Apparently a sedentary person averages between 1000 and 3000 steps per day which makes at most about 4km. You know the drill, home-taxi-office-taxi-home. It's a pretty normal pace of events for many of us. With the occasional re-routing to a bar/pub/club thrown in a few times a week, let's say you cover 30km a week. Add a little extra for the more sportily-inclined and you could be looking at about 50, max.

So how does covering 250km over seven days, loaded up with a 10kg pack containing all your own food and equipment grab you? Oh, and did I mention, its in the desert, in blisteringly hot temperatures of up to 50 C? "Good lord!" I hear you cry. "That's simply insane, who would do such a thing?" The 158 competitors signed up for this year's Gobi March, that's who.

Coming from all corners of the world, it may surprise you to hear that these are not, as you might imagine, athletic robots, trained in the art of super human endurance. No, most of them are regular people, with regular jobs; doctors, teachers, managers, bankers, you name it, they're running it. The two youngest competitors are 22, the oldest, 61 year-old Kumi Murakami, a swimming instructor from Japan. There are a few pros in there of course but either way, we're impressed.

Starting on 27 June, the Gobi March is part of Racing the Planet's 4 Desert Series, a gruelling quartet of ultra-marathons that take place in some of the world's most extreme climates; the Atacama Desert in Chile, the Sahara Desert in Egypt, Antarctica and China's Gobi Desert. For those who make it through all four and are still jonesing for more, a fifth race takes place in a different location each year.

This is serous stuff. Aside from the physical challenges (I know a guy who did the Sahara a few years ago, you do not want to know what he told me about the blisters), a race like this takes immense mental strength. Deserts are big old empty places and there is plenty of time for solitude and reflecting on life, love and the universe and questions like "why on earth did I sign up for this crazy race?" But then there are also the nights spent under the stars, filled with campfires and camaraderie and the journey through incredible landscapes inhabited, if at all, by hardy indigenous cultures.

For Founder Mary Gadams, the China section holds a special place in the Racing the Planet calendar. "It was the first race we ever staged back in 2003, and I’m thrilled to be taking the race back to the Turpan Depression – it’s a tough course in rough conditions and I think the competitors are going to find it a hard beast to tame!”

You said it, sister! For those not familiar with the geography of the farthest flung reaches of Xinjiang, the Turpan Depression is a desert land basin 150 km southeast of Urumqi. It's 155 meters below sea level, making it one of the world's lowest lying surfaces, second only to the Dead Sea, and it is hotter than hell down there. Well, hotter at least than any other place in China and farther from an ocean than anywhere else in the world. Surely you have to be either insane or supremely confident to put yourself through such an ordeal.

So what does Gadams have to say about this year's round-up of competitors?

“It’s great to see so many Chinese participants at this year’s Gobi March. It’s also fascinating to see such a range of experience, ages and backgrounds amongst them. All but three are new to the 4 Deserts, and it reinforces our belief that RacingThePlanet reaches beyond cultural and social norms and taps a primal need in human beings to sometimes push themselves way beyond their accustomed physical and psychological comfort levels. In the 4 Deserts every competitor faces the same test”

If you'resomeone who likes to push yourself to the limits (or simply takes a slightly sadistic pleasure in seeing other do so), then stay tuned as we'll be talking to some of the competitors to hear about their race and all the gory details, plus finding out more about Racing the Planet's newest China venture, the Taklamakan 100 which takes place this August.