A Different Kind of Vacation

Every year, there is a series of four races that take place across the globe. The only difference between this series and other series is that these are 100-mile runs across four of the world's deserts. The last one, is called the the Last Desert competition and it's in Antarctica.

Part spiritual quest, part kamikaze mission, 4 Deserts has become the next big endeavor for people who have raced every marathon, Ironman triathlon, and Eco-Challenge out there.

This article is about a software consultant from Chicago, Greg Kunhau, who completed all four deserts of the 4 Deserts challenge. The competition covers China's Gobi desert, Chile's Atacama, Egypt's Sahara and ends with Antarctica. Last year, the race started with the Atacama, and Kunhau was there:

The course there offered almost no shade and traversed salt flats with daytime temperatures near 120 degrees, even in midwinter. In that race, Kunhau lost a big toenail, shed 17 pounds, and contracted bronchitis and strep throat. "I wanted to die," he says.

He was part of a team of three people who did it together. I cannot even imagine what it must be like doing it alone.

While most racers prefer to go solo, he competed as part of a team of three (all entrepreneurs), because they wanted the company. In 2004, Joel Burrows, now 30, and Nancy Fudacz-Burrows, 38, a married couple who own a gym in Chicago called First Step Fitness, traveled with Kunhau[.]

They next went to China, to run in the Gobi.

The next spring the team flew to China to run in the Gobi desert, which competitors refer to as the "oven" because of its relentless sun and seemingly endless expanses of bare rock. Kunhau suffered chronic nausea and hallucinated from lack of sleep.

And, next to the Sahara.

[I]n the Sahara he lost another toenail and started vomiting so violently from the 130-degree heat that he had to crawl under a Volkswagen-sized rock to cool down. But the intensity of the experiences started to become addictive. "You learn to overcome fear," Kunhau says. "You have to if you want to get through."

At this point, I am speechless. When I ran the NYC marathon, I thought that was gruelling. That was nothing compared to this. In fact, that was nothing even compared to the Ironman (swimming 2.4 miles, biking 112 miles, and then running a marathon - 26.2 miles). And Kunhau has run three of them.

Before the desert events, Kunhau had completed 17 marathons, three Ironman competitions, and, as he says, "too many triathlons to count."

Amazing. How did he train for these things?

Before work Kunhau would wake at 5 A.M. to get in a 30-minute bike ride or a five-mile run. Other mornings he took his work to the Lake Michigan shore, ran an eight-mile loop along the waterfront, returned to his car for an hour or so of conference calls with clients, and then put in another eight-mile loop. At night he went to the gym for weight training, swimming, and treadmill work.

"For a few months I didn't have much of a social life," he says.

I can empathize with the lack of a social life (I'm a grad student). And even I work out twice a day, but this is amazing. I mean, talk about life-changing experiences. The next time you say that a movie or a book "changed your life," think about this. I think this is the real thing. In fact,

Life altering is the first expression most use when describing the desert races. According to Mary Gadams, 41, the U.S.-born founder and CEO of RacingThePlanet, the desert-based ultramarathons are so transforming that after completing one, about a third of the competitors quit their jobs to do something more fulfilling.

For once, I have nothing say except that this is one more thing to add to my life's to-do list...