Extreme Sports Athletes

Journey by Quebec, American and Taiwanese runners captured in documentary

Last Updated: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 | 2:48 PM ET

CBC News

Finishing a marathon through a searing desert would be a supreme achievement for most runners, but for Ray Zahab, it meant he had only completed half his daily jog.

For 110 days, 38-year-old Zahab and two companions ran about two marathons (about 42.2 kilometres each) a day over more than 7,000 km of North Africa’s broiling Sahara Desert, in a journey for charity that’s been captured on film for a documentary.

Zahab, of Chelsea, Que., about 24 kilometres north of Ottawa, 44-year-old Charlie Engle of Greensboro, N.C., and 30-year-old Kevin Lin of Taiwan finally dipped their hands in the water of the Red Sea 200 km east of Cairo on Tuesday.

In an interview with CBC Newsworld on Wednesday morning, Zahab said his body had mixed feelings about his achievement.

“I’m sore everywhere. I’m achy, I’ve got blisters and I do have a lot of tendinitis in my ankle,” he said. “Other than that, I feel great. I’m really excited and stoked to be finished, and so I think that that takes away lots of the pain.”

One of the journey’s aims was to help establish clean water wells for desert villagers who the runners met along the way, through the charity the H2O Africa Foundation. 

The non-profit organization was launched along with plans for a documentary film called Running the Sahara, directed by James Moll, and produced and narrated by Matt Damon. The project was sponsored by Magellan and National Geographic 

Runs started at 4 a.m.

The ultramarathon runners began their journey by touching the Atlantic Ocean’s eastern edge in St. Louis, Senegal, on Nov. 2.

‘You just keep setting new parameters and bars in your head, and you just go for it.’— Ultramarathon runner Ray Zahab

Under the watchful lenses of the film crew, pushed through Mauritania, Mali and Libya, completing more than 100 km on some days despite desert temperatures that sometimes peaked at 38 degrees and plunged below freezing at night.

“We had heat, we had sandstorms — wicked sandstorms,” Zahab recalled. “You adapt, I guess.”

He said the trio began each day in the dark at 4 a.m., ran until noon, ate lunch, had a nap, then continued their journey until after nightfall, when they ate dinner and slept.

Sometimes, he said, he desperately missed his friends and family. At other times, he was elated by landscapes they passed, which included both natural ones rarely seen by humans and man-made wonders such as the famous Giza pyramids of Egypt.

In the last three days of the journey, Zahab said he and his companions so badly wanted to reach the end that they covered 300 km on just two hours of sleep.

“You just keep setting new parameters and bars in your head,” he said, “and you just go for it.”

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2007/02/21/ultramarathon.html#skip300×250

3 Athletes Endure Sand and Heat to Make 4,000-Mile Run Across Sahara Desert in 111 Days 

By ANNA JOHNSON IN THE WESTERN DESERT, Egypt Feb 20, 2007 (AP)— 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 4,000 miles.

“It will take time to sink in … but this is an absolutely once in a life time thing. They say ignorance is bliss, and now that I know how hard this is, I would never consider crossing the Sahara on foot again,” said American runner Charlie Engle, 44, hours after he and the others completed the run at Egypt’s Red Sea.

Engle 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.

“We touched the water in Senegal at the beginning, and we touched the water in the Red Sea at the end. They were the bookends of our journey,” Engle, of Greensboro, North Carolina, said on the telephone from a hotel room in Cairo.

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.

A film crew followed them, chronicling the desert journey for actor Matt Damon’s production company, LivePlanet. Damon plans to narrate the “Running the Sahara” documentary.

The trek is one of extremes. The relentless sun can push temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit during 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.

Running through turbulent conditions is nothing new for these athletes who have traveled the world competing in adventure races. But they say nothing has tested their physical and mental limitations like the Sahara.

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.

“This has been a life changing event,” Engle said.

The runners say they undertook the challenge to see if they could accomplish something that many have called impossible. They use GPS devices to track their route and teamed up with local experts and a host of sports professionals who also followed them, along with the documentary crew, in four-wheel drive vehicles.

Typically, the three began each day with a 4 a.m. wake-up call. About an hour later, they started running. Around noon, they took a lunch break at a makeshift camp, devouring pasta, tuna and vegetables. A short nap on thin mattresses in a yellow-domed tent usually followed before they headed out on the second leg of their day’s run.

Finally, around 9:30 p.m., they called it quits each day, returning to camp for a protein and carbohydrate-packed dinner before passing out for the night.

Despite the preparation and drive to finish, the runners said they often questioned mostly to themselves what they were doing. Zahab described stopping one recent day for a bathroom break only to discover the wind was blowing so harshly that he couldn’t keep the sand out of his clothes. “And I thought to myself, ‘What the hell am I doing?’” he said.

But Zahab kept going, as did the other two, never skipping a day. Most days the three ran a total of 44 to 50 miles sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less.

They were interviewed by The Associated Press on Saturday day 108 on the side of a road about 112 miles from Cairo in Egypt’s harsh Western Desert, part of the greater Sahara.

At several points in their trek, the athletes stopped near sparsely populated wells to talk with villagers and nomads about the difficulties they face finding water. That marked another goal of the run raising awareness for the clean water nonprofit group H2O Africa.

“We have seen firsthand the need for clean water, which we take for granted in North America. It’s such a foundation for any community,” Zahab said during day 108’s lunch break. The three plan to fund-raise for the group after they return home and finish recuperating.

“It started off as a huge motivator, especially as we passed through countries where the water wasn’t clean,” Engle said.

But as the trio’s bodies became more depleted, the focus was “the day-to-day battle to stay alive and keep moving,” he said.

http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory?id=2890913&page=3

Adjusting to the higher altitudes is different for everyone. The best way to find out how your body will react is to give yourself a personal experience.If you don’t have the personal experience in higher altitudes, then you should take extra precautions. If you do not encounter any problems then you can try a shorter, more intense adjustment process and see how you handle it. Make sure you have others with you who are experienced in your extreme sport … the one time you don’t want to go to extremes, is by yourself.

Here’s are the basic rules on adjusting to higher altitudes:

- Always start at lower altitudes walking steadily and slowly from lower altitudes to higher altitudes. Plan on the adjustment process taking a few days.

- Plan on working on your adjustment process for sleeping in altitude. While practicing and acclimating, keep your campsites within 1500 feet (500 meters) of each other when camping for the night, but during the day you can rest at higher altitudes.

- If you drive or fly directly to altitudes higher than 10,000 feet (3000 meters), give yourself 24 hours to rest before you start your adjustment process. Also, drink plenty of water everyday.

Here are some important facts to remember in dealing with higher altitudes:

- The effects of higher altitudes can be felt as low as 6000 feet (2000 meters) above sea level, and for some people that number can be even lower.

- Everyone’s body reacts differently in higher altitude conditions to the changes in air pressure and oxygen level.

- There is no definite relationship between your body’s overall physical fitness and your tolerance to high altitudes. As an extreme sports athlete, if you to push harder and over exert your body, you’re more likely to experience AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness).

About the Author: Bobbie Grennier is a freelance writer and master herbalist. She teaches herbalism at http://www.Herbal-College.com. She publishes http://www.Sport-Extremes.com blog. Visit her web sites http://www.Natural-Healers.com and http://www.Master-Herbalist.com for more herbalist healer information.