Lin, 30, and his fellow ultra-athletes － CharHe Engle, 44 and Ray Zahab, 38 － reached the Suez Canal at Egypt's Red Sea Tuesday night after running 111 consecutive days to cross the Sahara － the world's largest desert. The trio traversed six countries, beginning with Senegal, but also including Mauritania, Mah, Niger and Libya, by the time their trek ended in Egypt.
The trio endured strong winds, which can abruptly raise sand in every direction, making it difficult to see and breathe, and extreme temperatures, which might peak as high as 38 degrees Celsius during the day but dip below freezing at night, on the trek, which was originally scheduled to finish in 80 days.
They began last November but had to run an extra 200 kilometers under the surveillance of the Libyan authorities, who at one point refused to grant them entry visas.
Lin, who has traveled the world competing in adventure races, said during a mobile phone call to his mentor Tuesday night that running through turbulent conditions is nothing new to him, but the past 111 days had tested his physical and mental limitations.
He had to change his running shoes from size seven to 8.5 due to swelling, but this had not forced him to rest for one single day, Lin said.
Lin, the first Asian to run a seven-day-six-night Sahara marathon in 2002, returned to Taiwan Saturday.
A film crew followed the trio, chronicling their desert journey for a documentary by actor Matt Damon's production company, Live Planet. Damon plans to narrate the documentary, which will be a film titled "Running the Sahara."
At several points in their trek, Lin said, they stopped near sparsely populated wells to talk with villagers and nomads about the difficulties they face finding water － prompting them to plan a fund-raiser for the nonprofit group H20 Africa, which was established to raise awareness about the need for clean water throughout the African continent.
