Expedition Gobi: The Magic Of Running

Ultrarunners Ray Zahab and Kevin Lin are continuing their journey across the Gobi Desert and are now a little over a week into their run. So far they’ve been pretty diligent about hitting their average of 70 km (43.4 miles) per day, although they have taken some liberties here and there to enjoy some interaction with the locals and absorb the Mongolian culture. The plan is to cover 2300 km (1430 miles) in just 35 days and to do that they must maintain a steady pace.

Beyond the adventure of simply running across one of the largest deserts on the planet, the point of Expedition Gobi is to learn about life in the desert and share that experience with others. With that in mind, Ray and company are taking every chance they can get to connect with those who live in that environment. The video below is a great example of that as a young man joins the team for a portion of a run and a personal bond is formed even though neither runner speaks the others language.

While Ray continues to knock off the miles, his partner Kevin remains hobbled a bit with an injury that has prevented him from running as much as he would like. He seems to be recovering however, although he continues to limit his mileage while he works himself back into the groove. With more than three weeks to go until they wrap up their adventure, he still has plenty of opportunities to add up the mileage and they haven’t even gotten to the most difficult stages just yet.

Follow Ray and Kevin’s progress at Gobi2013.com.

Expedition Gobi – The Magic of Running from GOi2P on Vimeo.

Kraig Becker