the Sahara route.
Read letter from Matt Damon. He's a co-founder of H2O Africa.
The science behind the run:
Stover and her colleagues put the runners on treadmills in a room heated to 117°F (47°C) -mimicking the temperatures in which they were expecting to run. There were even heat lamps to simulate sunlight.
There, the three ran at their expected effort level while the scientists measured the rate at which they sweated.
"We also measured their sweat's electrolyte concentration," Stover said, "because depletion of sodium, the primary electrolyte in sweat, can lead to muscle cramping."
Gatorade then gave the team a mountain of powdered sports drink, which each runner was to consume according to an individual plan, ranging from one quart (0.9 liters) to 1.5 quarts (1.4 liters) per hour.
The scientists also measured the runners' oxygen usage, an indicator of how many calories they would be burning per mile. The tests indicated they would need between 6,000 and 9,000 calories per day-three to four times the intake of the average American.
Eating so much might sound like a treat, but it's actually a chore. "When I see that amount of food, I think, 'My gosh,'" said Stover's colleague, Kris Osterberg.
Once the run started, Stover and another colleague went with the team to Africa to monitor the runners for the first few days. "Our goal was to see if we'd accurately measured their sweat rates in the lab," she said.
Another scientist had the runners swallow a vitamin-sized capsule containing a radio-transponder that monitored their body temperature. The runners' temperatures stayed within a degree or two of normal, which meant the hydration plan was working, since runners who get dehydrated will quickly begin to overheat.
Most people can't imagine running a 40-mile (64-kilometer) day in perfect conditions, let alone in a desert. But to cross the Sahara, these runners had to accomplish this feat daily for nearly four months.
During that time, a lot of things can happen to your body.
Initially, it adapts. You sweat more (for more efficient cooling), and your sweat becomes less salty in order to conserve sodium. Needless to say, the runners had trained in heat, so these changes had largely occurred before the GSSI scientists conducted their treadmill tests.
You also become increasingly fit, and your body may adjust its metabolism to burn fewer carbohydrates and more fat. Ray says that before starting, he'd bulked up from his normal 150 pounds (68 kilograms) to 161 (73 kilograms), but by the end of the run he was down to 132 (60 kilograms).
Then there are the inevitable aches and pains. "I like to say that this type of running is 90 percent mental, and the other part is all in your head," Ray jokes. "They told us that after a certain amount of time your body's going to adapt or fall apart."
Even so, Ray said, there were times when his body tried to pack it in. "I had horrendous tendonitis," he said. "You just have to will yourself past that point. The injuries go away after a while."
Part of what kept Ray and the others going was the medical team that accompanied them all the way across the desert. But they also experienced something conventional sports medicine is only now discovering: Under some circumstances, the body will heal itself while continuing to be active.
What happens, doctors are learning, is that activity actually becomes helpful to the recovery, especially from relatively recent injuries. The body adjusts to relieve stress-especially for trained athletes like the Running the Sahara team.
For example, a runner with a sore knee will alter his stride to absorb more of the impact in his calf. If the knee recovers before the calf starts to hurt, he's managed to heal without having to stop.
Map of their run. Photos.
Blog of the run.
.................................................
Adventurer Completes Circumnavigation of the Earth, Only by Human Power (AP):
Oct 6th, 2007 | LONDON -- He was hit by a car in Colorado, attacked by a crocodile in Australia, detained as a suspected spy in Egypt and survived illness and periods of despair.
On Saturday, British adventurer Jason Lewis finally came home, completing a 13-year and 3-month, 46,500-mile (74,400 km) human-powered circumnavigation of the globe.
The 40-year-old carried his 26-foot yellow pedal craft the last few miles up the River Thames, pushing it across the Meridian Line at Greenwich, where his expedition began in 1994.
"I'm overwhelmed," Lewis told Sky News television after arriving. He struggled for words as he described his feelings at the close of an odyssey that took him around the globe, powered only by his arms and legs - on a bicycle, a pedal boat, a kayak and inline skates.
"It's been my life, for 13 years, I've put everything into this," he said. "To be honest I didn't know it was going to happen. There were many times in the trip where it should have failed."
Lewis was recruited by fellow adventurer Steve Smith, who first dreamed up the idea of going around the world using only human power in 1991. The pair had little experience at sea, but Lewis thought the prospect of hiking and biking across the world was "wildly romantic."
"The three and a half years the expedition was projected to take sounded like an acceptable amount of time to rejuvenate from the wearisome London scene without totally going AWOL," Lewis wrote on the expedition's Web site.
Trouble began early. After two years of planning and fundraising, the pair set out in July 1994 only to get "horribly lost" on their way to the English coastal town of Rye, where their pedal boat was waiting.
After crossing the English Channel to France and then cycling to Portugal, the pair pedaled their boat in shifts across the Atlantic Ocean, reaching Miami in February 1995. Along the way, they survived close encounters with a shrimping trawler, a whale and a giant wave that swept Smith overboard.
By the time they reached America, the two adventurers had been cooped up in a broom closet-sized space for 111 days with little in the way of food, and their relationship had begun to deteriorate. They crossed the U.S. separately, with Lewis strapping on his inline skates for the 3,500-mile trip to San Francisco. It was on this leg of the journey that he was hit by a car in Pueblo, Colo., breaking both legs. He spent nine months recuperating.
Smith and Lewis reunited in San Francisco and eventually pedaled from the Golden Gate Bridge to Hawaii, where the two split for good. Smith went on to write a book, "Pedaling to Hawaii," while Lewis continued on to Australia.
He biked across the Australian outback, dodged supertankers in the Singapore straits and hiked the Himalayas. From Mumbai, India, he pedaled his boat across the Indian Ocean to Djibouti and made his way north by bicycle through Sudan and Egypt.
Accidents and sickness dogged the trip. The collision in Colorado nearly cost Lewis his leg. The trip across the Pacific left him sore, inflamed and depressed. While kayaking across the Barrier Reef off Australia, he was attacked by a crocodile, which bit off a piece of his paddle.
Local authorities were a problem, as well. Lewis logged "interesting experiences" with Alabama police and gun-wielding locals in the United States. He had to cycle through Tibet at night to avoid detection by Chinese roadblocks. And when he crossed into Egypt from Sudan, he was thrown in jail by the military on suspicion of being a spy.
After his release from prison, he biked through the Sinai desert and across Jordan, Syria and Turkey. He then powered through Europe over the summer, arriving in Greenwich, in southeast London, to cheers from family, supporters and the Duke of Gloucester, the expedition's British patron.
Lewis broke the trip up into 16 legs and took breaks ranging from several weeks to several months in various parts of the world. He also picked up corporate sponsors for each leg of the trip, including sports clothing, gear and supplement companies; satellite phone and global positioning system firms; and M&M's, which provided chocolate for the trip across the Pacific.
Lewis said he hoped to use the expedition to raise funds for humanitarian causes and draw attention to environmental issues. He has already raised $66,000 for causes ranging from an orphanage in East Timor to kindergartens in Bangkok.
See full story at Expedition 360:Expedition 360 is an attempt at one of the last great firsts for true circumnavigation: reaching antipodal points on the surface of the globe using only human power (no motors or sails). Bicycles, in-line skates, kayaks, swimming, walking and a unique pedal powered boat are being used by Englishman Jason Lewis and an international team to travel over 46,500 miles across five continents, two oceans and one sea (1994 - 2007).
Blog of the journey (many photos).
Logbook and maps of all 16 legs of the adventure.
Press reports:
RECORDS TO DATE
- February 1995: original pedaling partner Stevie Smith and Lewis complete the first east-west crossing of the Atlantic by pedal power.
- September 1996: Lewis completes the first solo crossing of the USA on rollerblades.
- August 18th 2000: Lewis becomes the first to pedal across the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco in the US to Port Douglas, Australia---178 days and 8,000 nautical miles.
MISHAPS
- Sept 1995: Jason run over by a car while in-line skating through Colorado USA and suffers compound fractures to both legs. Initial prognosis was amputation of left leg (below the knee). After extensive insertion of hardware (including metal rods in each tibia) he is able to continue after 9 months of recuperation.
http://www.expedition360.com/press_room/clippings_n_america/16_USA_pueblo_chief.pdf
- Nov 1998: pedal boat Moksha capsizes in a storm off the coast of California during the second attempt to pedal to Hawaii. No one is injured although the boat's interior is completely destroyed.
- June 2000: Jason contracts septicemia (blood poisoning) 1,300 miles from land pedaling between the islands of Hawaii and Tarawa (Republic of Kiribati). A US-based doctor of Dermatology achieves a remote diagnosis via Iridium satellite phone and prescribes broad spectrum antibiotics before the poison reaches brain tissue, undoubtedly saving his life.
- Oct 2004: Jason undergoes surgery for 2 x torn hernias and worn knee cartilage. Doctors predict he will need a knee replacement within 10 years from the constant wear and tear of human powered travel.
- May 2005: a 17 foot salt water crocodile attacks Jason's kayak in shallow water 100 miles north of Cooktown, Cape York, Australia. His paddle is destroyed fending off the croc, otherwise Jason escapes unscathed.
http://www.expedition360.com/press_room/clippings_indonesia/cairns_croc_attack.pdf
- November 2005: Jason contracts malaria twice in six months: first on the island of Sumatra (Plasmodia Vivax) while paddling through Indonesia and again in Laos with the potentially lethal cerebral version (Plasmodia Falciparum).
http://www.expedition360.com/journal/archives/2006/08/jason_down_with.html
- September 2006: Jason survives acute Altitude Sickness at 5,200 metres while biking over Lalung Pass in Tibet's Himalaya region.
http://www.expedition360.com/journal/archives/2006/10/altitude_sickne_1.html
- June 2007: after crossing the border between Sudan and Egypt illegally Jason is detained and interrogated by Egyptian Army Intelligence for two days. He is charged with espionage and faces 40 years in military prison.
http://www.expedition360.com/press_room/clippings_africa/79_daily_mail.pdf
- The expedition has been the victim of four robberies: one successful (Mexico) and three attempted also involving violence (Indonesia, India and France).
http://www.expedition360.com/journal/archives/2005/10/bikes_bandits_n.html
The 4 Deserts is a global series of seven-day, 250-kilometer (155 mile) self-supported footraces across the Gobi Desert of China (Gobi March), the Atacama Desert of Chile (Atacama Crossing), the Sahara Desert of Egypt (Sahara Race) and Antarctica (The Last Desert). The events take place in the driest, hottest, coldest and windiest places on Earth. The events attract competitors from around the world and has become the most prestigious global outdoor event in the world. RacingThePlanet is a similar format however the event changes locations to a new country each year. RacingThePlanet: Vietnam 2008 is scheduled to take place in northwest Vietnam in the area of Sapa, known for its mountains and colorful hill tribes.]
I tip my hat and heart to all those involved in these incredible projects!
3 Endure 4,300-Mile Run Across Sahara (AP):
Feb. 20, 2007---Three ultra-endurance athletes have just done something most would consider insane: They ran the equivalent of two marathons a day for 111 days to become the first modern runners to cross the Sahara Desert's grueling 4,300 miles (6,900 km)....
American Charlie Engle, 44, said he, Canadian Ray Zahab, 38, and Kevin Lin, 30, of Taiwan, ran the final stretch of their journey that took them through the Giza pyramids and Cairo to the mouth of Suez Canal on four hours of sleep. Once they hit the Red Sea, they put their hands in the water to signify crossing the finish line.
In less than four months, they have run across the world's largest desert, through six countries---Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Libya and finally Egypt....
The trek is one of extremes. "They endured incredible heat with ground temperatures reaching as high as 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54 degrees Celsius), and direct sunlight stretching late into the day."...but at night it sometimes dips below freezing. Strong winds can abruptly send sand swooping in every direction, making it difficult to see and breathe....
Throughout the run, the runners have been stricken with tendinitis, severe diarrhea, cramping and knee injuries all while running through the intense heat and wind---often without a paved road in sight.
For the whole story, see the "Running the Sahara" website (National Geographic). It will come out as a documentary film, narrated by Matt Damon.
The three men also ran to support H2O Africa, the clean water initiative that is part of the "Running the Sahara" expedition and film project. H2O Africa will create widespread public awareness of the water crisis in Africa and gather support for clean water programs in critical areas, particularly in the communities without clean water along the Running the Sahara route.
Read letter from Matt Damon. He's a co-founder of H2O Africa.
The science behind the run:
Stover and her colleagues put the runners on treadmills in a room heated to 117°F (47°C) -mimicking the temperatures in which they were expecting to run. There were even heat lamps to simulate sunlight.
There, the three ran at their expected effort level while the scientists measured the rate at which they sweated.
"We also measured their sweat's electrolyte concentration," Stover said, "because depletion of sodium, the primary electrolyte in sweat, can lead to muscle cramping."
Gatorade then gave the team a mountain of powdered sports drink, which each runner was to consume according to an individual plan, ranging from one quart (0.9 liters) to 1.5 quarts (1.4 liters) per hour.
The scientists also measured the runners' oxygen usage, an indicator of how many calories they would be burning per mile. The tests indicated they would need between 6,000 and 9,000 calories per day-three to four times the intake of the average American.
Eating so much might sound like a treat, but it's actually a chore. "When I see that amount of food, I think, 'My gosh,'" said Stover's colleague, Kris Osterberg.
Once the run started, Stover and another colleague went with the team to Africa to monitor the runners for the first few days. "Our goal was to see if we'd accurately measured their sweat rates in the lab," she said.
Another scientist had the runners swallow a vitamin-sized capsule containing a radio-transponder that monitored their body temperature. The runners' temperatures stayed within a degree or two of normal, which meant the hydration plan was working, since runners who get dehydrated will quickly begin to overheat.
Most people can't imagine running a 40-mile (64-kilometer) day in perfect conditions, let alone in a desert. But to cross the Sahara, these runners had to accomplish this feat daily for nearly four months.
During that time, a lot of things can happen to your body.
Initially, it adapts. You sweat more (for more efficient cooling), and your sweat becomes less salty in order to conserve sodium. Needless to say, the runners had trained in heat, so these changes had largely occurred before the GSSI scientists conducted their treadmill tests.
You also become increasingly fit, and your body may adjust its metabolism to burn fewer carbohydrates and more fat. Ray says that before starting, he'd bulked up from his normal 150 pounds (68 kilograms) to 161 (73 kilograms), but by the end of the run he was down to 132 (60 kilograms).
Then there are the inevitable aches and pains. "I like to say that this type of running is 90 percent mental, and the other part is all in your head," Ray jokes. "They told us that after a certain amount of time your body's going to adapt or fall apart."
Even so, Ray said, there were times when his body tried to pack it in. "I had horrendous tendonitis," he said. "You just have to will yourself past that point. The injuries go away after a while."
Part of what kept Ray and the others going was the medical team that accompanied them all the way across the desert. But they also experienced something conventional sports medicine is only now discovering: Under some circumstances, the body will heal itself while continuing to be active.
What happens, doctors are learning, is that activity actually becomes helpful to the recovery, especially from relatively recent injuries. The body adjusts to relieve stress-especially for trained athletes like the Running the Sahara team.
For example, a runner with a sore knee will alter his stride to absorb more of the impact in his calf. If the knee recovers before the calf starts to hurt, he's managed to heal without having to stop.
Map of their run. Photos.
Blog of the run.
.................................................
Adventurer Completes Circumnavigation of the Earth, Only by Human Power (AP):
Oct 6th, 2007 | LONDON -- He was hit by a car in Colorado, attacked by a crocodile in Australia, detained as a suspected spy in Egypt and survived illness and periods of despair.
On Saturday, British adventurer Jason Lewis finally came home, completing a 13-year and 3-month, 46,500-mile (74,400 km) human-powered circumnavigation of the globe.
The 40-year-old carried his 26-foot yellow pedal craft the last few miles up the River Thames, pushing it across the Meridian Line at Greenwich, where his expedition began in 1994.
"I'm overwhelmed," Lewis told Sky News television after arriving. He struggled for words as he described his feelings at the close of an odyssey that took him around the globe, powered only by his arms and legs - on a bicycle, a pedal boat, a kayak and inline skates.
"It's been my life, for 13 years, I've put everything into this," he said. "To be honest I didn't know it was going to happen. There were many times in the trip where it should have failed."
Lewis was recruited by fellow adventurer Steve Smith, who first dreamed up the idea of going around the world using only human power in 1991. The pair had little experience at sea, but Lewis thought the prospect of hiking and biking across the world was "wildly romantic."
"The three and a half years the expedition was projected to take sounded like an acceptable amount of time to rejuvenate from the wearisome London scene without totally going AWOL," Lewis wrote on the expedition's Web site.
Trouble began early. After two years of planning and fundraising, the pair set out in July 1994 only to get "horribly lost" on their way to the English coastal town of Rye, where their pedal boat was waiting.
After crossing the English Channel to France and then cycling to Portugal, the pair pedaled their boat in shifts across the Atlantic Ocean, reaching Miami in February 1995. Along the way, they survived close encounters with a shrimping trawler, a whale and a giant wave that swept Smith overboard.
By the time they reached America, the two adventurers had been cooped up in a broom closet-sized space for 111 days with little in the way of food, and their relationship had begun to deteriorate. They crossed the U.S. separately, with Lewis strapping on his inline skates for the 3,500-mile trip to San Francisco. It was on this leg of the journey that he was hit by a car in Pueblo, Colo., breaking both legs. He spent nine months recuperating.
Smith and Lewis reunited in San Francisco and eventually pedaled from the Golden Gate Bridge to Hawaii, where the two split for good. Smith went on to write a book, "Pedaling to Hawaii," while Lewis continued on to Australia.
He biked across the Australian outback, dodged supertankers in the Singapore straits and hiked the Himalayas. From Mumbai, India, he pedaled his boat across the Indian Ocean to Djibouti and made his way north by bicycle through Sudan and Egypt.
Accidents and sickness dogged the trip. The collision in Colorado nearly cost Lewis his leg. The trip across the Pacific left him sore, inflamed and depressed. While kayaking across the Barrier Reef off Australia, he was attacked by a crocodile, which bit off a piece of his paddle.
Local authorities were a problem, as well. Lewis logged "interesting experiences" with Alabama police and gun-wielding locals in the United States. He had to cycle through Tibet at night to avoid detection by Chinese roadblocks. And when he crossed into Egypt from Sudan, he was thrown in jail by the military on suspicion of being a spy.
After his release from prison, he biked through the Sinai desert and across Jordan, Syria and Turkey. He then powered through Europe over the summer, arriving in Greenwich, in southeast London, to cheers from family, supporters and the Duke of Gloucester, the expedition's British patron.
Lewis broke the trip up into 16 legs and took breaks ranging from several weeks to several months in various parts of the world. He also picked up corporate sponsors for each leg of the trip, including sports clothing, gear and supplement companies; satellite phone and global positioning system firms; and M&M's, which provided chocolate for the trip across the Pacific.
Lewis said he hoped to use the expedition to raise funds for humanitarian causes and draw attention to environmental issues. He has already raised $66,000 for causes ranging from an orphanage in East Timor to kindergartens in Bangkok.
See full story at Expedition 360:Expedition 360 is an attempt at one of the last great firsts for true circumnavigation: reaching antipodal points on the surface of the globe using only human power (no motors or sails). Bicycles, in-line skates, kayaks, swimming, walking and a unique pedal powered boat are being used by Englishman Jason Lewis and an international team to travel over 46,500 miles across five continents, two oceans and one sea (1994 - 2007).
Blog of the journey (many photos).
Logbook and maps of all 16 legs of the adventure.
Press reports:
RECORDS TO DATE
- February 1995: original pedaling partner Stevie Smith and Lewis complete the first east-west crossing of the Atlantic by pedal power.
- September 1996: Lewis completes the first solo crossing of the USA on rollerblades.
- August 18th 2000: Lewis becomes the first to pedal across the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco in the US to Port Douglas, Australia---178 days and 8,000 nautical miles.
MISHAPS
- Sept 1995: Jason run over by a car while in-line skating through Colorado USA and suffers compound fractures to both legs. Initial prognosis was amputation of left leg (below the knee). After extensive insertion of hardware (including metal rods in each tibia) he is able to continue after 9 months of recuperation.
http://www.expedition360.com/press_room/clippings_n_america/16_USA_pueblo_chief.pdf
- Nov 1998: pedal boat Moksha capsizes in a storm off the coast of California during the second attempt to pedal to Hawaii. No one is injured although the boat's interior is completely destroyed.
- June 2000: Jason contracts septicemia (blood poisoning) 1,300 miles from land pedaling between the islands of Hawaii and Tarawa (Republic of Kiribati). A US-based doctor of Dermatology achieves a remote diagnosis via Iridium satellite phone and prescribes broad spectrum antibiotics before the poison reaches brain tissue, undoubtedly saving his life.
- Oct 2004: Jason undergoes surgery for 2 x torn hernias and worn knee cartilage. Doctors predict he will need a knee replacement within 10 years from the constant wear and tear of human powered travel.
- May 2005: a 17 foot salt water crocodile attacks Jason's kayak in shallow water 100 miles north of Cooktown, Cape York, Australia. His paddle is destroyed fending off the croc, otherwise Jason escapes unscathed.
http://www.expedition360.com/press_room/clippings_indonesia/cairns_croc_attack.pdf
- November 2005: Jason contracts malaria twice in six months: first on the island of Sumatra (Plasmodia Vivax) while paddling through Indonesia and again in Laos with the potentially lethal cerebral version (Plasmodia Falciparum).
http://www.expedition360.com/journal/archives/2006/08/jason_down_with.html
- September 2006: Jason survives acute Altitude Sickness at 5,200 metres while biking over Lalung Pass in Tibet's Himalaya region.
http://www.expedition360.com/journal/archives/2006/10/altitude_sickne_1.html
- June 2007: after crossing the border between Sudan and Egypt illegally Jason is detained and interrogated by Egyptian Army Intelligence for two days. He is charged with espionage and faces 40 years in military prison.
http://www.expedition360.com/press_room/clippings_africa/79_daily_mail.pdf
- The expedition has been the victim of four robberies: one successful (Mexico) and three attempted also involving violence (Indonesia, India and France).
http://www.expedition360.com/journal/archives/2005/10/bikes_bandits_n.html