challenges
Badwater
Location: Death Valley, USA
Year: 2017
Distance: 217 km
Conditions: 55 degrees
Covering 217km non-stop from Death Valley to Mt. Whitney, CA, the Badwater® 135 is the most demanding and extreme running race offered anywhere on the planet. The start line is at Badwater Basin, Death Valley, which marks the lowest elevation in North America at 280’ (85m) below sea level. The race finishes at Whitney Portal at 8,300’ (2530m), which is the trailhead to the Mt. Whitney summit, the highest point in the contiguous United States. The Badwater 135 course covers three mountain ranges for a total of 14,600’ (4450m) of cumulative vertical ascent and 6,100’ (1859m) of cumulative descent. Competitors travel through places or landmarks with names like Mushroom Rock, Furnace Creek, Salt Creek, Devil’s Cornfield, Devil’s Golf Course, Stovepipe Wells, Panamint Springs, Darwin, Keeler, Lone Pine, Alabama Hills, and the Sierra Nevada.
Arctic Circle
Location: Norway, Finland, Sweden
Distance: 400 miles
Conditions: -45 degrees
The Frostskade 500 is a remote Polar Expedition race in the Arctic Circle travelling through Norway, Finland, and Sweden, and covering distances of 100, 250, or the full 400 miles. Cross-country skiing or running, competitors pull pulks containing all expedition equipment and-crucially-camp each night in temperatures as low as minus 45C.
Marathon des Sables
Location: Sahara Desert
Distance: 250 km
Conditions: 52 degrees
The Marathon des Sables is the stuff of legends. It is The Toughest Footrace on Earth. Marathon des Sables is a truly gruelling multi-stage adventure through a mythical landscape in one of the world’s most inhospitable environments – the Sahara desert. You have to be self-sufficient and carry all your own food and equipment for the week on your back. Communal goat’s-hair Berber tents are pitched every night but, apart from that you have to take it with you. Water is rationed and if you exceed the ration, you get a time penalty.