20011st overall
Trans 333 - Mauritanie
MTN
333kmDistance
2d 16:30:00 hTime
1st overallResult
NouakchottNéma
She beat the first man by over three hours and the first woman by over twenty-one and a half.
Sahara Runner
Alicja
Barahona
Six crossings of the Sahara, nine expeditions on ice, and a full-time job.
In 2001, aged 47, she won a 333-kilometre race across Mauritania. Not her category. The race.
The recorded figures
DUV Ultramarathon Statistics, athlete #27394 · 1997—201888Recorded events
10,216 kmRecorded distance
78First in her age category, of 88
2Outright overall wins
What no database counted
- 4 Alaskan winter races, 2000—2005Iditasport 100, 130 and 350 miles; Alaska Ultra Sport 350. In 2002 she recorded finishing the 350 alone, in six days, with frostbite and severe dehydration.
- 6633 Arctic Ultra, 2008350 miles from the Yukon toward the Arctic Ocean. She covered 205 of them.
- Mackenzie ice road, 2011Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk and back, on the frozen river, for the Inuvik Homeless Shelter.
- Greenland, 2015 and 2016The Arctic Circle Trail twice, the second time alone — six marathons for Doctors Without Borders.
- 10 runs across Long Island120 miles, non-stop, annually, for breast cancer. One of them she counted at 237,284 steps.
None of the five above appears in the database. The first register is what a results table holds. The second is what she actually did.
Chapter one1996 — 1999
Before
She took up running in her early forties, after tennis. First marathon in 1996, first loop run on a high-school track in Tarrytown, New York, and the New York Marathon within about a year.
Her first ultramarathon was the Cirulnick-Innamorato Six Hour Run on 31 August 1997. She covered 57.363 km and was the first woman. She was 43.
She had no sponsors then and never got any. She trained mostly at weekends, never more than five times a week, ten miles minimum after work. Home ground was Rockefeller State Park Preserve. To prepare for sled-hauling she pulled tyres through the neighbourhood; to prepare for the desert she ran on the beaches of Fire Island.
She worked full time as a scientist at Regeneron the entire time.
Running is a simple sport. As long as you have shoes, shorts, and a T-shirt, you’re ready to go.Chapter two1999 — 2010
The Sahara
Six crossings in the Trans series, first woman in all six, and twice first of everybody. Morocco, Jordan, Mauritania, Tunisia, India, Niger, Egypt, Algeria.
The longest single race of her career came in Niger in 2006, at 52: 609 kilometres, six days and nine hours, in extreme heat and a sandstorm. She finished third overall and first woman.
Press reports repeatedly say “400 miles” and “Trans 333 six times”. Both are wrong; the figures on the record page each carry a source.
609 kmHer longest single race · Niger, 2006, age 52
Chapter three2000 — 2018
The Ice
Eighteen years, four countries, and the half of her career that no results table holds. Alaskan forest winter, Arctic tundra at −40, Greenland under twenty-four-hour daylight, and Siberian lake ice are not the same place.
2000—2005Four Alaskan winter racesIditasport 100, 130, 350; Alaska Ultra Sport 350Alaska
20086633 Arctic UltraStopped by officials at 205 of 350 milesYukon → Eagle Plains
2011The Mackenzie ice roadSolo, for the Inuvik Homeless ShelterInuvik → Tuktoyaktuk
2015, 2016The Arctic Circle Trail, twiceThe second time alone, for Doctors Without BordersKangerlussuaq → Sisimiut
2018Baikal Ice MarathonRace stopped for weather at the marathon distanceLake Baikal
I don’t have a great speed for short distances, but I have enormous endurance.She has said that the wind blew ice into her eyes at Baikal and damaged them.
Good Morning America, 2018 — a single source.
Lake Baikal, March 2018
Ice Runner: The Journey of an Ultra Woman
ABC News followed her onto the ice of the world’s deepest lake. She ran for Hudson River Sloop Clearwater and hauled her own survival gear for roughly fifty extra miles.
ABC News, 2018Watch it at the source
Chapter four
Why
The Alzheimer’s Association, after her neighbour Angelo Bergamesco died. Doctors Without Borders, taken up after Ebola. Hudson River Sloop Clearwater. Breast cancer. A homeless shelter in the Arctic. And 64 pairs of running shoes for athletes in Niger.
She was asked in March 2009 to help get shoes to runners in Niger, where not every athlete can afford them. She sent one email to her running friends.
Two weekends later she had 64 pairs, tied together, delivered to a man in New York who arranged the shipment. Later she was told that one of the Nigerien runners expecting a pair had won an international half marathon in Cotonou.
Wearing the pink hat, I was not alone — I was running for and with those people diagnosed with breast cancer.Chapter five
Her race
The Alicja Barahona 120-Mile Run Across Long Island. Non-stop, Montauk Point Lighthouse to North Woodmere Park along Route 27A, annually, for breast cancer. She runs it herself.
237,284Steps she counted on her own pedometer during one 120-mile crossing of Long Island
The 2017 edition was billed as the tenth, which puts the start around 2008 — but her own site dates the third annual run to May 2009, and calls both October 2016 and October 2017 her final scheduled run. The numbering does not close from documents.
“Go out and do whatever you dream about. Don’t say you will get to it later.”
Alicja Barahona · Good Morning America, 2018
If you knew her, or something here is wrong, write to her.