Team Stray Dogs GoLite Win 3rd Place in the 2007 Gobi March in China!

They did it! Team Stray Dogs GoLite finished third in the 2007 Gobi March in Kashgar, China!

Marshall Ulrich (55), Mark Macy (53), and Bob Haugh (55) finished the final 6-mile stage (stage 6) in 1:14 to hold onto their third place finish with a total combined time of 50:48 for the approximately 155-mile race. Overall – for both men and women – they were in 78, 79, and 80th place out of the 157 people that finished the entire course. Here is the information for the Stray Dogs, stage-by-stage.

Stage 1, 22 miles, 05:45:52
Stage 2, 22 miles, 05:32:55
Stage 3, 25 miles, 08:41:00
Stage 4, 29 miles, 11:33:46
Stage 5, 50 miles, 18:00:36
Stage 6, 06 miles, 01:14:14

Total +154 miles in 50:48:23

CONGRATULATIONS STRAY DOGS!

Having only a 7 minute lead going into the final “sprint” stage (a 10K), the Stray Dogs were able to hold off fourth place team Who’s Damien who finished the stage in 1:36 for a total combined time of 51:18. Not bad for a team of 50-something-year-olds who were competing against other teams whose oldest single member was 41-years old, with an average age for their team competition being less than 34-years.

Team Saigon won the team division by completing Stage 6 in 1:07 for a total time of 39:07. Team WSPA was second overall, finishing the final stage in 0:59 for a total combined time of 39:39.

The only other teams to finish the entire course (based on the unofficial times posted on the race Web site today) were China at 60:38 and No Mad at 63:19.

The overall winner of the race is was Mark Tamminga 29:07. Lucy Brooks won the women’s division in 29:09, with her fiancé Stephen Hilton finishing right beside her, despite separating his shoulder during Stage 5, placing 2nd and 3rd place overall.

Our friends Alex Nement and Frank Fumich came in 28th and 29th overall, each with a total combined time of 39:35. William Laughlin, who we met at the Sahara race and who is being coached by Ray Zahab, finished 5th overall in 31:16. Wow – way to go guys!

CONGRATS to all of the teams and individuals that completed the 2007 Gobi March!! As one competitor wrote in his blog at the beginning of the race, the real competition for most of the runners were the course and themselves. Each and every individual can be proud of their efforts!

THANKS to GoLite www.golite.com for title sponsorship of the Stray Dogs in the 2007 Gobi March! Your lite-weight equipment made “lite speed” possible for the Stray Dogs across the desert in China.

Thanks also to LEKI, Pacific Outdoor Equipment, ENGO Blister Prevention Patches, Injinji, Dermatone, Exofficio, and Larabar for providing support to Marshall and the Stray Dogs for the 2007 Gobi March; and to all of Marshall’s sponsors for your continued support. Please, take a minute and visit their sites (see the links on the right).

Once again, please – if you’re able – send a donation to the Religious Teachers Filippini to support their mission to “Go and Teach” in some of the poorest countries around the world. As always, 100 percent of your donation goes directly to the women and kids, and is tax deductible. To learn more, go to the fundraising page of Marshall’s Web site at www.marshallulrich.com. Send your check today to:

Religious Teachers Filippini
Mission Fund/Marshall Ulrich
455 Western Avenue
Morristown, NJ 07960

The Stray Dogs ran HARD in the desert, including a bit of suffering, to ease the suffering of women and children around the world. Won’t you help? You can make a difference; saving the world one woman, one child, at a time.

THANKS again for following along during the Stray Dogs epic adventure across the Chinese desert during the 2007 Gobi March!