Posts Tagged ‘Across The Divide’

Like peas and carrots the two go hand in hand…

Many of the extreme sports and challenges we write about are as much about the money they raise for charity as they are about personal challenge and achievement.

ATD (Across the Divide) is a company that was established in 1996 to deliver exceptional worldwide adventures, expeditions and charity challenges, and on this subject it has a 5-day fundraising trek which may well interest you.

Scheduled to start on the 1st October, the trip will finish on the 6th.

Jbel Toubkal is a mountain peak in southwestern Morocco. At 4,167 metres, it is the highest peak in the Atlas Mountains and in North Africa. It is located 63km south of the city of Marrakech, in the Toubkal National Park.

Minimum sponsorship is requested to be £2,050 and the whole trip is self-funding. This fundraising walk is part of the Just Events organised by ‘Across The Divide’s’ own UK based charity challenge called ‘JUST WALK’ which allows individuals to raise money for the charity of their choice.

There are several other events throughout the year.

North Africa’s highest mountain, Mount Toubkal in Morocco, is the challenge. The climb does not require any previous mountaineering experience but, at 4,167 m, reaching the summit is a real achievement.  The first ascent by Europeans was on 12 June 1923 by the Marquis de Segonzac, Vincent Berger and Hubert Dolbeau, but the mountain was almost certainly climbed by Berber tribesmen well before this date.

Not every day of your trip is climbing. You spend your first night in Marrakech and then get taken to the foot of Mount Toubkal the following day where you will have a 9 hour trek to the Louis Neltner Mountain Hut  at 3,207m.

Day 3 you will attack the summit from where you can expect magnificent views: views of Marrakech, the Anti-Atlas mountains and row after row of sharp granite peaks. You will then return to the hut for a second night.  The following day you complete the walk down and transfer back to Marrakech. Before you leave there is a whole day free for shopping … oops, I mean sight-seeing. The return to England is on the 6th day, and that’s the 6th of October.

If you want to take part in this expedition and raise money for your favourite charity, please go directly to the ATD site.

If you’re interested in ultra-marathons, adventure racing, extreme endurance races or events along those lines you will be interested to hear about Across The Divide’s (ATD) forthcoming Namibian event.

The Namib is the oldest desert in the world, somewhere around 55 million years old, and is the largest and most remote National Park in Africa. It is 31,200 square miles (80,900 square kilometers) – about the size of South Carolina and Rhode Island combined, and is completely devoid of surface water but is disected, in the northern desert, by several dry riverbeds.

A major threat to the Namib Desert is the impact of off-road driving. The impact is the greatest on the gravel plains where depressions left by vehicles remain for more than 40 years because the rainfall is too episodic and sparse to erase them. Across The Divide will take every precaution not to leave their imprint on this fragile eco-system.

Adventure Race Namibia 24-hr Ultra Marathon starts on 24th May. The event, which is fast becoming known as the ultimate test for long distance endurance runners, will be run in the northern Namib, an extremely arid eco-region made up of shifting sand dunes, gravel plains and rugged mountains.

The race is 126 km (78 miles) long – the equivalent of 3 marathons and must be completed in 24 hours. Intense training is required to get you fit enough for this race because, as well as the length and duration, the extreme heat of the Namib and the difficult terrain add to the difficulties that you will encounter.

The route mainly follows gravel plains framed by distant ridges and mountains and passed dramatic upheavals of isolated granite hills. The temperatures are expected to be in the region of min 5ºc / max 36 ºc but could be more extreme. Clear blue skies during the day and brilliant moonlight through the night should be a guaranteed but rainfall in the Namib, although sparse, is completely unpredictable so there could be a pleasant surprise in store.

Thank you to dazzaroberts for this evocative video:

The runners will be completely self reliant from the start of the marathon until the end, and will need to carry their food and equipment on their backs. Water stations and medical tents will be provided at 21km intervals along the route.

This is an extreme race which is held on a yearly basis. Training for it is not an overnight event – you could start now to be ready for next year’s race!

As with other companies that we profile, Across The Divide use their events to raise money for various charities. To date they have raised £43,010,171. The company was inaugurated in 1996 – that’s a very impressive sum I’d say!

If you wish to take part in an Across The Divide event please go directly to their website: ATD

… and good luck to all those intrepid souls about to depart for Windhoek…

There is nothing more extreme than the ultra-marathon I think. Sure there are some other amazing races – races where an athlete pushes his/her body right to the edge and then over it. I’m thinking of adventure racing here, but ultra-marathons still hold a perverse fascination for me. Why would anyone wish to do one?!

The answer is partially in my article of Monday where I wrote about RacingThePlanet and the completion of their Atacama Crossing event. At the end of the article I proffered a link to a page where some ultra-marathon athletes try to explain why they do  these marathons, and having done one, do another, and then another… follow the link above if you want to see it again.

Across the Divide is a similar organisation. They too have stupendous events around the world and their Namibian Adventure Race  24 hour Ultra Marathon, 126km long, begins 24th May and ends on the 31st.

This ultra-marathon is as extreme as they come. You might be fit enough to think that a 126 km run will be a challenge, but nothing more than than. However, it’s the Namib Desert that is going to be the biggest challenge to you and your body. The 126 km (78 miles) must be completed in 24 hours…

The race will take you through vast expanse of desert, across the endless space of gravel plains framed by distant ridges and mountains, past dramatic upheavals of granite inselbergs and all under the clearest of blue skies during the day and a full moon during the night.

Temperatures are expected to be in the region of min 5ºc / max 36 ºc – but could well be more extreme.

Contestants will be completely self reliant from the start of the race until the end, and will need to carry their food and equipment on their backs. However, water stations and medical tents will be provided at 21km intervals along the route.

Across the Divide has organised an impressive schedule over 8 days. Flight in. Acclimatisation. The Race. Rest and Recuperation. One day of nothing and home. However, I strongly recommend that if you are thinking of doing this race in the future, that you take a bit of time off and visit the other wonderful things to see in this beautiful country… Etosha, for example, a wildlife paradise, is not far from Swakopmund where the event ends,  and it would be a pity to be so close and yet so far …

With the new year well upon us, and with the knowledge that some intrepid souls are already proving their worth in Patagonia, we thought we might have a look into the training that is required to participate in endurance events, be it ultra-marathons or adventure races.

But first of all we need to try and understand why people would challenge themselves to such an extent. What is it that pushes some far more than others? I’m not sure there is any real answer to that, but Steve Clark, an ultra-marathon and endurance runner, sums it up pretty well when he explains:

“I wanted to be tested to my mental and physical limits and really see what I was made of, and fundamentally that is why I love ultras.  Run one and you can learn more about your strengths and weaknesses from one event than you would from a lifetime of listening to motivational speakers, self help gurus and personal development trainers.  You also get the time to think how to put it all into practice more than in any other sport I know.”

That’s a good enough reason isn’t it?

Running an ultra-marathon or competing in an adventure race requires at least 3 vital qualities: ambition, inner drive and determination. All endurance races are challenging and extreme ultra-marathons fall into a catagory all of their own. If you have not got a liberal dose of the 3 qualities I just mentioned to enable you to put in the correct quantity and quality of training, and the planning and preparation that is needed to increase your odds of success, then odds are you will not succeed.

Training for these type of events does not only happen when the weather’s good and you’re in the mood. This sort of training has to be done in all weathers, no matter how wet and miserable.

It is suggested that to complete your first 100-mile endurance you should have a one-year base of distance running, with at least two 50K distances and one 50-mile run, before starting the training schedule required for ultra-marathons. Running 100+ mile weeks does not increase one’s chances of finishing a 100-mile run. Many ultra runners have completed 100-mile runs with weekly mileage in the 50s or 60s. The rule here is ‘quality’ of training, over ‘quantity’.

Trail Runs has given the following training schedule which allows rest and recuperation days whilst building up the weekly average at a steady and sensible rate:

It looks pretty heavy this, but training is essential as you are going to find an ultra-marathon an ultra-challenge. To succeed in completing these distances is, without doubt, superb physical fitness and stamina, but 80% of the battle to succeed takes place in the final 20% of the distance, and here you have to dig deep and fight-the-fight mentally, calling on all your reserves and remembering the pain and effort you went through with your training.

It is essential to go into the 100-mile run well rested and injury free and for this reason you will note on the chart that the 2 weeks before the big run have a much lower mileage than the previous build up.

Rest is essential and it is equally essential that you do not get caught up in over-training.

This schedule is a 7 and a half month programme. Helen Skelton, the Blue Peter presenter, gave herself just 3 months to train for the Namibia Ultra-Marathon – one of the most formidable ultra-marathons of them all. She had bucket loads of what I said you needed: ambition, inner drive and determination. Mental strength is covered in those 3 requirements, but worth another mention as it is integral to whether you succeed or fail… Helen Skelton succeeded.

Being pulled from any race or event on medical grounds is always difficult to take, but is always out of your control. An ultra-marathon is a lot more than just gruelling training to allow you to complete the race. Water management is equally important. If you finish your supply before a checkpoint and dehydrate – you will not be able to recover without assistance. In times like that it is important that you do the two things the medic will insist on: Rest and Recuperate and a third thing that you should do for yourself at a time like this is: Reflect. Reflect on what you did well in the event, and what you can learn from the experience, so that it never happens again. You become stronger through adversity, never weaker.

Steve Clark, Across The Divide Operations  and Development Director and Ultra Marathon runner, ran 2 marathons before realising that they didn’t interest him enough. He sought the challenge of the ultra-marathon and was hooked. It’s not only the extreme challenge of succeeding, there is the added benefit of the others in the race and the destinations these ultra-marathons take you to.

“The best thing about Ultra’s has to be the people that you meet. They seem to be a much friendlier bunch and far more open to helping each other through dark patches on the trails, as they fully understand how hard these events can be and how even a little company and support can lift the spirits and make the difference between success and failure.  Most people are not in it to win it, but just to haul their bruised and battered bodies over the finish line.  They are quite happy to share this whole experience with fellow racers along the way.”

There are ultra-marathons in Namibia (charityatd), the Sahara, Antartica, Laugavegur Ultra Marathon in Iceland (charityatd), the Gobi Desert, the Atacama Desert, The Great Wall of China, Petra in Jordan… to name just a few. Exotic, and all challenging terrains.

“So if you are contemplating making the leap from marathons to ultra marathons sign yourself up for an event today and you will never look back.  They are life changing experiences and you will definitely end up a better person for it,” he says.

For more information about Steve Clark’s company, Across the Divide, please follow the link.