Die Hard - Symmetry Magazine

We’re all aware of extreme sports, but Adam McCulloch has identified a whole new sporting genre - insane sports.

I consider myself fairly fit. I run, eat well, and occasionally lift weights. Yet there’s some endurance sports for which fit enough just ain’t good enough. Insanely fit humans need insanely difficult endurance races. In this world (where the body quite literally consumes itself to provide energy) the city to surf is just a warm up – the winners aren’t happy unless they need to be hospitalised at the finish line.

Swimming the English Channel has changed in recent years. Now, rather than splish-splashing the 32 kilometres from Blighty to Calais (grateful simply to wash up on the shore like limp seaweed), some competitors, like fifteen year old Julie Bradshaw, elect the butterfly stroke for a greater challenge. Anywhere between eight and twenty hours later (assuming they’re not washed out to sea by the Channel’s notoriously vicious tides) they stride from the 15.5 degree water to give a press conference and scoff down a croissant. By rights they should be dead: records of shipwreck survivors, in water exactly the same temperature, found that almost everyone died of hypothermia within six hours. No wonder channel swimmer David Meca, summed up the experience with the classic understatement: “I don’t’ know if I would do it again”.

The cycling equivalent is Race Across America: 5000 kilometres of pure pedaling agony from San Diego to Atlantic City. For the $1470US entry fee, cyclists get to partake in what must be the second most radical weight loss program ever accidentally invented. In one day of competition each rider consumes more than 10,000 calories – a working week’s worth of food for the average Joe.

The most radical weight loss program is, of course, amputation, but since frost bitten toes don’t weigh much it must be bragging rights that keep people climbing Everest.
For a mere $25-75,000US adventure holiday makers can visit the revolving door that is the top of the world. Seasoned mountaineers may pooh-pooh the climb as being less murderous than some of the smaller peaks, but the extreme hiker still has to survive the “death zone” (above 25000 feet). At that elevation the air holds a third as much oxygen as at sea level, so climbers can look forward to pulmonary edema (lungs filling with fluid) cerebral edema (brain swelling up) and good old hypothermia.

Extreme sport enthusiasts with a fear of heights (and crowds) can set their sights on winning Around Alone – the aptly named around-the-world yacht race. The event attracts around 100 applicants so weary of the company of their fellow man (even Jesse Martin had a cat) that they relish the prospect of sailing 46,276 kilometres of the wildest oceans with only themselves for company.

If my life was to be snuffed out, I would rather it happened far from the anonymity of Davy Jones’ locker. Augrabies Extreme Marathon might just be the ticket. Running 250 kilometres over seven days through the Kalahari Desert (where temperatures can hit 50 degrees) competitors must carry all the supplies they need for the week (food, bedding, first aid kit, torch, whistle – all up around 12 kilos). The organisers recommend wearing sand-gaters to prevent sand in the shoes from exfoliating competitor’s feet down to the bone.

The event extreme athletes must be training for surely is – drumroll please - Mexico’s deca-triathlon. Yes deca, meaning ten triathlons in one: 38 kilometre swim, 1800 kilometre cycle, and 422 kilometre run. First place is $1500 US dollars - after the $1250 entry fee that leaves just enough for a big box of band aids. The record, set by Fabrice Lucas in 1997 is 8 days, 0 hours, 8 minutes, 26 seconds. Pretty fast for the second most gruelling event in the world. Numero uno, of course is the Double Deca-triathlon – double the distance again. The strange thing is, per kilometre the overall times for the double-deca are faster. Maybe that’s what it takes for extreme athletes to get their second wind.
Me, I’ll stick to the nicely air-conditioned support vehicle.

Words by Adam McCulloch. Originally published in Symmetry Magazine. The format has been altered to suit Tumblr.