Abu Dhabi: A car accident and scarce food have not stopped Jalal Bin Thaneya who is four days into an attempt to trek across all seven emirates in seven days.
Since early Tuesday morning, the 30-year-old Emirati has run, jogged and walked across dusty desert roads for up to 19 hours a day.
Starting at the UAE’s eastern border with Saudi Arabia, the 700-kilometre journey takes Bin Thaneya all the way to Fujairah’s coastline.
If he covers the distance in no more than one week, Bin Thaneya will snag a Guinness World Record for making the ‘fastest crossing of the UAE on foot’.
So far, he has travelled somewhere between 350 to 400 kilometres — not far from the outskirts of Abu Dhabi city — according to his friend, Yahya Al Hooti.
Hostile conditions have made progress harder than expected.
“It’s a deadly place,” said the friend. “The weather is so bad. [It’s] very hot in the afternoon and at night, [it’s] windy and cold.”
Al Hooti is part of Bin Thaneya’s three-man support team, who have rented two cars to aid him.
The main car, a 4x4, shadows the record hopeful and serves as his bed, supply store and changing room.
The second car ferries fresh supplies.
But the team have run into a flurry of problems. Food ran low after the Altima hit a large abandoned tyre on an unlit stretch of road, puncturing the radiator.
Meanwhile, after grinding at close to walking pace for several days, the 4x4's gear box developed a problem.
Both cars were replaced.
To compound their problems, sleeping in the 4x4's passenger seat has not proven very comfortable for the exhausted Bin Thaneya.
On Friday morning, he tweeted: “Bad energy, low morale.”
Can he still make it?
“I cannot say that [for sure] at the moment,” his friend told Gulf News. “[But] I have positive thinking.”
