AppId is over the quota
The arena of endurance sport is expanding and becoming more extreme. Just as more ordinary people run marathons, compete in triathlons and cycle longer distances, more amateur athletes are also pushing boundaries. The madness is beginning to go mainstream. Here are a few people to watch in 2012:
Walking with the Wounded
Martin Hewitt is a British soldier who was shot while leading an assault in Afghanistan; one of his arms has been left paralyzed. Jaco Van Gass lost his left forearm in an attack. The two were among a small team of veterans that reached the North Pole in an unsupported trek in April 2011 organized by the charity “Walking with the Wounded.”
Now the two are on a Walking with the Wounded team that plans to climb Mount Everest, home to some of the most challenging terrain on the planet. They aim to set out in March and reach the peak in May. Everest is a severe test for anyone. Hundreds have died along the climb that includes three-kilometer, or about two-mile, falls, sudden storms, icy rocks and crevasses.
“I don’t like being told something can’t be done,” Mr. Hewitt wrote in a blog. Walking with the Wounded provides retraining and education to wounded soldiers to ease the transition to civilian life.
Global Bicycle Race
In 2011, Vin Cox of Britain set a record circumnavigating the world by cycle. He spent 163 days riding more than 18,000 miles through 17 countries, all by himself. In 2012, he is organizing a race so that someone can try to beat his record.
The event is scheduled to begin on Feb. 18 in Greenwich Park in London, which is on the prime meridian. The timing is set so that participants will have 140 days of cycling and 15 days for transit to arrive back in July just before the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, hosted this year by Britain.
Riders choose their own route — following certain guidelines — and can either head eastward, which has more optimal winds, or westward, which can get them to warmer climates faster. So far, 20 people — from Australia to Brazil to Britain — have signed on.
The hurdles are likely to go beyond the occasional flat tire: During his journey, Mr. Cox lost time to dysentery in India and Libya and sandstorms in Tunisia. He was briefly detained as a suspected spy in Egypt after bypassing a checkpoint and taking photos of the Suez Canal, and he was detained again in Indonesia after an argument with a bus driver.
Border-to-Border Run
Helene Neville , an American nurse, began running seriously after a battle with cancer in the 1990s that involved three brain surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation. She started relatively small with marathons in London and Boston.
She soon set her sights on larger goals. In the hot summer months of 2010 she became the first woman to run across the Southern portion of the United States, from Ocean Beach, California, to Atlantic Beach, Florida. The course took 93 days and spanned 4,000 kilometers — basically a full marathon a day. Along the way, she stopped in hospitals to talk to nurses.
Beginning this April, Ms. Neville plans to run again: down the West Coast of North America — from Vancouver, British Columbia, through California, and into Mexico — clocking about 2,800 kilometers.
Capri–X 2012
In 2010, Peter Van Kets rowed solo across the Atlantic. After training earlier in 2011 in the French Alps and Iceland, Mr. Van Kets, who is South African, is currently representing his country in a 750-kilometer unsupported cross-country ski race in Antarctica to the South Pole.
Later in 2012, he is planning to begin his lengthiest expedition yet : to circle the globe along the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere by land and sea. He will use only the power he can generate from his own body. His cause: raising awareness about global warming and how people are battling it.
He expects the trip to take more than a year and cover 37,500 kilometers. Though plans are still in flux, he will likely travel by sailboat, kayak, foot and mountain bike. His route crosses several deserts in countries including Australia and Namibia.
“If you dream big, then you must expect to be tested and you must expect to be beset with challenges on the way,” he wrote in his blog. “It’s the way in which we tackle those challenges that will determine the end result.”
Pacific 2012
Charlie Martell is a veteran of the British Army Commandos, specializing in bomb disposal, and has served in the Middle East, Bosnia and Northern Ireland. He has skied to the North Pole and rowed across the Atlantic.
In May, as typhoon season begins, Mr. Martell plans to begin to row across the North Pacific, what he calls the “Everest of the oceans,” from Japan to the United States. He hopes to be the first Briton to navigate the route solo. (Only a single Frenchman has completed an unsupported solo row from West to East.) He expects the trip of about 10,000 kilometers to take 133 days.
He will make the journey in a specially designed seven-meter boat named Blossom, after his goddaughter. The craft includes a small cabin where he will sleep and ride out storms. A so-called para-anchor that acts like an underwater parachute will keep him relatively stationary during down time. The cabin also is equipped with a radio, phones and computer.
Midmar Mile
Feeling inferior? Well, here’s something for the masses. South Africa’s Midmar Mile open-water race was swum for the first time in 1973 with 153 competitors. The event, which is held each February, now draws about 16,000 entries and is considered the world’s largest open-water swim.
But among the swimmers this year is one person who will humble most competitors: the famed marathon swimmer Martin Strel , nicknamed “Big River Man.” A Slovenian native, he has swum the Amazon, Yangtze, Paraná, Mississippi, and Danube Rivers, earning multiple Guinness World Records.
When he swam the Amazon in 2007 (more than 5,000 kilometers over 66 days), boats escorted him to pour blood over the side to distract piranhas when the need arose. That didn’t prevent him from getting one big bite on his upper back.
Two Oceans Marathon
My own plans for this year include two ultra-marathons, which are longer than marathons and often over more challenging terrain. The first is the Vibram Hong Kong 100, a 100-kilometer race in late February in the mountains surrounding the city. The course involves a cumulative elevation gain of more than 4.5 kilometers. The second event is the Two Oceans Marathon , a 56-kilometer race held in Capetown, South Africa, in April.
I won’t cross continents or oceans, or break any records. But those two runs are challenge enough for me.
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