94 hours, 404km
I had planned to post regular updates on my progress through the Ultra Trail of the Gobi Desert. This was hampered, in part due to poor signal in the mountainous section but mostly by the fact that I got a little bit carried away with the actual racing.
The first half of the route was mostly flat, making both running and navigating easier and most of us quickly settled into a routine: run a bit, walk a bit, check the GPS, discover you’ve only moved a few hundred metres, calculate the distance to the next check point, promise yourself a reward when you get there, repeat.
The initial freshness of the first day soon wore off and those who had set off too fast began to pay for it. After 130km I was surprised to discover myself catching up with the lead pair, Harvey Lewis of the USA and Chor Kin Law from Hong Kong, both of whom had been seen as frontrunners to win.
To perform well in a race like this many things need to go right. For these two that unfortunately didn’t happen: Harvey suffered from serious stomach issues and Chor Kin got badly lost several time. Both persevered with the rugged determination of experienced runners for whom winning is an added bonus rather than a primary motivation.
At 200km mark I found myself in the wholly unfamiliar position of being in the lead, much to the excitement of various friends, family and colleagues who were tracking on the race website.
Competing over a distance like this is unlike a normal race. While speed is important it is more a matter of attrition and strategy. Much as racing drivers make pit stops we would periodically pull over into a rest station where an army of volunteers was on hand to help (the ratio of volunteers to runners was 9:1). In my case this would mean downing a Coca-Cola, scoffing some noodles and a Mars bar and having my growing number of blisters drained and dressed by the expert Exile Medics.
As we approached the final part of the race (just 100km to go) I was being chased down by the famous Chinese runner Bai Bin who had come second in last year’s race and was back to win it. The terrain at this point was mountainous and extremely tough. Scrambling up hills and out of canyons is hard enough in the day, but doing it in pitch darkness with little sleep and a delirious mind adds a whole new challenge. Twice I slipped and saw a water bottle fall from my pack and disappear down a slope.
Sadly by this point my right ankle had swelled to the point where fitting a sock over it was a real struggle; it was simply a case of strapping it up and plodding on. With 40km to go Bai Bin sauntered past looking very fresh. It was reassuring to see that even in my best physical condition I would have struggled to keep up. His stamina and endurance towards the end of the race were truly impressive and deserving of the victory.
The last 34km were particularly tough as I braced myself for the pain for each step (of which there were roughly half a million over the course of the race). Eventually, at 4am on Sunday morning, after 94 hours – including about five of sleep – I hobbled across the finish line, a spectacular set-up in a park in Guazou complete with fireworks, drummers and a very patient media crew.
I had just about enough energy to receive the second half of my ‘tiger talley’, drink a beer and give a blood test for a research project (I did have to lie down at this point but that was more because of the needle) before being transported to the nearby hotel and to a very welcome shower and bed.
22 hours, 131km
Today I learned that one thing you can’t afford to have on a race like this is a sense of perspective. Right now I’ve been on the move for 22 hours with maybe two hours of cumulative breaks. I’ve eaten two hot meals, countless energy bars and trail mixes and enough sweets to make Augustus Gloop look reserved. And yet I’m not quite a third of the way through, with most of the climbing still to come.
If I thought for more than a few minutes about the distance remaining I would probably find the nearest rock and have a cry. Instead I have to break the race down into manageable bite size chunks.
For the past few hours I have been fantasising about the power nap I promised myself at rest stop four. So now I am off to bed (of sorts).
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