4 Deserts

4 Deserts Race Series and RacingThePlanet Series
The company logo of 4 Deserts Race Series and RacingThePlanet Ultramarathon.
Genre	Rough country endurance footrace
Begins	March
Ends	December
Frequency	Annual
Location(s)	Chile, China, Namibia, Antarctica
Years active	15
Attendance	Max 200 competitors
Website
www.4deserts.com

The 4 Deserts Race Series is an annual series of four 250-kilometer (155-mile) races across deserts around the globe. The races were recognized as the world's leading endurance footrace series by TIME magazine in 2009 and 2010, as the "Ultimate test of human endurance". The series was founded by American Mary K Gadams who founded RacingThePlanet in 2002.

The Gobi March, the series' inaugural race, was held in the Gobi Desert of western China in 2003. Over the following three years, an additional race was introduced in a new location each year. In 2004, the Atacama Crossing was held in the Atacama Desert of Chile. This was followed by the Sahara Race in the Sahara Desert of Egypt (Eastern Desert) in 2005. In 2006 a fourth race, called The Last Desert, took place in Antarctica and was the first year in which all 4 Deserts races were held in the same calendar year.

Competitors can enter any of the individual multiday races within the 4 Deserts Race Series, but if they wish to take part in The Last Desert (Antarctica) they must successfully finish at least two of the other races in the series.

To date, more than fifty races have been staged with more than 8,000 individuals representing 100+ countries in the races. Many participants return to compete in additional events, and there is a growing list of members in the 4 Deserts Club and 4 Deserts Grand Slam Club.

In 2013, a documentary film about 4 Deserts was released. Desert Runners, directed by Jennifer Steinman, follows four participants as they attempt to complete the series in 2010. The Desert Runners documentary received many film awards.

The events that combine to make the 4 Deserts Race Series are:

The Atacama Crossing crosses Chile’s brutal Atacama Desert, the driest place on Earth. The Atacama Desert has a unique landscape of salt lakes, volcanoes, lava flows and sand dunes. Moreover, owing to its otherworldly appearance, the landscape has been compared to that of Mars and has been used as a location for filming Mars scenes, most notably in the television series Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets.