4 Deserts Ultramarathon Series and RacingThePlanet Series
The company logo of 4 Deserts Ultramarathon Series and RacingThePlanet Ultramarathon.
Genre
Ultramarathon stage race
Begins
March
Ends
December
Frequency
Annual
Location(s)
Chile, Mongolia, Namibia, Antarctica
Years active
21
Attendance
Max 200 competitors
Website
www.racingtheplanet.com
The 4 Deserts Ultramarathon Series is an annual series of four 250-kilometer (155-mile) races across deserts around the globe.[1] The races were recognized as the world's leading endurance footrace series by TIME magazine in 2009 and 2010,[2] as the "Ultimate test of human endurance".[3] The series was founded by American Mary K Gadams who founded RacingThePlanet in 2002.
The Gobi March, the series' inaugural race, was held in the Gobi Desert of western China in 2003. Over the following three years, an additional race was introduced in a new location each year. In 2004, the Atacama Crossing was held in the Atacama Desert of Chile. This was followed by the Sahara Race in the Sahara Desert of Egypt (Eastern Desert) in 2005. In 2006 a fourth race, called The Last Desert, took place in Antarctica and was the first year in which all 4 Deserts races were held in the same calendar year.
Competitors can enter any of the individual multiday races within the 4 Deserts Race Series, but if they wish to take part in The Last Desert (Antarctica) they must successfully finish at least two of the other races in the series.
To date, more than seventy races have been staged with more than 10,000 individuals representing 100+ countries in the races. Many participants return to compete in additional events, and there is a growing list of members in the 4 Deserts Club and 4 Deserts Grand Slam Club.
In 2013, a documentary film about 4 Deserts was released. Desert Runners, directed by Jennifer Steinman, follows four participants as they attempt to complete the series in 2010. The Desert Runners documentary received many film awards.
4 Deserts Ultramarathon Series
The events that combine to make the 4 Deserts Ultramarathon Series are:
Atacama Crossing (Chile)
View from the Atacama Crossing 2011.The uneven Atacama salt flats.
The Atacama Crossing crosses Chile's Atacama Desert, the driest place on Earth.[4] The Atacama Desert has a unique landscape of salt lakes, volcanoes, lava flows and sand dunes. Moreover, owing to its otherworldly appearance, the landscape has been compared to that of Mars[5][6] and has been used as a location for filming Mars scenes, most notably in the television series Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets.
The Atacama Crossing is gruelling because of its terrain, harsh climate and altitude that averages 2,500 meters (8,000 feet) during the race. The race typically begins at its highest point of more than 3,000 meters in the Arcoiris Valley.
The finish line of the 2008 Gobi March.The 2008 Gobi March.
Originally located in the Gobi Desert of China, since 2018 the race now takes place in various locations around the Mongolian area of the Gobi Desert, and is usually held in late August.
The Gobi March's challenges include the changes in temperature from the hot highlands to the oppressive cold in sand dunes, the open sun, potential sandstorms and variety of terrain – soft sand-dunes, rocky tracks, steep hills, ridges and riverbeds.
A Shanghai-based competitor died of heatstroke after competing in the 2010 Gobi March. His brother (who was not at the race) claimed Racing the Planet was "reckless" to set such a course for non-professional athletes, and ill-prepared.[7]
Namib Race (Namibia)
Originally hosted in the Sahara Desert of Egypt, the race is now located along the Skeleton Coast of Namibia. The Namib segment takes place, usually in late April, in the oldest desert in the world. Competitors have to contend with a variety of terrains, both rock and sand, but will face endless miles of sand dunes up to 122 metres (400feet) high. Daytime temperatures reach 50°C (122°F).
In 2012 the race took place for the third time in the Western Desert around the region around Al Fayuum, Wadi El-Rayan Protected Area and The Valley of the Whales or Wadi Al-Hitan, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Due to political unrest the 2014 edition of the race was moved to Jordan where it crossed four deserts; Wadi Rum, Kharaza, Humaima and Wadi Araba before finishing in the ancient city of Petra. The 2016 event was relocated to the Namib Desert where it is expected to remain for some time.
The Last Desert (Antarctica)
The race uses a polar expedition ship as its base, traveling to the different course locations on the Antarctic Peninsula and offshore islands based on the prevailing sea and weather conditions, with competitors transferred from ship to shore by zodiacs. Since 2010, this segment has been held biannually in order to minimise its environmental impact, and usually takes place around the end of November.
The unique challenges of The Last Desert (Antarctica) include having to cope with the severity of the weather conditions that can include gale force blizzards and temperatures down to −20°C (-4°F). Competitors also have to deal with the unpredictability of daily stage lengths and start-times, as the prevailing environmental conditions dictate where and when stages might begin.
Fifteen individuals from around the world completed the inaugural event in 2006 becoming the first in the world to complete a 250km footrace on the Antarctic continent. The Last Desert 2010 took place in November of that year in King George Island, Deception Island, and Dorian Bay. The Last Desert 2010 was featured 3 times on IMG's Transworld Sport.
RacingThePlanet Series
The RacingThePlanet Ultramarathon was introduced in 2008 as the 4 Deserts saw a desire for multi-day, multi-stage races in new countries. The concept was to supplement with 4 Deserts Race Series with one-off races in new locations each year. These locations did not have to be deserts, but it was preferred that they would retain some of the most desirable elements of the races in the original series including locations that were off the beaten track and where beautiful, cultural and physically challenging courses could be set. So far, the RacingThePlanet Ultramarathon has been held in Vietnam (2008), Namibia (2009), Australia (2010), Nepal (2011), Jordan (2012), Iceland (2013), Madagascar (2014), Ecuador (2015), Sri Lanka (2016), Patagonia (2017), Zealand (2019), Georgia (2021) and Lapland (2022). In 2023, RacingThePlanet will celebrate 20 years with a special race in Jordan called "RacingThePlanet: The 20-Year Race. This special race will finish in front of the Treasury Building in Petra.
Event format
The 250-kilometer (155-mile) races take place over seven days and six stages. A campsite is raised each night for competitors where they are provided with a place in a tent to sleep, access to hot water, a campfire, medical assistance and the CyberTent where they can view and send messages to family and friends and update their race blog.
Competitors race from campsite to campsite each day following marker flags that have been planted the preceding day. They must pass through a series of checkpoints where they collect drinking water and can seek medical treatment.
Other than the access to the services described competitors must race completely self-supported, carrying all their food, supplies and equipment for the week. Each competitor must carry a selection of mandatory items at all times to help ensure their safety out on course.
Competitors must start each stage at the appointed time and on certain stages cut-off times are set which racers must meet in order to remain active in the event.
The results of the race are based on the cumulative time taken for the competitor to complete all the stages, and a competitor must successfully pass through every checkpoint in order to collect a finisher's medal.
Should a competitor withdraw from a particular stage, they may not continue in the race.
Charitable causes
About 50% of competitors choose to support causes when racing at the 4 Deserts.[citation needed]
Because of the remote locations of many of the races RacingThePlanet choose to support a specific charity at almost every event, that provides support to the local community in which the event takes place. The company has a long running partnership with Operation Smile,[8] and has raised over US$500,000 for the charity for projects in Vietnam, China and Egypt, often funding missions and surgeries in the local communities through which competitors race.[9][10]
The company has donated books and sports equipment to schools in Xinjiang province where the Gobi March is held through the Esquel Y. L. Yang Education Fund who they have also supported for a number of years.[11]
In 2008, the Gobi March took place just one month after the devastating earthquake in Sichuan Province on 12 May, so that year RacingThePlanet put together a special auction whereby friends and families of competitors could bid to buy a hot shower for three competitors at the end of the 90km Stage 5 of the event. An unheard of and never-to-be-repeated luxury. The auction raised almost US$30,000 for the Red Cross disaster fund.[12]
Again in 2010 another earthquake affected a country that plays host to a 4 Deserts race. The Chilean earthquake of 27 February occurred just one week before the start of the Atacama Crossing. RacingThePlanet and the community of competitors and friends raised US$15,000 for Habitat for Humanity in the weeks to follow.[13]
4 Deserts Champions
4 Deserts Champions are crowned in the male and female categories at the end of every edition of The Last Desert (Antarctica). Since 2010, champions have been recognized in an official Awards Ceremony at the conclusion of the Antarctic race; champions from previous years have been crowned retrospectively.
4 Deserts Champions are determined by adding the finishing rankings of every The Last Desert competitor over each of the four races in the series. For this reason, only 4 Deserts Club members are eligible for the award. The lowest aggregate score in the male and female categories is named a 4 Deserts Champion.
In 2010, Ryan Sandes of South Africa recorded the lowest and unbeatable aggregate score of 4 points as he had won each of the 4 Deserts races he had entered.[14] In 2012, Spanish racer Vicente Juan Garcia Beneito and German competitor Anne-Marie Flammersfeld repeated this feat by winning all four races in the same calendar year and qualifying for the 4 Deserts Grand Slam.
The 4 Deserts Grand Slam has been so named by competitors attempting to complete all the events in the 4 Deserts Race Series in one calendar year.
The first Grand Slam was first attempted in 2008 when five competitors set out to complete the task and two were ultimately successful. The first two competitors to be named Grand Slammers were famed endurance athlete Dean Karnazes of the United States and Paul Liebenberg of South Africa.[16] In 2010, fourteen competitors attempted to complete the feat and nine, including the first three women, were successful. The Grand Slam has become increasingly popular in the years in which all 4 Deserts take place.
4 Deserts Grand Slammers:
2014
Juan Carlos Albarran (Spain), Asger Bech-Thomsen (Denmark), Paul Borlinha (Canada), Isis Breiter (Mexico), Chris Calimano (United States), Arthur Chu (Philippines), Brett Foote (Australia), Michael Gilgen (Switzerland), Jose Luis Gomez Alciturri (Spain), Andrzej Gondek (Poland), Kyungpyo Hong (South Korea), Linh Huynh (Canada), Daniel Lewczuk (Poland), Andres Lledo Lopez (Spain), Jose Manuel Martinez Fernandez (Spain), Atul Patki (India), Inia Raumati (New Zealand), Rob Trepa (United States), Marek Wikiera (Poland)
2012
Jess Baker (Australia), Cécile Bertin (France), Gyouyoung Choi (South Korea), Christian Colque (Argentina), Alper Dalkilic (Turkey), Greg Donovan (Australia), Matthew Donovan (Australia), Jeison Duarte da Costa (Brazil), Anne-Marie Flammersfeld (Germany), Vicente Juan Garcia Beneito (Spain), James Gaston (United States), Tara Gaston (United States), Roger Hanney (Australia), Sanghyeon Kim (South Korea), Dan Leiner (Luxembourg), Ron Schwebel (Australia), Shayne Stoik (Canada), Seung Chul Youn (South Korea)
2010
Paul Acheson (England), Samantha Gash (Australia), Peter Jong (Australia), Stan Lee (Canada), Terumasa Mori (Japan), David O'Brien (Ireland), Linda Quirk (United States) Lucy Rivers-Bulkeley (England),[17] Philip Tye (England)
2008
Dean Karnazes (United States), Paul Liebenberg (South Africa)
Overall results are calculated differently for The Last Desert (Antarctica) as weather and sea conditions make it difficult to cover a full 250 kilometers. In these cases, overall rankings are based on total distance covered rather than overall time.
The desert climate or arid climate, is a dry climate sub-type in which there is a severe excess of evaporation over precipitation. The typically bald, rocky, or sandy surfaces in desert climates are dry and hold little moisture, quickly evaporating the already little rainfall they receive. Covering 14.2% of earth's land area, hot deserts are the second most common type of climate on earth after the polar climate.
An ultramarathon, also called ultra distance or ultra running, is any footrace longer than the traditional marathon length of 42.195 kilometres. Various distances are raced competitively, from the shortest common ultramarathon of 31 miles (50 km) to over 200 miles (320 km). 50k and 100k are both World Athletics record distances, but some 100 miles (160 km) races are among the oldest and most prestigious events, especially in North America.
Dean Karnazes, is an American ultramarathon runner, and author of Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner, which details ultra endurance running for the general public.
Marathon des Sables, or MdS, is a six-day, about 250 km (160 mi) ultramarathon, which is approximately the distance of six regular marathons. The longest single stage (2009) was 91 km (57 mi) long.
Multiday races are ultramarathon running events which are typically either segmented into daily events of a specified distance or time, or staged so that runners can run as far as they want, at their own discretion, over a set course or over a set number of days. Multiday races can range from continuous 48-hour track events to staged transcontinental treks.
Raymond Zahab, is a Canadian long-distance runner and public speaker. He has run in long-distance running adventures in several countries, including the South Pole, Siberia, and the Atacama Desert in Chile. He crossed the Sahara with Charlie Engle, (USA) and Kevin Lin (Taiwan).
Desert exploration is the deliberate and scientific exploration of deserts, the arid regions of the earth. It is only incidentally concerned with the culture and livelihood of native desert dwellers. People have struggled to live in deserts and the surrounding semi-arid lands for millennia. Nomads have moved their flocks and herds to wherever grazing is available, and oases have provided opportunities for a more settled way of life. Many, such as the Bushmen in the Kalahari, the Aborigines in Australia and various Indigenous peoples of the Americas, were originally hunter-gatherers. Many trade routes have been forged across deserts, especially across the Sahara Desert, and traditionally were used by caravans of camels carrying salt, gold, ivory and other goods. Large numbers of slaves were also taken northwards across the Sahara. Today, some mineral extraction also takes place in deserts, and the uninterrupted sunlight gives potential for the capture of large quantities of solar energy.
The Atacama Desert is a desert plateau located on the Pacific coast of South America. Stretching over a 1,600 km (990 mi) strip of land west of the Andes Mountains, it covers an area of 105,000 km2 (41,000 sq mi), which increases to 128,000 km2 (49,000 sq mi) if the barren lower slopes of the Andes are included.
A desert is a barren area of landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions are hostile for plant and animal life. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About one-third of the land surface of the Earth is arid or semi-arid. This includes much of the polar regions, where little precipitation occurs, and which are sometimes called polar deserts or "cold deserts". Deserts can be classified by the amount of precipitation that falls, by the temperature that prevails, by the causes of desertification or by their geographical location.
RacingThePlanet (RTP) is an organizer of off-trail and rough-country endurance foot-races, including the 4 Deserts. The company also operates an outdoor products store and a dried foods company.
Jin Feibao is a Chinese mountain climber. He has been described as "arguably modern China's greatest adventurer." A native from Kunming, Feibao has completed the Explorers Grand Slam, summiting the highest mountain in every continent and reaching both the North and South Poles in a record 18 months and 24 days. He has also trekked across the Sahara Desert and took part in the first Chinese expedition to cross Greenland from West to East. On top of his many explorations, he is also a celebrated stamp collector, having collected the Guinness Book of World Records largest Olympic stamp collection, and the largest collection of stamps featuring birds. His recent achievement is the Fairyland 100 Marathon, he successfully finished a big challenge - to run 100 marathons in 100 consecutive days in 100 beautiful countryside places in Yunnan, Southeast China.
Ryan Nicholas Sandes "Hedgie" is a South African trail runner. In 2010 he became the first competitor to have won all four of the 4 Deserts races, each a 6/7-day, 250-kilometer (160 mi) self-supported footrace through the Atacama Desert in Chile, the Gobi Desert in China, the Sahara Desert in Egypt, and lastly Antarctica. His achievement prompted Mary Gadams, founder and CEO of RacingThePlanet and organiser of the event, to state “Ryan Sandes is clearly one of the top endurance athletes in the world - to have won all 4 Deserts is a remarkable accomplishment.” To date only 81 individuals have completed all four trails. 11 competitors have managed the 4 Deserts Grand Slam, that is, completing the four trails in a calendar year. In 2010, Time magazine included the 4 Deserts Challenge on a list of the ten most demanding endurance races in the world.
Daniel Westcar Rowland is a Zimbabwean long-distance trail runner. He competes in ultra marathons and multi-day stage races around the world.
Andrew Murray is a Scottish doctor, runner and author who works for the Scottish government promoting physical activity for health. He became widely known in January 2011 when he completed a 2659-mile run from John o' Groats in far north Scotland to Merzouga, in the Moroccan Sahara desert running an average of over 34 miles for 78 consecutive days.
Mahmut Yavuz is a Turkish Navy officer, who serves, currently as a lieutenant, in the SAT Commando unit of the Marines and Special Forces. He is best known for his successful career as an ultramarathon runner and his indistinct fast speech. He holds many records and currently works as a running instructor.
Desert Runners is a 2013 documentary film directed by Jennifer Steinman that follows a group of non-professional runners that attempt to complete 4 Deserts, a series of ultramarathon races often considered the most difficult in the world. Their journeys take them through some of the world’s most beautiful places while pushing the limits of their minds and bodies. It provides a look into the mindset of endurance athletes, and the ways in which humans deal with both heartbreak and achievement.
Greg Nance is an American entrepreneur, mountaineer, and ultramarathon runner. Nance is the co-founder and Board Chairman of Moneythink and the founder and former CEO of Dyad Mentorship.
Samantha Gash is an Australian professional endurance athlete, social entrepreneur, motivational speaker. As an endurance athlete, Gash focuses on long distance expedition runs and adventure races. She is an ambassador to numerous organizations and events including World Vision, Lululemon Athletica, Run Melbourne and Travel Play Live.
Dion Leonard is an Australian/British endurance athlete and ultramarathon runner, Motivational speaker, and author of New York Times Bestseller 'Finding Gobi', the non-fiction memoir of his story of his dog, Gobi, who ran 77 miles of a 155-mile race across the Gobi Desert. Leonard who grew up in Warwick, Queensland before moving to the U.K. started running in 2013 and has already achieved numerous top 10 finishes in ultra races around the world in the most extreme conditions. Leonard has not only competed in but completed some of the world's toughest ultra running races across the most inhospitable landscapes.
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