Danis conquers ‘torture course’ to win Atacama Crossing

Captain Mehmet Danis, a Toronto-based dentist with the Canadian Armed Forces, won the 2009 Atacama Crossing, a six-day, 250K race across Chile’s scorching Atacama Desert from March 24 to April 4. In the process, he raised $6,000 for the United Way in Toronto – and judging by some of the conditions in the race, the donations were rightly deserved. Danis, 35, who finished sixth in the 2008 Gobi March, trained on a treadmill for 110-160K per week in preparation for the run, using a program designed by Quebec ultrarunner Ray Zahab. Danis says having a training plan set by Zahab gave him confidence heading into the race in Chile. In Gobi, Danis says he started out too fast, so this time he maintained a manageable pace and gradually picked off the field until he eventually took the lead in the fifth stage, despite being an hour behind the leader in the second stage.

The toughest section of the course by far, says Danis, was the 10K-long salt-flats crossing. “They’re the worse thing I’ve ever run on,” he says. “There are about four or five different kinds of salt flats. The worst kind ever is like walking on coral. It’s brittle, sometimes it cracks and your foot falls through and it’s like a mud cake of salt and water. Four or five times my blistered foot sank right through and got covered in salt water. It’s almost like someone designed it as a torture course.”

Danis says he plans to do some trail races in Ontario this year, but has no plans for another major ultra in the near future unless he gets sponsorship. His dream is to one day join Zahab for an adventure. Danis is still collecting donations for the United Way at www.unitedwaytoronto.com/desertrun.