Have you ever fancied the ultimate challenge?
The ultimate terrain: heat, altitude, sand, rocks – the ultimate hostile atmosphere. Super Fun Days Out talks to Richard Cheetham, who recently completed the Atacama Crossing, 155 miles in 6 days across the driest desert on earth.

What made you do it?
It was the idea of friends of mine to find the most extreme challenge. We’re not elite athletes, we’re just normal people who fancied doing something extraordinary.

How did you hear about it?
We just searched the internet looking for companies who organised extreme challenges, and we came across Racing the Planet, who specialise in ultra-marathons.  The location really appealed, as did the kudos… the ability to say “I was one of the few people who’s run across the driest desert on earth.” We then looked on YouTube which gave us more idea of what it was really like as we didn’t know anyone who’d done it…

How did you prepare: physically and mentally?
I’d never run a marathon before, and this race involves 6 of them, carrying all of your belongings, including 6 days of food. It took me 6 months to prepare, and the first time I ran, I could only run for 20 minutes, so this shows how possible it is for anyone to undertake something of this scale. I received a lot of advice from people and gradually the 20 minute run extended to an hour which extended to 2 hours and so on… There’s no doubt about it, it does require, for a period of your life, almost total dedication because to be ill-prepared in this environment could be very costly.

Mentally, you have to decide how important it is to you, and also over time, you learn to develop a habit of positive thought processes.

What experiences did you have in the race, how did you feel?
I feared failure more than anything else as it was a massive financial, emotional and physical investment and because due to altitude sickness, I failed to reach the summit of Kilimanjaro. I knew what disappointment felt like. Each day the terrain varied but the heat was always the same, and the weight of the bag never seemed to get any lighter. During the event I met some really postive people and we shared our experiences each day. People came from a variety of backgrounds, different ages, mix of genders, it wasn’t full of Paula Radcliffe-style elite runners. Refreshingly, it was full of normal people. Blisters were the biggest challenge for most of us, and it certainly cost me a lot of time. It was an emotional roller-coaster, particularly as we faced 46 miles on day 5, which took all day, arriving at camp at midnight having started at 7.30am.

Finishing the race…

Crossing the finish line was just a beautiful moment – worth every sacrifice, and something that I will always remember. Everyone was very emotional, and I wish I could go back and re-live it again.

Advice for others

Immerse yourself in the event and its demands. You will experience bad days at training, but you’ll look back on those and remember that you will overcome it. The Theodore Roosevelt quote stayed with me the whole journey:

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

“Citizenship in a Republic,”
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

Want More?
If you’d like to know more contact: Richard.Cheetham@winchester.ac.uk, who’s also available as an after-dinner speaker.

What would be your challenge?
Check out Super Fun Days Out , there’s a whole range of activities – which would provide you with a good challenge? We’d also love to hear more inspiring stories as well!