Running the Sahara - The Review

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From the point they stepped into the water at the beginning till when they reached the Red Sea in Egypt, what an amazing journey.

Running the Sahara is an inspirational movie about Charlie Engle from the United States, Kevin Lin from Taiwan, and Ray Zahab from Canada and their journey running across the Sahara Desert. What ended up taking them 111 days of running marathon followed by marathon, without even 1 day of rest. Their journey brought out all kinds of emotions both good and bad as we watched them do what the rest of the world would see as impossible.

This movie did not let me down. It started off a little slow and I was worried that I was going to be shortly watching the clock, however, it didn't take long before I was totally into it and completely unaware of my surroundings.

I went into this movie not really knowing what to expect. I wasn't sure if I was going to see a movie leaning towards the running, or more towards the environmental and social issues they found while crossing the desert. I was pleasantly surprised that this was a running movie all the way, but yet still had much to do with the journey and the obstacles they had to overcome, as well as the environmental and social issues they found along the way.

We were drawn into these three guys lives for the more than 3 months they were running and we were able to see many of the physical and emotional struggles that they experienced. They each struggled in their own way, and showed their vulnerabilities and strengths. The interactions with each other, as you can imagine, were not always agreeable or pleasant.

There is so much more I want to say about the movie, but really don't want to spoil it for those of you that are going to watch it. If you have not yet purchased your tickets for an upcoming screening why not head on over to their listings and see if it is coming your way. If not, you can also purchase the DVD here.

More information can be found about the movie at their website www.runningthesahara.com and the H2O Africa Organization at their website www.h2oafrica.org.

Following the movie we had the opportunity to talk to Ray Zahab (www.rayzahab.com). He answered questions from the audience in Atlanta, even though he was not able to be there with us like initially planned. I got the opportunity to ask the question about how long after he got back from Africa he started running again. He said he got out and tried running about a week and a half after returning home. He told the funny story of being passed by power-walkers while out on this run, even though he felt like he was doing pretty good. He talked about his South Pole Quest, as well as his organization, Impossible2Possible.

The bottom line is that I highly recommend seeing this movie. It is well worth your time, and is very inspirational. You can see a trailer on my previous post.

Tim Wilson - blog.262quest.com - subscribe - follow