News : The Race is On...almost!

Shelby Van Weelden's official race photo as she prepares to ride out on a 621 mile trek across part of Mongolia

Shelby speaking last year about her upcoming trip

Shelby Van Weelden (right) in Mongolia. She is preparing to ride out on Wednesday (aka Tuesday night our time!) in the Mongol Derby

Shelby Van Weelden, daughter of Vinton Unlimited's Director, Melody Snow has begun her final training for the race of a lifetime. Shelby is a firefighter in Cedar Rapids and began making plans to ride in the Annual Mongol Derby, in Outer Mongolia. She spoke to the local Kiwanis Club last year about her upcoming trip.

She reported a few days ago that she was in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and began her training yesterday. She will be taking off on the race on Wednesday, August 7, which will be in the middle of the night on Tuesday for us. One of 11 American riders she will join riders from Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Louisiana, Texas, North Carolina, Mississippi, and Wyoming. She will be riding with a reality star, lawyer, rancher, and others who just love horses.

(To follow the race go to this link, and look for "SVW" to track her progress!)

The derby is a horse race that lasts 10 days. Out of the 40 riders, Shelby said that there were only eight that didn't finish the race last year. She has been training almost two years for this event and will be riding on behalf of a charity called the St. Florian Burn Foundation which supports burn victims in Iowa and South Dakota. For winning the race, the prize is bragging rights.

Shelby heard about the race nearly five years ago, when she ran across another racer on Facebook who had competed in the derby, and her interest was piqued. She applied and was accepted as one of the applicants from around the world to be one of the 40 racers.

The race is based on Genghis Khan's mighty horse messenger system that connected half the planet, a postal delivery service that was in place until the 1940s. The Mongold Derby has no pony trail or a guided tour. There's no marked course, no packed lunches, no beds to sleep in. The whole point is that it's just the rider and the team of horses.

The length of the race is 1,000 kilometers or a little more than 621 miles in the wilderness. The course consists of 25 horse stations called, "morin urtuu" in Mongolian, placed 25 miles apart. Horses are swapped out and the rider take a moment to recharge at each station. How the riders make it through the race and navigate it, is up to them.

The route is tested for months before the derby to make sure it fits the horses. The riders will travel through high passes, huge valleys, wooded hills, river crossings, wetland, dunes and of course open plains.

Prior to the race, Shelby had gone through a boot camp to help prepare her for the race. A rider for years, she has had her share of injuries, including a broken back, twice. This ride will be an endurance ride and will test her metal. Training for this ride has been intense. Riders will have a medical staff and veterinarians nearby in case the racers need assistance.

If you would like to donate, toward her fundraiser to benefit St. Florian Burn Foundation via Venmo @Shelby-VanWeelden or PayPal and her email is shelbyvanweelden@gmail.com

You can have your order shipped directly to your home. St. Florian Burn Foundation helps support burn survivors in various ways, but most notably for their Miracle Burn Camp every summer. "It's an Iowa-based foundation but helps surrounding states too. All of these reasons plus hearing of survivors' stories, and knowing some cool people who help with the camp every year, and being in the fire service are all the reasons why I chose this charity!" Shelby said. She added, "If you want to just give a donation, that is great! Otherwise…get your SWAG!!"

To see a bit about this unique race click HERE