Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge: World's toughest challenge?

Question on you now OK? It’s the end of August 2010 and somebody asks you “We do one six day extreme endurance race in December in Abu Dhabi. Some running, mountain bike, sea kayak and climbing. Couple of hundred kilometers. Do you wanna join our team?” What would you say? ;)

This exactly happened to me while sitting comfortably on the beach after relaxing kite session and it was one of my very good Czech friends Jaro who asked. I also knew the other two who were in already and they needed the last guy, another Czech and an Iraqi. Tough decision? Not really J “Wow…it looks amazing!! Count me in” I responded almost without thinking. I just saw a great fun with friends and some physical challenge, which I always wanted to prove to myself!

Easy to get in, but usually just few days later when you start doing some research, you realize that there is much more behind and that it might hurt ;) So what is 2010 Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge about?

Day 1: Short sections of running, canoe and swimming around Abu Dhabi Corniche and Emirates palace. Around 20km total. Transfer to Al Ain by bus followed by another 30km on mountain bike and more 6km running to the Camp 1

Day 2: 20km bike to Jebel Hafeet. Run & Scramble & Climb up and down the 1000m high mountain through dry valleys on the sides and finish in Camp 2

Day 3: Bike 50km on sandy tracks to Liwa Empty quarter and start running & hiking through the desert for around 50km until you stop for 8 hour obligatory rest and camp self-sufficiently in the sand

Day 4: Finish the desert section with another 50km to Camp 3

Day 5: Board a double sea kayak with small sails and go between the islands from Mirfa direction Abu Dhabi for 60km until it gets dark and camp on the deserted island

Day 6: After sunrise finish after another 60km in Abu Dhabi and get medals J

Whole race is also a navigation challenge, because using GPS and compass you have to be collecting checkpoints on the way. Some with given coordinates and the optional ones with just point in the printed Google Earth map!! There are strict time limits and everything is penalized.

Didn’t look that bad on the paper. Especially when I remembered myself doing some hiking with almost 3km of elevation and some 60km long. Running half marathon is also not a problem. I know nothing about kayaking long distance, but I felt pretty confident after I started going to the gym on July this year J So with the next three months of training it would be “Piece of cake” J

But when I considered it deeper and tried running 20km in the sand, I realized that I signed up for something I have basically no experience with. Extreme distances without rest for six consecutive days, team psychic, proper race nutrition…and when I added tons of strictly required and specified equipment which will be checked in technical verifications and when I also saw that this is not a fun challenge at all as I thought a bit, where people go to finish, because of all those professional athletes, iron man world champions and world record holder competing for 230000 US dollars in price money…I felt that I might have done a mistake!!

Luckily we got a sponsor Abu Dhabi Environmental Agency who paid the 2500EUR entry fee for us, so there is not that much at stake apart from our health and pride.

So this is us, ECO-RACERS (from left to right: Milan Seman [Czech], Jaro Prokop [Czech], Yasa Wadhai [Iraq] and myself J)

and only the race itself will tell if we did not take a bite too big to swallow J