Outer Limits

Where ordinary mortals see only extreme discomfort, people who participate in extreme ultra-distance races find pleasure. Who are these people? And what inspires them to take on some of the world’s toughest endurance events?

- Lisa Abdellah

At 3am on Saturday, 30 August 2015, most of us were wrapped up in our warm, cosy duvets – but Alana Munnik was running on top of the Col de la Seigne, a mountain on the steep southern side of the Mont Blanc massif.

Munnik, 31, had already covered 65km of the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB), but was less than halfway along the 170km route that makes this famous race one of the two toughest single-day trail races in the world, along with the Western States 100-miler.

Munnik was heading into conditions typical of this remote region: hostile terrain, extreme weather. At various points during her race, she would experience bad digestion, sleep deprivation, intense fatigue, hallucinations and negative emotions – sometimes several of those combined. There was a genuine possibility that despite years of training, she might not finish.

This is her idea of fun.

Extreme ultra-distance races were once a fringe pursuit for the elite few, but in recent years, their popularity among mainstream athletes like Munnik has rocketed. Inspired by the biographies of such elite trail runners as Dean Karnazes and our very own Ryan Sandes, they compete in local races like the Cederberg Traverse, the Skyrun and the Ultra-Trail Cape Town, and even travel to destination races abroad.

Not only do non-elites dedicate many hours of their lives to preparing for these extreme events; they are neither sponsored nor likely to win anything, and pay for the privilege of a painful experience out of their own pockets.

Who are they?

Do endurance athletes have specific personality traits that predispose them to participation in ultra marathons?

“In the past, there was lots of anecdotal evidence that endurance events were more suited to introverts; but some of the later research findings contradict this,” says Clinton Gähwiler, a psychologist at the Sports Science Institute of South Africa (SSISA).