Brian Townsend completed the Sahara Race 2012, a 5-day running competition in Egypt that began Oct. 28! It took him 53 hours to complete the 155-mile race through the extremely hot (and sometimes very cold) Sahara desert, and he finished 78th place out the 146 people who participated.
"Overall I came in 78th place out of the 146 people who started 116 who finished taking me 53 hours. If you had told me 10 days ago this would have been my result I would have probably thought this race was a huge failure. Having finishing now I am so proud of everything from finishing, my time to the people I met in this race. Reflecting back the best days were the toughest ones. If my race had been days 1,2 and 4 I would have had a much faster race, but a much different experience," Townsend said in his blog.
As you can imagine, the former high-stakes poker pro had been working extremely hard to prepare for the race...
"I spent a huge amount of time preparing and training for this race. I would not have made it if I hadn't had everything dialled in. I had every calorie I would eat accounted for, every piece of gear I would need, heat training and months of running. I am not a superstar runner but a strong one and this race was very hard for me. Everything seems so manageable reading about it ahead of time, but there are so many unforeseeable challenges in doing your first ultra. I just reread my blog and am so glad I kept it for myself and the memories as well as to share with everyone. I thought they would be some more whining in them and be a bit more emotional. Instead they seemed more like a factual account of what was going on."
Click here to read the entire blog post ("What A Journey") about his amazing experience.
