Words Rachel Ifans
Marina Ranger warrior
When Marina Ranger started working in London in her early 20s, she found it hard to balance the needs of corporate city life with her fondness for team sports. She needed something more flexible than a rigid weekly hockey training spot, something that would fit in with other demands on her time. So she took up running… It’s all sounding very familiar so far, isn’t it? She entered a 5K – yep, still oh-so familiar. But that is pretty much where Marina’s path splits from the majority of runners and takes a stratospheric climb.
Marina then completed the London Marathon just three months aft er taking up running. But when you learn that 26.2 miles was just a training run for another, much bigger challenge six months later, you begin to get a feel for the head-spinning speed with which Marina’s running progressed.
In October 2012 she accompanied her boss to South Africa to take part in the Kalahari Augrabies Extreme Marathon (KAEM), a desert foot race which traverses 250km of rocky outcrops, sandy riverbeds and vast grasslands. “It’s a weeklong self-sufficient run in the desert,” explains Marina. “Th at means you have to carry your week’s supply of kit and food and medical equipment on your back.
“Back then I was completely green. I was inexperienced and I remember carrying 11 kilos. I didn’t realise how carrying that much on my back would slow me down – in subsequent races I’ve managed to get it down to 8 kilos.”
Th e KAEM is staged over a week with set distances every day. A long day may be 80km and a shorter one 40km, and the organisers record runners’ cumulative times over the week. “Th at first year I did it in nearly 45 hours, but I went back the following year and managed to shave 10 hours off my time!”
Marina doesn’t mention the fact she was the youngest female to ever complete the KAEM that first year. She admits she’d been bitten by the bug: “I realised how much I loved endurance running and got hooked. It went from there – I wanted to go to amazing places and push my limits even more.”
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Jul 2019
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