Sahara Race (Egypt) 2010

Course Director Carlos Garcia Prieto (pictured above entering Wadi Hitan) and fellow 4 Deserts Club member Laura Corti went to Egypt last month to meet up with our local team to scout the course for the Sahara Race 2010.

The course will run through areas we've never raced in before, and takes in some awesome locations, like the UNESCO Heritage site of the Valley of the Whales, and the lake of Wadi Ryan. 

To see some photos from the recce and some of the stunning landscapes competitors will race through, click here.

We're delighted to see living legend Jack Denness back in the field again as well as Anita Bracey, both competitors who missed completing the event by a whisker in 2009. To see who else is competing, click here. 

Click here to visit the official website for the Sahara Race 2010.

     Gobi March (China) 2010

The Gobi March 2010 returns to the Turpan Basin, the second lowest place on earth and a place so hot that it's nicknamed "The Oven."  A record field has registered, click here to see the list.

There's a great variety of terrain during this year's Gobi March. To see the preliminary course route for 2010,  click here.

During the race competitors will pass a number of villages and homesteads inhabited by Tajik, Kyrgyz and Uyghur peoples. To read more about the culture of the area, click here.

To read competitor blogs and see how their preparations are going click here. And, if you haven't yet started yours, get writing by signing up here!

Visit the official Gobi March 2010 website here.

RacingThePlanet Alumni News

Ryan Sandes (South Africa) has set new records in the 4 Deserts:  the first sub-24 hour finish ever and the first individual in the world to win three 4 Deserts events.  Ryan will be competing in The Last Desert in Antarctica trying to grab the overall 4 Deserts championship.  Ryan is arguably the best multi-day endurance athlete in the world.

Frank & Chelsea Fumich (United States) Congratulations to 4 Deserts Club member Frank, of Team Trifecta, and his wife Chelsea on the birth of their twins.

Seiji Shishido (Japan) Congratulations to Seiji and his wife on the birth of their third child, a daughter, at the end of February. Seiji's son Nao enjoys training with his dad, and we expect to see them racing together in the not too distant future!

Diego Carvajal (United Kingdom/Columbia) Best wishes to Diego who was aiming to complete all six RacingThePlanet events this year, covering 1350km. He suffered a knee injury in the Atacama Crossing, and we wish him a speedy recovery so that we can see him back out on course.

Ray Zahab (Canada) Congratulations to Ray and his team mate Kevin Valley who have successfully completed their Siberian Express expedition to race the length of Lake Baikal. The team beat the old record by more than a week. Read more about it here.

To visit the RacingThePlanet website, click here or visit www.racingtheplanet.com.

RacingThePlanet Store News

Read the latest advice from our medical team. We've uploaded articles on two common ailments that afflict competitors training for endurance events.  To learn about plantar faciitis, click here.  To learn about Iliotibial Band Syndrome (ITB), click here.

Eric Lahaie, who oversees RacingThePlanet Store, a past champion of the Gobi March 2009, recently placed 2nd in the Atacama Crossing 2010.  See Eric's complete equipment list here.

RacingThePlanet has worked with our medical team to devise the perfect kit for dealing with blisters and hot-spots. We've added lightweight instructions so that you will now know exactly how to use it when you need to out in the field.  Click here to purchase.

♦♦♦♦♦ "Best investment made for these types of races." Mike Stemple, USA. Click here to read more. 

Thank you to all those who donated to Habitat for Humanity through the RacingThePlanet website.  Approximately US$15,000 was raised for the Chilean earthquake victims.

Atacama Crossing (Chile) 2010

Read about newcomer Jo Zakrzewski in The Times of London here.  [Jo won the women's division in the Atacama Crossing 2010 by a wide margin.]

To see all the photos and videos from the race, click here.

To read the blogs competitors wrote from the cybertent, click here.

To read how the race progresssed stage by stage, and see the course maps, click here.

To register for the Atacama Crossing 2011, click here.