Australians line up for footrace from hell

Sep 14, 2011, 9:13 GMT

Sydney - A marathon a day for 15 days under a scorching sun and with soft sand underfoot: no wonder only 10 people are up for the inaugural Simpson Desert Multimarathon in the Australian Outback.

On Wednesday, the competitors had just one sleep to go before tackling a 650-kilometre course that takes in 1,315 sand hills, the last of which is a whopper the height of a 12-storey building.

'No footrace on Earth can match this,' said competitor and chief organizer Barry Golding, a 58-year-old Sydney-based running coach.

Golding, who has run 59 marathons, designed the event to trump the 240-kilometre Marathon des Sables across the Sahara Desert.

The Sables run, currently the gold standard in distance running, has a waiting list of hundreds hoping for their turn to lose toenails and overdose on endorphins.

'An international field capped at 100 is expected for 2012, given the soaring levels of interest from overseas runners and agents,' Golding said on his website.

'They need another 12 months to prepare for a race that will spit out the underdone.'

Golding himself was the sole finisher in last year's test event, which drew a field of four.