This is a physical challenge that even Andy Payne would think twice about doing. British Olympic gold-medalist rower James Cracknell wants to cycle, swim, run or row all the way across America in just 18 days.
According to Road.cc:
His 3,600 mile trip will mostly be completed by bike and 2,500 miles of it will be along the famous Route 66 highway, but there’s an 80-mile run in Death Valley, 265 miles of rowing across Lake Erie and a final 15-mile swim to the Statue of Liberty thrown in for good measure.
James is sponsored by Merida and will be using a variety of bikes for the 2,500 mile long bike leg due to the varied terrain and road conditions of Route 66. The majority of the time will be spent on a TimeWarp time trail machine but he’ll be breaking out the Scultura Evo for the more mountainous sections. The crew will also be taking along a super light O.Nine mountainbike for a 30 mile section of Route 66 which is not rideable on a road bike.
The Road.cc link includes a photo of him at the “Route 66: End of the Trail” sign on the pier.
For every day he’s on a bicycle, he’s going to try to do 250 miles a day. The one day he’s running, it’s 80 miles, and it’s going to be in the aforementioned harsh climate of Death Valley today, where a high temperature of 122 degrees is forecast.
Cracknell started his journey from the Santa Monica Pier on Thursday. You can follow his progress here on Twitter.
Also, a film crew is in tow from the Discovery Channel to show how or what he did during the challenge (scheduled to air in October). I hope they have an ambulance on call.