Earth Beat, 3 June 2011. Things that are going places - from rubber duckies sailing the ocean seas for a couple of decades, to the world’s most gruelling marathon and the first man to walk around the world, we’ll take you places you’ve never been.

 
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The world’s toughest race
Dubbed the hardest race to run in the world - the Barkley Marathons live up to their name. The 100-mile course on an unmarked track through a Tennessee state park takes runners across streams and up mountains – and temperatures on the weekend that the Barkley is held fluctuate so much they can threaten heatstroke and hypothermia. Earth Beat host Marnie Chesterton spoke to 'Frozen' Ed Furtaw, one of a handful to have ever finished, and Gary Cantrell, who organises the race, and once described it as a "sick joke". (photos at bottom of page)

Web extra - founder of the Barkley marathon, Gary Cantrell, explains how this race, known as the hardest marathon in the world, differs from a normal race...

Link - Matt Mahoney's Barkley Marathons site

Green flight
Mike Voorhees is the founding CEO of Skylite Aeronautics – a green airship that can carry the equivalent of ten Boeing 747 planes' worth of cargo, but costs just the equivalent of one 747 to make. It hasn't been built yet, but Mike joins Marnie from a studio in Colorado to bring the drawing board to life. (photos at bottom of page)

Moby-duck
Nearly 20 years ago, a container ship crossing the north Pacific lost some of its load in a heavy storm. One of the containers that went overboard contained 28,800 bath toys – plastic ducks, frogs, beavers and turtles. And like rubber ducks in a bathtub, they floated. For years, it turns out, on the Pacific Ocean. Marnie talks to Donovan Hohn, the author of Moby-Duck, about their journey and what he discovered. (photos at bottom of page)

What we get out of going places
Everyone on the Earth Beat team is really well-travelled. But what do we get out of going places? Why do we do it? Producer Anik See has written a fair bit about that, so we asked her to adapt one of the essays in her book for us. She reads from Saudade. (photos at bottom of page)

Walking round the world
Whoever came up with the phrase "It’s a small world" had obviously never walked around it. Dave Kunst was 30 when he set off with his brother John on a mission to circumnavigate the globe on foot. It took him just over four years and earned him a place in the Guinness Book of Records. (photos at bottom of page)
Link - Earthwalker website

Graphic: Dave Kunst's route (rollover points for key stages)

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