In June 2008, Team MR 25 Gobi (Steven Lim, Christian Stauffer and Johnson-Dan Jacob) from Singapore will be embarking on an epic race across the Gobi desert in China, known as the 'Gobi March' to attempt a good place team finish. We are members of the MacRitchie Runners 25 (MR 25) running club. We have been training since October 2007. We are taking on this challenge in an effort to complete the race as a team and to raise cancer awareness for Children’s Cancer Foundation (CCF).
THE RACE OF NO RETURN
The Gobi March is a seven-day, six-stage, 250-kilometer footrace across the Gobi Desert of China. All competitors are required to be fully self-supported and must carry all their own food, gear and clothing while navigating through about 30 checkpoints (CPs).
The Gobi is the world's largest cold winter desert, made up mostly of mountains, rocks, grasslands, salt flats and sand dunes. At 500,000 square miles (1,300,000 square kilometers) it is nearly twice the size of Texas and sprawls across much of China and Mongolia. The Gobi (Mongolian word for "waterless place") certainly lives up to its name with less than three inches of rain falling each year.
While setting the course for the Gobi March the locals renamed the event “The Race of No Return” believing that no competitor could finish such a demanding course which traverses rivers, high plains, mountains, valleys, rocky terrain and sand dunes.
The Gobi March is part of the Four Deserts®, a unique worldwide endurance series of footraces in the world’s four largest deserts (the Atacama Crossing in Chile, the Gobi March in China, the Sahara Race in Egypt and The Last Desert in Antarctica). They represent the windiest, driest, hottest and coldest places on Earth.
The events are organised by Racing The Planet Limited (http://www.racingtheplanet.com).
The Gobi March is held annually in honor of three great women - Mildred Cable and Eva and Francesca French - who crossed the Gobi Desert five times approximately one-hundred years ago.
You can read more about the event at http://www.4deserts.com/gobimarch/
"Life enhancing for all, life changing for many."
Date: 8th June - 14th June
Desert: Gobi Desert of China
