"In Ray Zahab's world, a comfortable jog is 30 kilometres, a serious marathon is 200 kilometres in extreme conditions, and an honest test of a man's endurance is running through the Sahara Desert ? all of it.
Zahab was once a pack-a-day smoker, but through dedication and persistence, he managed to achieve a level of fitness that allowed him to run in some of the world's toughest tests of endurance, including the crossing of the entire Sahara Desert on foot."