| | NEWS ARCHIVES | | | | Enduring the Sahara | | 21 May 2010 | | | |
Imagine running a 42-km marathon around Singapore under the scorching sun.
Now imagine doing six of these races consecutively for 7 days straight under temperatures that could go up to as high as 50 degree Celsius.
That is exactly what participants of the Sahara Desert race will face this October when they brave the elements to complete one of the top ten endurance competitions in the world, says TIME magazine.
And according to organisers, the Sahara race is the easiest among the four harsh terrain races it organises.
Lin Jiamei speaks to the Singaporeans who are taking part in this year's competition to find out if they are indeed ready to brave the Sahara.
It is dubbed the greatest and hottest desert in the world, with sand dunes that could go as high as 180 metres.
This is the stage set for five Singaporeans who are preparing to conquer the desert in about 5 months.
The five participants, who are under 40 years old , are all first timers.
The closest thing a few of them have done prior to the race would be the ultra marathon that’s over 80 km.
The Sahara Desert Race - 250 kilometres.
26-year-old Sean Ho, who’s a doctor, says he’s most concerned about the scorching heat.
" So for 7 days, each day they break it down into stages for you, most of the days you will be walking or running about 40 km or so until about the 5th day where you will be doing about 90 km and I think that essentially is meant to torture you and the final day you do a very easy 10 km and you come into the finish line. To say that I am extremely concerned, that would be an understatement. When I am running out in the sun, I was already thinking to myself, my god I can't even take the heat in Singapore, how am I able to do it in the desert but with a little faith, a little training, that should not be too difficult. Right now, I am just trying to increase my mileage, probably hit about 60 km a week."
And it’s not just a simple race across the desert .
Participants have to run with a backpack that contains 7 days of food, equipment and necessities, weighing an average about 10 kilograms per bag.
Water will be provided by the organisers.
At each checkpoint, the participants will have to stay in the tents set up by the organisers.
And according to 37-year-old Singaporean Thaddeus Lawrence, who completed the Sahara Race last year, they won’t be able to bathe for 7 days.
"You don't so I went back to my NS days and I brought powder and wet wiped myself down. Bathroom, in the camp the organisers set up the one man type standing tent and they dig a hole and they put a carton box there, well out in the desert the world is your toilet really."
Samantha Fanshawe, the Director of Racing the Planet, the organisation behind the 4 desert race series across the Atacama, Gobi, Sahara and the Antarctica - explains the logistics involved.
"We are using about 14,000 litres of water during the event, bottled water that we are giving out and we have to get that to places. We are putting up a camp every night and taking it down and moving it to the next location."
But which is the toughest race of them all?
"The majority of the people would probably say the Sahara Race is the easier one, but they are just different. In the Atacama race, you have to deal with altitude, for the Sahara race it is generally the hottest of all with most sands, for Gobi there's more up and downs on hills although none of them is easy."
The first race of this kind was started in 2003 and its founder Mary Gadams wanted to take people to culturally rich places while pushing their bodies through extreme levels.
There will be new elements in the Sahara race - with a new route for the participants.
"This year the Sahara Race we will run through an area called the valley of the whales. It is a restricted area that not many people are allowed into and they will literally run past fossil of whales, thousands and thousands of kilometres from the sea but they are remnants from millions of years ago when the Sahara Desert used to be under the sea. They will also be running around the lake for the first couple of stages, when you think of a Sahara desert you think of it as completely sand and no water and they will see how the local people use that lake to their benefit."
But despite the sights and maybe sounds, the gruelling conditions will still take a huge toll on the participants.
And the toughest part of the race - a 90 kilometre stretch of non-stop running.
To put that into perspective, that’s like running from Tuas to Changi.. and back.
Thaddeuse Lawrence has been there - and done it.
"That section took me about 20 hours. It was mad I started off the first few checkpoints and it wasn't too good for me, I had some problems with my ankles so I struggled. The difficulty came at nightfall and the body is just telling you to shut down and lie down and go to sleep. It was a bit of a struggle then just to keep awake and plodding away. Once the sun came out I felt really spent and I felt pretty finished and in the last few hours it is really sort of a mental ball game to get to the finishing line which seems forever, It is quite disheartening. You walk into this sort of area of of nothingness and at the horizon there is the sand dune. You crossed the sand dune and you think that you should be able to see the camp and you reach across and you look around you in the vast expanse of land and there is no tent in sight."
So what’s on his mind after running for 20 hours straight ?
"Half the time, I was thinking of food and that help to keep me going, looking forward to getting to camp. I was walking when people asked me what food was I thinking of, was I salivating over my laksa and so on.. actually no. The food that I really missed was the humble maggie mee, dreamt and salivated over that. Bring comfort food. That is one thing I learnt and I brought a packet of Twisties and I managed to make them last an entire week."
While some do it as a personal challenge, others wanted to push themselves to the limit for a different cause.
Researcher 29-year-old Trish Tan, who is participating in this year's race, says she hopes to raise some 10,000 dollars for the Children's Cancer Foundation.
"I am in cancer research, trying to find drugs to fight cancer. So basically the fundings will go into fulfilling the wishes of the patients especially those under palliative care or with poor prognosis."
Regardless of the cause, completing a 250km race is certainly an amazing feat.
And if it is of any consolation, the oldest competitor in this race is a 78-year-old man from the UK.
And this will be his third Sahara race.
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