Mad Dogs and Americans is a great article in the WSJ on the phenomenon of ultra-endurance events and extreme-adventure travel. Some interesting nuggets…
- Adventure racing is America’s fastest-growing outdoor sport.
- Examples of extreme adventure travel: the Paris-Brest-Paris Randonneur, a 750-mile, 90-hour race through northwestern France; trekking across Antarctica and camping on a 200-foot icefall to explore ice caves and see penguins; a three-day, 125-mile foot race through spider-infested jungles and hip-deep swamps of the Amazon basin.
- How much do these “experiences” cost? Upwards of $43,000.
- To the inevitable question of “why?!” that participants receive from peers, colleagues, friends, and families: “Sure, [the week-long Jungle Marathon] sounds agonizing. And it was. It was miserable. But what’s appealing is that it’s all discipline, not talent. I could never be Tiger Woods, but I can commit to the training, research, planning and execution to complete one of these races.”
- The Adventure Travel Trade Association estimates world-wide spending on real adventure-travel packages at $75 billion to $150 billion a year.
- The founder of Racing the Planet and director of the Gobi March says that as many as a third of athletes make a career change after participating in one of these extreme adventure races.
Play, think…
J.R. Atwood
Filed under: Sports, Play & Games, The Body, Health & Exercise , adventure races, adventure racing, Adventure Travel Trade Association, endurance, extreme-adventure travel, Gobi March, Jungle Marathon, outdoor sport, Racing the Planet, running, ultra-endurance, ultramarathon
Nice post! It is always good to see articles promoting the positives of AR
Thanks for sharing the WSJ article — we can cite this in some of our sponsor discussions down the road. Adventure racing can be a life-changing experience, for sure!