Just A Guy Thing

You think you’ve had a tough day at the office? Sat through a bunch of pointless, boring meetings only to face a lackluster lunch and the prospect of an endless afternoon doing busywork? Ray Zahab does not pity you. Ray, you see, just shattered the world record for the fastest unsupported, unassisted journey across Antarctica. On snowshoes.

That’s right – Ray Zahab survived altitude sickness, enormous blisters, endless frozen snow drifts known as sastrugi, and blinding whiteouts to travel over 700 miles across Antartica to reach the South Pole in just 33 days. Now that’s manly.

Ray has manly friends too. Adventurer Kevin Vallely and Artic guide Richard Weber did the same trip on skis. Each man lugged 170-pound kevlar sleds full of equipment for the entire trek. The team was powered by a 7000 calorie-per-day diet of deep fried bacon (yum!), butter, cheese, and lots and lots of Gatorade.

Somehow amidst the freezing conditions, Ray and his team found the time and energy to blog daily about their journey using a satellite phone. Nearly 3000 students from the United States and Canada formally tracked the South Pole Quest team’s progress and learned from education modules posted online. To see the blog entries, check out the South Pole Quest website.

Think our boy Ray is a one-hit wonder? Think again: prior to tackling Antarctica, Canadian ultra-marathoner Zahab ran across the Sahara Desert, currently the subject of the film Running the Sahara.

Zahab hasn’t been doing crazy stuff like this for long. Late in 1998 Ray made a life changing decision to leave a pack a day smoking habit and unhealthy life choices behind him. On New Years day 2000 he went hiking with his brother John and never looked back.

So the next time you’re felling sorry for yourself, just remember Ray, slogging across Antarctica in nothing but snowshoes and a smile.