This book will undoubtedly change your understanding of human capabilities and your own capabilities. The luxurious photo book contains 50 of the most difficult races in which people take part. If you think that a marathon or a full IRONMAN is the limit of human capabilities, then you definitely need to take a look at the "Most Difficult Endurance Races"! :)
Here are some examples of the starts that are described in the book and that made a shocking impression on me:
- Norseman is a 226 km long triathlon that starts in icy water, then continues with a bike ride with wind and cold. Then a marathon uphill to a height of 1883 m over rocks and a difficult road.
- Trans Europe Footrace — 4132 km across Europe running — from Gibraltar to Scandinavia.
- Ö till Ö — running and swimming at a distance of 64 km, where participants enter and exit the water 38 times. Very cold water +10...+16°C.
- Marathon des Sables is a six—day ultramarathon across the Sahara at a distance of 240 km. All these days, the participants are literally running on the sand, fighting the heat, cold, sandstorms and other gifts of the desert.
- Great Wall Marathon is just a 42 km marathon, but along the Great Wall of China — up and down 5165 steps.
- Yak Attack — a 400 km bike race along the mountain pass of the Himalayas with a set of heights of 12,000 m.
- Ultraman World Championship is such an advanced version of the IRONMAN with a total length of 514 km. In Hawaii, you swim 10 km on the first day and ride a bike 145 km, on the second day — a bike ride for 276 km with a climb of 2611 m, on the third day — a jog for 84 km!
- Self Transcedence 3100 Mile Race — the strangest competition. People run 4989 km for 52 days in two blocks of Queens in New York in a circle with a length of 883 m. Why they don't understand it, but it's very cool to read about it :)
Stories about all the starts are accompanied by atsompheric photo stories of those who took part in them — preparation, sensations, observations (here is an example).
The Russian edition of Mann, Ivanov and Ferber contains many stories of our compatriots.
The most difficult endurance races
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