INUVIK - Alicja Barahona collapsed on the Sahara and didn't think at all.

Extreme-ultra marathon runner Alicja Barahona is shown during one of her runs across the Sahara desert in North Africa. She will be running the ice road from Tuktoyaktuk to Inuvik in March to raise money for local charities. - photo courtesy of Alicja Barahona

Four hundred and 80 km of North African desert and scrub land stretched behind to where she began running. Her feet rubbed bare and smarting, she lay alone under the desert night unable to bear thinking of the hundred miles left to the finish line.

"I just collapsed like a wet towel. There's nobody to help you, you just look after yourself and self-navigate with GPS," remembered Barahona, who won the 2006 trans-Sahara extreme ultra-marathon race. "I was amazed that two hours later I dragged myself out and continued."

It's a strange way to spend your vacation.

"My vacations are different than most people's vacations," she said.

When Barahona takes vacation in March from her job in New York with a pharmaceutical company, she's coming here to run the ice road from Tuktoyaktuk and raise money for local charities.

This will be her first time running an ice road and with no ice roads to train on in New York, Barahona expects to have a perfect vacation - pushing her mind and body beyond thresholds at which most of us would curl up and beg for mercy.

Most of us read a book, go to the cabin or maybe head to some pristine beach. Barahona does extreme ultra marathons - the ultra stands for races longer than 42 kilometres (a marathon), while extreme means races in brutal weather or geography.

"I like to challenge myself, see how much my body can be beaten, how far my mind and body can go until they break down."

On March 8 she'll arrive in Inuvik and do public presentations about healthy living, goal setting and motivation. Then on March 11 she will head to Tuktoyaktuk with a group from the Inuvik Run Club, who will be joining her the following morning for the 180 kilometre run down the ice road to Inuvik. Barahona estimates it should take her about 30 hours. Runners will arrive in Inuvik for a welcoming ceremony at the Midnight Sun Complex.

"We just want to support her," said Cynthia Wicks, a member of the Inuvik Run Club who is helping to organize the event. "We'll be running with a real icon here; she's ranked top in the world."

Funds raised by the runners, who will seek sponsors, will go to as-yet unchosen local charities. This isn't Barahona's first trip north - she's run in Alaska and in 2007 she ran from Eagle Plains, Yukon, to Inuvik.

"This could be the first year of a bigger race - an Arctic challenge that brings ultra runners and fundraises for local organizations," said Barahona.

A public meeting will be held Jan. 26 at 7 p.m. at the Midnight Sun Complex to plan for the event. Everyone is welcome to attend and share their thoughts.

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