Pushed to the limit: The World's Toughest Endurance Challenges
Paul Gittings, CNN November 28, 2012
While obesity rates soar in the developed world and we live an ever more sedentary lifestyle, the flip side to this health time bomb is the paradox that more and more amateur athletes are taking on extreme endurance challenges.
Running a 42km marathon is still considered a huge achievement, but "weekend warriors" have now turned in their droves to Ironman Triathlons.
For the uninitiated, that's a 3.8km swim, 180km cycle race and the marathon to finish. And the more offbeat the challenge, the more entrants seem to be attracted.
In
Just to make it more interesting, the organizer sets fire to parts of the course and puts in barbed wire fences and muddy bogs. Yet they come back year after year to be subjected to this torture.
The Tough Guy Challenge is a relative breeze in comparison to an Ironman race in
Triple Ironman
Despite the pain and the hours of preparation, such endurance events are strangely addictive.
Briton Mark Kleanthous has competed in 34 Ironmans -- including the most famous of them all in the blistering heat and brutal winds of
Since the mid-eighties, the 51 year-old has finished over 450 triathlons, making him almost certainly the record holder in that respect, not to mention the small matter of 75 mere marathons.
"The longer the event, the more the mind takes over, in a marathon it is probably only 10% mental in a Triple Ironman, with sleep deprivation, it must be at least 40% mental strength to continue," Kleanthous, who now coaches and mentors athletes who take on these challenges, told CNN.
Kleanthous took just under 46 hours of continuous action to complete his solitary Triple Ironman attempt.
"After swimming, cycling and running a total distance of 521 miles I had no facial hair growth for 10 days," he said. "I think it was my body's way of saying I am shutting down."
But there can be a darker side to this type of challenge.
Sleep deprivation
"I have known ultra endurance athletes to commit suicide within months of finishing sleep deprivation events," said Kleanthous.
"One competitor believed he saw his parents and it was only after the race he realized he had hallucinated because his parents were dead."
Despite these warnings, it does not stop the rush to compete in events like the
It is a near 200km run in the blazing temperatures and freezing nights of the
Many competitors are inspired by the exploits of superstar endurance athletes such as four-time Hawaii Ironman world champion Chrissie Wellington of
Mind games
"Of all the body parts we train, none is more important than the mind," she told CNN.
"There is an obsession in triathlon with tracking how far and how fast we have gone in our latest session. People think that if their training log is in order, then so must be their preparation.
"But it's when the discomfort strikes that they realize a strong mind is the most powerful weapon of all," added
Not all the most famous endurance challenges are multi-sport events, but swimming the
Extremes of temperature also play a part from the Four Deserts Marathon challenge to the South Pole equivalent at -40C.
High altitude is the enemy in the Yak Attack, a mountain bike race through the Himalayas, while a head for heights is required in the Red Bull X-Alps where competitors paraglide and trek from Salzburg to Monaco across the European mountain range.
Discussion Questions
With your partner, discuss the following questions. Feel free to ask any follow-on questions you like.
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1. |
Which challenges from the article would you most hate to take part in? |
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2. |
Why do you think people enjoy challenges? |
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3. |
What do you think is harder: a mental challenge or a physical challenge? |
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4. |
What is the hardest challenge you have ever experienced? |