This was always going to be the mother of all endurance challenges. And although Sarah Outen set out on her mammoth journey on April 1, it was certainly no joke. Instead, as she faces the next stage of the quest, she has already put her body through demands that most people could never begin to imagine.
Just over two and a half years ago, Sarah, a biologist from Rutland, left the UK to embark on an adventure like no other. Using bike, kayak and rowing boat, she began a solo journey around the world.
The trip would see her camping on the Russian Steppes, cycling the Gobi Desert and surviving a tropical hurricane. Making friends with albatrosses, whales and giant turtles was par for the course along the way.
Sarah cycling in the Gobi Desert, a vast arid region covering northern China and southern Mongolia (Pic credit: Sarah Outen)
If her odyssey is successful, not only will Sarah have raised thousands of pounds for charity, but she will have set new world records for ocean crossings. Quite simply, she’ll have completed a feat that nobody else has even contemplated.
Entitled London2London Via The World, Sarah’s journey is essentially a human-powered circumnavigation of the globe. Covering 22,000 miles, 14 countries, two oceans and using only the power, strength and endurance contained within her slight frame. Oh, and helped along the way by Hercules, Nelson, Gulliver and Happy Socks – her bicycle, kayak and two rowing boats.
All at sea
Sarah is used to challenges.
In 2009, at the age of 24, she became the first woman, and youngest person, to single-handedly row across the Indian Ocean. She received an MBE and fellowship of the Royal Geographical Society for the feat.
Speaking before embarking on her latest adventure she explained what such challenges mean to her: “I love the battles, the intimacy with nature and the perspective gained from travelling so close to the water, the landscape, the wildlife. I love the purity of knowing that when you are alone, the immediate responsibility lies on your shoulders and yours alone.
“I do have a team at home and at certain times some in-location support, but mostly it is just me. It’s a wonderful mix of excitement, fear and unknowns.”
Going to extremes
This latest expedition is immense in its ambitions. Not only is Sarah travelling a route that has never been attempted before, but there is also the additional challenge of rowing single-handedly across both the Pacific Ocean and the North Atlantic. Something nobody has completed in a single journey, either solo or as part of a team.
Tackling the not only rough but super busy Channel (Pic credit: Sarah Outen)
The 28-year-old has successfully conquered probably the toughest part of the journey, the gruelling row from Japan to Alaska across the Pacific Ocean. This was her second attempt at the crossing. The first ended in June 2012 when Tropical Storm Mawar inflicted irreparable damage on her rowing boat, Gulliver.
Shaken, boat-less and, in her words, “suffering a really black period, coming to terms with everything”, she took nine months to recover from the experience. Accompanied by her new boat Happy Socks, Sarah left Japan on April 27 this year ready for another go.
Polar opposites
Over the next 150 days she went through crashing highs and lows, including five capsizes and a hairy few minutes when she was being circled by inquisitive sharks. But she was ecstatic when she reached the Aleutians in Alaska on September 23, four weeks ahead of schedule.
“I have had some of the most intense and memorable months of my life out on the Pacific – it has been brilliant and brutal at the same time. And it has been a privilege,” she said. “But I have pushed myself to my absolute limits both physically and mentally to make land here in Alaska, and body and mind are now exhausted.”
Sarah setting up camp in China ready for a well deserved rest (Pic credit: Sarah Outen)
Sarah now has a break of a few months before she returns to Alaska to resume her journey. By the time she kayaks up the River Thames towards Tower Bridge and the finish line in 2015, she will have achieved some incredible numbers. Cycling about 16,000 miles across some of the most inhospitable parts of the world, rowing an incredible 7,500 miles on open oceans and kayaking a back-breaking 300 nautical miles on three continents.
Tower Bridge is where it all began in 2011. Sarah left London in a kayak, crossing the English Channel, before cycling 10,000 miles across central Europe, Kazakhstan, Russia and China. She then made her way by kayak and bicycle to Japan to face the daunting challenge of the vast Pacific.
Onwards captain
As her adventure continues, she will return to the Aleutian Islands and kayak through the archipelago to mainland Alaska before cycling across the huge landmass of North America next year and then rowing the swirling waters of the North Atlantic Ocean. She hopes to reach the UK in autumn 2015.
Lunch with a view as Sarah tucks into some food mid-ocean (Pic credit: Sarah Outen)
Despite being saddlesore for the first 10,000 miles and then spending almost six months alone at sea, Sarah has had some exciting times. Through blogs and tweets, she has recounted being woken by huge herds of goats; coming face to face with a bear on a beach in Russia; being followed by a school of tuna fish; rowing in the company of whales; and, on July 1 this year, while rowing the Pacific, she proposed to her girlfriend, Lucy, via satellite phone.
Although Lucy said “yes”, Sarah had an anxious few moments to wait due to a dodgy connection: “I had to ask twice because she didn’t hear me the first time.”
Relaxing at home in the UK for a few months before she sets off on the next stage of this epic endeavour, Sarah reflects: “I am so excited to be including Alaska in my journey too and look forward to continuing next year. But for now I cannot wait to be with Lucy again.”
(This article originally appeared in Women in Sport magazine, November 2013. See below.)
