A Basingstoke man has played his part in the toughest race on earth.
Simon Wickes, from technology company QinetiQ helped Olympic athlete and adventurer James Cracknell as he took on the Marathon des Sables – a 250kilometre endurance race across the Sahara Desert last month. Heading the Human Performance team, Simon was responsible for devising and agreeing the testing and preparation programmes that Cracknell undertook; ranging from fitness testing, heat acclimation and more.
“The Marathon des Sables has been a fantastic opportunity to test someone when they push themselves to reach maximum endurance levels,” he commented. “The team is very proud to have played a part in James’ outstanding achievement.”
Cracknell, who has taken on many endurance events in the name of charity, finished 12th overall – the highest placing ever for a Brit. Temperatures exceeded 50degrees celsuis and stopping for medical attention incurred a ten-hour but James, running for The Royal British Legion, completed the challenge.
He commented: “This has been the toughest race of my life. I thought that after stepping out of the boat in 1995, racing could not get any tougher – this really has proved me horribly wrong. Running in the Marathon des Sables has been a really exciting challenge and I look forward to seeing the scientific results from the experiments once they have been evaluated by the QinetiQ team.
“I hope the guys at Discovery Channel will edit out some of the gory bits like me being ill after the 80km stage and the awful state of my feet!”
Toughest Race on Earth with James Cracknell will be shown on the Discovery Channel on August 22 at 9pm.
