With Aconcagua out of the way and climbed successfully I am ready for the next challenge. I want and always wanted to do a desert run. Desert runs are typically long runs, ultra-runs as they call them. I know that there are many professional desert and ultra runs out there: Mongolia Sunrise to Sunset Run, Badwater to Mount Whitney (see also Wikipedia), Des Sables runs (see also Wikipedia), Racing the Planet, Machu Picchu and other South American mountain runs, etc.
But what I do not like about them is the following: they are too commercial. All these races have the feel of business to them. Des Sables has a registration fee of €2550! I prefer a different approach, a more personal run, a smaller affair, with more responsibility, where I need to take care of everything from planning, via preparation to execution. I love the idea of the Fat Ass runs. They really represent the spirit of my vision, they capture perfectly what I want to do.
Anyway, I am not ready to do a desert run, not yet. First I have to gain a bit more experience in a long run. So first, as preparation for a true desert run, I want to start out with a 24-hour run. This is my current goal. If I manage that I can always extend my goal to the true desert ultra run.
I have never done anything like it, the closest I got was running the Marathon in Los Angeles, Long Beach and San Diego in 1990, that is 17 years ago! Wow, a long, long time ago. I am not quite in shape to run a marathon as fast as then. In Long Beach I finished the 42km in 3h14min, my personal best time. Today, older and without training it would take me a lot longer. Anyway, the point for me now is less to break a speed record, the goal is a slow and consistent run and making it to the finish line. Stamina, persistence, and touching the physical limit on duration is my goal. So instead of setting myself a goal in km (as in a 100km run), I want to set my goal on a duration, i.e. a 24-hour run.
This is really what my goal boils down to for my first stage: a 24-hour run. A test of endurance. Since I will not be able to run 24 hours, it will be a 24-hour run/trek/hike/walk. Pretty much anything is allowed as long as I keep moving. And since I am doing this only for me -- I have nothing to prove to anyone -- I will just do it on my own. Few people would be crazy enough to join me.
Clearly I also want to roughly know how far I can get in 24-hours, so I set myself a secondary goal: 100-km, because it is such a nice and even number.
