Coming May 1st - Dean Karnazes: A Life in (Full) Motion on Living a Life in Full

Yeah. You know, I've done so many races, I've raced on all seven continents twice. But there was one race I did, it was in the Atacama desert, which is in South America, in Chile. And it's the driest place on earth. I remember asking one of the guys there, I said, you know, when did, when did it last rain? And he said, it hasn't. I said, well, since when? He said, since we've been keeping records. There's never been a recorded raindrop where you're racing.

Wow.

The humidity was so low. Yeah. And. And it was, it was like a marscape. It was six day self supported, 250km. When I say self supported, that means you have to carry everything you need in your pack. They would set up a tent for you at night for the racers and they provide water. But as far as food, you know, you had a, you were living on freeze dried food, you know, astronaut food basically.

Right.

You were sleeping in a tent where at night it was below Freez. During the day it was over 100 degrees and it was just, I just. And there's no, I mean you're not showering, there's no water for showers. So you're out there for six days crossing this desert. And I remember my hair was like straw. I could just break my. Wow.

Sure. Wow. Do you have to orient that way too or do you kind of generally know what is that? I can't imagine that there's a 250 mile or kilometer trail or something. How do you, how do you make sure that you're, you know, not going up the side of a volcano or something instead?

Yeah, it's an actual organized race and they put out these pink flags, line of sight. You're not allowed to use a gps, so you've got to look for like you get to a pink flag, you look for the next pink flag.

Wow.

The problem is if you're in a desert and there's a sandstorm, right? Yeah.