When we caught up with Jane Peng in August, she had been training rigorously for her mission to race the Sahara desert, and arrived at the interview in her training gear – that’s how passionate she was! As someone who not so long ago was more appalled than confident about the prospect of finishing a 250km desert race and struggled to run 5km just 10 months ago, she completed the race in early October with lots of determination, sweat, and sand- lots of sand! Now, we catch up with a happy and well-rested Jane who tells us what crossing the Sahara in seven days was like:

8flo: It’s been 3 weeks since the amazing feat which you achieved, how have you been doing!
Jane: I’m in the pink of health! Lost about 1 kg from the race, but gained a surprising amount of deltoid muscles from using the trekking poles to climb up sand dunes – my friends can’t stop poking at my arms!

There’s also a prevailing sense of calm – looking back, the race was a fantastic point in life where I accomplished what I set out to do, I was able to realise my dream of seeing the Sahara for myself and also to witness some dominant displays of the human spirit.

8flo: Any surprising discoveries?
Jane: The most unexpected post-race phenomenon is how much I still want to run! Since returning to Singapore about a week ago, I’ve clocked about 40km and am looking forward to the next run. I once thought people who started running soon after completing desert races were “nutters”. But now I think I understand – your body is so used to clocking 80km to 100km+ a week in the run up to the race. Now the legs are used to it and just crave the distance out of habit. - Next page

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