Ray Zahab, adventurer, ultramarathon runner, and founder of impossible2possible, will be starting his run across the Gobi Desert on June 17. He plans on running sixty to seventy kilometres a day, finishing around July 21. We’d bet against him, except that this is the same guy who ran across the Sahara desert.
Zahab’s run, which crosses the Gobi Desert’s widest point, will see 45 degree heat, vast dunes, sand storms, and a lengthy detour to get their passport stamped when they cross into China. He and his running partner, Kevin Lin, will meet up with their support team a couple times a day to replenish supplies and exchange data for the video blog they’ll be keeping.
Zahab’s company, impossible2possible, aims to “encourage youth to reach beyond their perceived limits” and to use adventure to educate and compel the “global community” to make “positive changes”. In concrete terms, they’re a youth leadership training organization.
How will Zahab’s run help said organization? Presumably, anytime a teenager starts whining about waking up at nine in the morning or having no TV for a week, Zahab will be able to say, “Yeah, that’s pretty harsh; it reminds me of the time I ran 2,300 kilometres across the Gobi Desert in a month.”
