Snatching just six minutes of sleep over two nights, a Dubai citizen fought for a staggering 50 hours and 17 minutes to break a world record for the longest continual row.
To raise cash for a primary school in northern Tanzania, Sean Burgess overcame weariness, brain fog, and hallucinations.
The distance was 421,954 metres, and he travelled on Friday at 8:30 am, which is equal to 10 back-to-back marathons.
Friends of Mr Burgess clapped and cheered for Burgess that he completed the challenge on Sunday at 10:47 am at The Physical Training Company in Al Quoz.
After a three-day effort, the joy of going past the 50-hour mark was quickly replaced by severe fatigue.
My body was running on adrenalin in the last hour because I knew I was finishing. I was literally laughing and talking when I finished; that is why many people think that I was fine, said Mr Burgees, challenge director at Gulf For Good, a UAE based registered non-profit that runs adventure challenges around the world.
And exactly after five minutes, I just crashed. I couldn’t able to speak properly; my mind was cloudy.
“I remember I was just thinking, ‘I have to get home.”
After getting proper needed sleep, he is still sore but pleased to have reached close to his target of Dhs25,000 for better facilities for 800 students of Enjoro Primary School.
Sleep poverty was the main obstacle faced throughout the challenge, with Mr Burgess catching two minutes on the first and foremost night and four on the second.
According to the official requirements by Concept 2, the American rowing equipment manufacturer which ran the challenge, athletes must log in nearly 50 minutes of waste each hour. Then they allowed 10 minutes to eat, stretch and have a bathroom break.
He gave an interview to The National, in which he stated that “My body hurt and it was very tough, but it was not sleeping that was so difficult.”
“The rowing action is so boring that it became challenging in the initial hours of the second night. My mind was becoming less efective; I was starting to ― not quite hallucinate ― but I was definitely losing grasp of real things.
It was a situation where I had to remind myself why I was sitting on the rower because my mind was not able to understand what I was doing that time.
At one point, Mr Burgess rolled off the rower onto the mat below and fell asleep for four minutes before his brother woke him up to get back on.
Friends and family-controlled by and tried to keep pace with rowers set up to support him.
According to the 34-year-old, “I was worried about falling asleep on the rower.
There was a situation where I was about to close my eyes and rowing because it was the only way I could rest.
That was the 50-hour and 10-minute record in the 30-39 age group that has been unbeaten since 2012.
His effort was in practice for a one million-meter row Guinness World Record that stands at five days and eight hours that he will attempt later this year.
Mr Burgess broke a Guinness record 2021 when he crossed all seven UAE emirates in as many days on foot to support underprivileged children in Uganda.