Races: Running at the top of the world

I’m not sure that I even know where to start with this one.

We spend a lot of time reading and writing about people running marathons under extreme conditions. Whether it’s running across the Sahara desert or trying to run a marathon on every continent in a week - it seems that there’s someone out there dreaming up the next great challenge. Well, I stumbled on a good one today.

On May 29th 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first to summit Mount Everest. In commemoration of this event, there is now a Mt. Everest Marathon. 2007 was actually the fifth running of what’s billed as the “World’s Highest Marathon.” The race is officially called the “Tenzing Hillary Everest Marathon.”

And it sounds like one brutal race: it starts at the bottom of the “spectacular” Khumbu Icefall at around 5400 meters (17,716 feet) next to Everest base camp and ends in Namche Bazaar, a popular trekking base at 3446 meters (11,305 feet).

Today’s winner finished the 26.2 mile event in just under 4:00:00 hours! Not bad for running over incredibly rough terrain, at high-altitude, and with potentially terrible weather.

“It is a very tough race and you have to be physically and mentally fit,” said 25-year-old Dipak Raj Rai, who won the race with a finishing time of 3hrs, 59mins, 24secs.

The first foreign runner to finish the event was Antoine Bonafics from France. He must have made the understatement of the day when he said: “This is a very difficult marathon. There are lots of ups and downs and my muscles are too [SIC] tired.”

The event organizers bill the event this way to interested runners:
“Everest Marathon is considered by many High Altitude Running lovers as the ultimate race or the ultimate challenge of this form of extreme sport. These runners endure the harsh weather and even digest altitude sickness to participate in this Highest Marathon Racing.”

Sounds like fun, eh?

So it may not be your next race, but it’s one to file in the people will do just about anything category. If you’d like to check out the event’s web-site with some cool photos, you can click here.

Coach Joe
Running Wild with Coach Joe – a blog focused on marathon racing, training and motivation. Bookmark us at http://coachjoeenglish.wordpress.com or use your favorite RSS feed reader to get the latest news and articles. Running Wild is also now available on Yahoo! 360 and My Space.