Two great desert races showcase the sport at its most beautiful, most extreme, most brutal: The Marathon Des Sables and The Desert Cup.

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People first think the Marathon Des Sables is impossible. Outside magazine called it the toughest footrace on earth. Try explaining to someone that you intend to run 152 miles in the Sahara and they generally have no reaction. They may not believe you, or they simply can't get their arms around the concept: "No one can run 152 miles in 100 degree heat". Then tell them it is mostly self supported. You carry all your gear on your back while you are running. For seven days in the harshest environment on the planet you must survive out of a backpack with 15 pounds of food and gear. Your water ration is 9 liters per day. 9 liters of water per day in a place where a man once bartered a cup of diamonds for a cup of water, and he wasn't running anywhere.

Although you stay in a nomadic Berber tent village each night (that moves with the race) and there is excellent medical support at the end, during the day you are exposed to the desert at its worst. You navigate from checkpoint to checkpoint to claim a portion of your daily water ration. Make a navigational mistake; maybe they will find you. Maybe not. This event isn't catered. There's no crowd to cheer you on. It's all you and the nastiest, deadliest, hottest, biggest desert in the world.

Then there is the real reason. Somewhere out in the desert you are stripped of your ego, your belief that you are strong. Your belief that you are well prepared (you aren't). No matter how big your ego, the Sahara is bigger. So, somewhere out on the sand you meet someone you may be estranged from: Yourself.

But then you do, and you realize- with all your faults, weaknesses, vulnerabilities and shortcomings, you are human. And that you have strengths. You learn that if you stick with something, if you just don't give up, you will prevail. When your feet are bloody, skin mangled, your legs are destroyed and (for the first time in your life) you vomit from dehydration and fight a headache for three days under the baking blow torch of a Sahara sun, you learn you are strong in some ways.
So you confront your best and your worst. You confront it in a way society has insulated us from on a day to day basis. And when you return, you will be changed forever.

That's why.

Then there are the other competitors: A blind man. A man with an artificial leg. A woman in her 60s. And the shadow figures: The men who speak several languages, keep to themselves, are incredibly fit and say nothing about what they do or where they are from. They transit the desert as if they have done it before, perhaps with a heavier load. Some may wear a telltale tattoo on a tanned bicep- the Legion Etrangere, the SAS, the GSG-9, the GIGN. If you don't recognize these organizations these men will not explain them to you. But you would do well to follow these men in the night. It is their home. They will engage you in pleasant conversation about your girlfriend, your business, your home, your country. These topics (about them) are politely off limits. Where do they go after the race? I do not know, back into the shadows. But every year there are a few of them.

And there are the superhumans. Lahcen Ahansal and brother Mohamad. Both Moroccans, always contenders, usually winners. Their times defy the imagination. They run the 50-mile stage of the Marathon Des Sables at a respectable pace for a regular marathon on pavement. They are brown skeletons who transit the desert as if granted clemency from heat and gravity. In 100+ heat, running for hours, it is not unusual for Lahcen to forgo carrying water. He drinks his fill at the checkpoints, discards the rest.

Oddly, an Italian Policeman, Marco Gozzano, over 50, is one of the Ahansal brother's strongest competitors. In Italy the event is an icon. To complete it is to achieve hero status, like a victorious gladiator. The French treasure the event as well, and the British view it as a jaunty adventure.

There is the American, Mary Gadams. She is the liaison for other Americans to the race. A global strategist by trade. She has done the race 10 times I believe. Gadams has raced over 1,500 miles on foot in the desert.

And there are the dreamers; an American woman who had never done a running race but entered when she read about the race in a magazine because she said it appealed to her. She finished the race on feet so mangled she could don shoes and had to finish the final stage in sandals and bandages.

Later in the season is the Desert Cup in Jordan. Unlike the Marathon Des Sables, the Desert Cup is non-stop. Although slightly shorter at 105 miles, it is much more difficult since competitors face 65 miles in loose sand followed by a large mountain range. In the later stages of the Desert Cup competitors are on hard packed dirt roads and finally, a few miles of paved roads. Walking and running on pavement with 100 miles in your legs feels like hitting your legs with hammers.

At the beginning of the event competitors talk about finishing in under 30 hours. Once in the loose sand reality causes them to revise their plans. 30 hours becomes 40, 40 becomes 48, then 50. Then they are just trying to finish. In 2001 I entered the race figuring I could manage 17-minute miles. I was in excellent shape and had finished the Marathon Des Sables in the upper half of the pack. I was wrong. Loose sand, heat, terrain and other factors combined to conspire against my 17 minute pace, even while running. I could barely manage 20+ minutes per mile, and I was working hard. I finished in a little over 50 hours.

At Desert Cup you tell yourself you will race straight through- no sleep. You're lying. Somewhere during the first night you will succumb. It is inevitable. It is freezing cold in the mountains, contrasting with the 100-degree heat of the day. It has been dark for hours and sunrise is still hours away. You begin to question: Why am I here, what am I doing? Can I really do this? You sit down in one of the checkpoints and notice silent bodies in the dark, paralyzed in a desperate, mandated coma of exhausted sleep. And you realize you will be one of them. You remember you do have a rudimentary, hopelessly lightweight "sleeping bag". Often not even really a sleeping bag, but more a foil "survival sack" to prolong an uncomfortable victim in a desperate situation. You carry that to reduce weight in your pack, increase speed and, after all, you aren't going to sleep anyway. You pull out the pitiful thing, put on all the warm clothing you have (about 30 carefully planned ounces) and slide into the crinkly foil sack. It doesn't keep you anything near warm.

It isn't supposed to, it is only supposed o keep you alive. It isn't comfortable, but you sleep. Your sleep is racked with nightmares- nightmares of not finishing, nightmares of the race never ending, nightmares of everyone leaving and you not waking up until they are gone to find yourself alone and lost in the desert. Then you wake up. You quickly pack your belongings, strip to traveling weight clothing, and press on. Soon you realize it is an hour to sunrise. Other competitors are moving now and you are one of them. Hope is revived. You may make it. You feel stronger, more awake. The nap worked.

And then the sun begins to roll over the horizon, ignites the air and the temperature rises like the NASDAQ on good news.

The finish of Desert Cup is in the ancient city of Petra. Have you seen the end of the last Indiana Jones movie? This is where it was shot. You will recognize it when you get there. You will turn off a paved road, descend a loose and tricky slope and race into a deep, mysterious canyon in the final four miles of the race.

Stairs appear. They are rough, oddly spaced and heavily eroded. It is obvious they are ancient. Who walked these stairs? Rulers? Slaves? Christ himself? The Prophet Mohamed? Maybe all of them. Now you walk them as you descend toward the finish of this ordeal.

A tradition in desert racing seems to be the after race party. In this department the Desert Cup is decidedly lacking, however there is an excellent post-race feast at the fine host hotel in Petra. This hotel was the target of a planned terrorist attack in 2001 thwarted by Jordanian and U.S. authorities according to a story published in November 2001 by CNN. Failed terrorist plans notwithstanding, the hotel used for the conclusion of desert cup is excellent. And, unlike the Marathon Des Sables, it is a two-minute van ride from the finish. At Marathon Des Sables you must ride a bus for several hours to the finish hotel.