One of the reasons why Ray Zahab and his organization Impossible2Possible (i2P) are so inspirational is because of just that: making the impossible, possible.  Ray and the i2P crowd have completed five expeditions around the world including Baffin Island, Tunisia, Amazon, Bolivia and India with each expedition focusing on running close to a marathon a day. This February will mark number six: Expedition de los Andes.

Ray founded i2P after taking on a grueling and challenging expedition himself. In 2007 Ray and two other runners set off on a 4,300 mile journey across the Sahara Desert to bring awareness about clean drinking water in Africa. Through Ray’s experiences during his Sahara adventure he was inspired to form i2P which encourages youth to reach beyond their limits and to use adventure as a way to educate and inspire world change.

Expreso de los Andes is set to kick off on February 18^th and will consist of runners  Ray and Kevin Vallely. Kevin, who was named by the Globe and Mail as one of Canada’s leading adventurers and joined Ray in 2009 to brake the world record of the fastest, unsupported trek to the South pole. Together Kevin and Ray will attempt to run 1,700 km across South America from Pacific to Atlantic Oceans. In addition 15-20 “behind-the-scenes” people will work together to achieve i2P’s common educational goal.

The physical goal for Ray and his running team will be to attempt to complete 100 km per day. Joining Ray and the team at the end of the leg will be 2 Youth Ambassadors: Jessie Lilly from Alberta and Connor Clerke from British Columbia. Jessie and Conor are planning to run the remaining 120km from Buenos Aries non-stop alongside Ray.  In order to achieve such a feat, the team has been training for over a month to make sure their bodies are in tip-top condition.

In addition to the 1,700 km run, i2P is challenging students and teachers to take up their own running programs. Principal George Singfield, of Symmes/D’Arcy McGee High School and Onslow Elementary School, will be training alongside the i2P team in hopes of taking part in the 2012 Ottawa Half Marathon which he will run on behalf of Team Diabetes – a disease that Principal Singfield unfortunately suffers from. Throughout his training and continuing through to a permanent lifestyle change, Principal Singfield, along with the administrators and teachers, are challenging the student body to take on the Health and Physical Activity challenge designed by i2P’s Trainer John.

People interested in tracking the i2P team throughout their los Andes journey can follow the team here: http://impossible2possible.com/sa/tracker. For all other information and news about Expreso de los Andes please visit; http://impossible2possible.com. 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 7th, 2012 at 6:47 pm and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.