131 hours and 11 minutes. Say that out loud with me! That’s how long it took for this tired, broken, Aussie runner to move her sore and exhausted legs from the Santa Monica Pier in Los Angeles, all the way to the ‘Welcome to Las Vegas’ sign in a wild, unsanctioned foot race called The Speed Project (TSP).
Of that grueling 131hr journey, only about 15 of these were allocated to sleep. Not much. The rest of them were spent breathing in thick desert dust, eating ridiculous amounts of food, and working as a team to navigate our way through the biggest “choose your own adventure” race of my life. The beauty of TSP is that each runner’s experience is entirely unique to them. With no set route or rules to follow, each of the 23 participants chose their own way and their own set of strategies to make it to Vegas. Ours took me 493km and 5,000m ofbarren and exposed, yet breathtakingly beautiful Death Valley. She was fiery hot during the day, but ice cold at night. Of the 23 solo participants that took to the desert this year, 17 made it and 5 did not.
