"After a decade-long addiction to crack cocaine and alcohol, Charlie Engle hit rock bottom after a near-fatal six-day binge ended in a hail of bullets. Then he found running, and it has helped keep him sober, focused and alive. He began to take on the most extreme endurance races, such as the 155-mile Gobi March, and developed a reputation as an inspirational speaker. However, after he made the documentary Running the Sahara, narrated by Matt Damon, which followed him on a 4500-mile crossing of the desert and helped raise $6 million, he was sent to prison after failing to complete his mortgage application properly. It was while he was in jail that he became known as 'The Running Man' as he pounded the prison yard, and soon his fellow inmates were joining him, finding new hope through running. Now, in his brilliantly written and powerful account, Engle tells the story of his life and how running has brought him so much pleasure and peace. Like such classics as Born to Runor Running with the Kenyans, this is a book that anyone who has ever found solace in the freedom of running will enjoy"--Google Books.

Running the Sahara is more than my experience of participating in the Marathon des Sables 2017. Though much of the book is about my time in the desert, and I talk about my preparation and the equipment I used, the book is also profoundly personal. I tried my best to explore my passion for running and life. I hope the reader finds it entertaining and inspiring to follow me from meeting Herr Hammermann during my first marathon to my finish of the nearly 250-kilometer race in the Moroccan Sahara. It is a book about the gift of life, so there are some disappointments and moments of despair, but there are also triumphs and the sublime. I believe when dreams close, other dreams open, and that by setting goals and being disciplined, all of us can shift the balance and get to where we want to be. What started as a book about the Marathon des Sables turned into the story of my life.

Running the Sahara is more than my experience of participating in the Marathon des Sables 2017. Though much of the book is about my time in the desert, and I talk about my preparation and the equipment I used, the book is also profoundly personal. I tried my best to explore my passion for running and life. I hope the reader finds it entertaining and inspiring to follow me from meeting Herr Hammermann during my first marathon to my finish of the nearly 250-kilometer race in the Moroccan Sahara. It is a book about the gift of life, so there are some disappointments and moments of despair, but there are also triumphs and the sublime. I believe when dreams close, other dreams open, and that by setting goals and being disciplined, all of us can shift the balance and get to where we want to be. What started as a book about the Marathon des Sables turned into the story of my life.

The story of the world's number-one adventure runner.

John Bollanack and his son Dan set out to run "the toughest running race on earth," seven days in the Sahara desert carrying all their own food and gear. Describes their training, the gear they carried, the race organisation and the race itself. Suggested level: primary.

b.A masterpiece of historical adventure, ISkeletons on the Zahara The western Sahara is a baking hot and desolate place, home only to nomads and their camels, and to locusts, snails and thorny scrub -- and its barren and ever-changing coastline has baffled sailors for centuries. In August 1815, the US brig Commerce was dashed against Cape Bojador and lost, although through bravery and quick thinking the ship's captain, James Riley, managed to lead all of his crew to safety. What followed was an extraordinary and desperate battle for survival in the face of human hostility, starvation, dehydration, death and despair. Captured, robbed and enslaved, the sailors were dragged and driven through the desert by their new owners, who neither spoke their language nor cared for their plight. Reduced to drinking urine, flayed by the sun, crippled by walking miles across burning stones and sand and losing over half of their body weights, the sailors struggled to hold onto both their humanity and their sanity. To reach safety, they would have to overcome not only the desert but also the greed and anger of those who would keep them in captivity. From the cold waters of the Atlantic to the searing Saharan sands, from the heart of the desert to the heart of man, Skeletons on the Zahara is a spectacular odyssey through the extremes and a gripping account of courage, brotherhood, and survival.