By: By Becky Kellogg
Published: January 23,2014
Desert Runners
A documentary film 'Desert Runners' follows
four people as they try to run ultramarathons through four of the most
extreme deserts on earth. (Courtesy: Desert Runners movie)
At base camp, runners peel off their shoes and socks to check the status of blisters that are several inches wide. One runner’s answer to the blister problem? A thick layer of super glue over his wounds. He hopes the super glue will enable him to rejoin the race in the morning and finish this five-day, 250-mile trek across one of the harshest deserts on earth.
This is a scene chronicled in Desert Runner, a new documentary that follows four ultramarathoners as they compete in the hardest endurance in the world: The 4 Deserts race. Runners have one year to run four separate 250-kilometer races across four of the most extreme deserts on earth.
“I set out on a journey to find out what these people are made of, what makes them tick, and why they would want to do things like this, what drives them,” said Jennifer Steinman, director of Desert Runners.
The four runners in the documentary come from all walks of life: young and middle-aged, male and female, married and single. None of them are professional athletes and all of them had to juggle "normal" lives with their quest to run 1,000 kilometers in four deserts.
“I wondered why a regular human would decide to do something like this.”
Steinman found the reasons are varied. For Tremaine, a 41-year-old Brit, it was the loss of his wife to cancer that fueled his drive. At home with two school-aged children, Tremaine found that pushing himself to the extreme limits of human endurance was a way to honor his wife's memory and, perhaps, work through his grief.
“For me that was one of the greatest surprises," said Steinman. "(They are) Just ordinary people who’ve decided, for a variety of reasons, that this is a goal they want to see if they can attain. I was taken by that.”
Tremaine's story is just one of many. Each runner struggled through the challenges of life and training for an ultramarathon each day.
"I couldn’t believe there were people out there who did things like this," said Steinman. "And I kind of just wanted to know why.”
Tremaine, a 41-year-old Brit, who is one of the stars of 'Desert
Runners.' He chose to run the extreme 4 Deserts race to honor the memory
of his wife, who lost her battle with cancer. (Courtesy Desert Runners)
Running 250-kilometers across any one of those deserts is a dangerous undertaking. Running all four in one year is downright crazy.
“Every desert had its own challenge, due to weather or terrain or climate,” said Steinman.
In Desert Runners, you watch as the racers run past the point of physical and mental exhaustion. What you don’t see is Steinman and her cameraman, suffering through the same brutal desert weather.
“The environments were so harsh we were worried about our equipment,” said Steinman. “We were out there for seven days at a time, sleeping on the ground, in tents, not showering for seven days. Running up and down the course.”
Steinman is quick to point out that they didn’t run the entire 1,000 kilometers like the ultramarathoners. But they experienced enough of the deserts to understand the extreme climates and the pain the runners had to endure.
“The Atacama Desert is the driest place on earth," said Steinman. "You were dehydrated the minute you got off the plane. You couldn’t drink enough water.”
(MORE: Rare Snow Falls in the Atacama Desert)
Which desert was the worst?
“For me the Sahara Desert was the hardest,” said Steinman. “It was so hot and we were so dirty. And you would sweat, then the wind would blow and the sand would stick to you. There was no shade, no trees, you’re just out in the heat and sun for hours and hours every day.”
The Antarctica Desert was the final race. Many don’t realize a desert lies within this frozen tundra. At 5 million square miles, the Antarctica Desert gets less than 2 inches of precipitation a year. It’s also the site of the coldest recorded temperature (-128 degrees F) on earth.
“It was freezing and you’re bundled up in so much clothing every day,” said Steinman. “Just the process of putting it on and getting out there. You feel like a marshmallow in these big, massive snowsuits. It’s awkward and difficult to get around with so much clothing on.”
Just the act of getting to Antarctica sounds like an extreme sport.
(MORE: 7 Strange Deserts)
“You fly to the tip of Argentina and then you take a boat through Drake’s Passage, which are basically the roughest waters on earth,” said Steinman. “We were on this boat for 12 days, hiding out in the bottom of the boat because that’s where it rocks the least. It was unbearably brutal.”
Throughout Desert Runners, the racers push themselves to the limits of mental and physical exhaustion. Steinman found the reason they’re able to push through the world’s most extreme deserts is by drawing on something very deep in their hearts and psyche.
“Everybody out there has a very different reason for being out there and wanting to attempt this,” said Steinman. “They all have one thing in common. Their reason (for running 4 Deserts) is incredibly powerful and strong.”
For more on how you can get the full documentary, check out desertrunnersmovie.com.
MORE: Photos from the Atacama Desert
The Driest Place in the World
Spanning some 41,000 square miles across four
South American countries, the Atacama Desert is considered the driest
place in the world. In Chile, the desert receives just 0.004 inches of
rain per year, though snowmelt from the nearby Andes Mountains fills
lakes and rivers that support wildlife. (MARTIN BERNETTI/AFP/Getty
Images)
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