29th of October - 38.9km / 24.3 miles
The Tale of the Water Bottle and the Solar Plexus…
The dawning day – another 7am start, so up at 5 and an attempt at a dim-lit breakfast. The descriptions of today’s four stages are Difficult, Difficult, Difficult, and Difficult. Oh Joy! The bag was less full and slightly lighter today, but this was not a benefit as, without the volume, the Racing the Planet backpack couldn’t be sufficiently tightened around the waist so the water bottle on my front pack was hitting me squarely in the solar plexus – thump, thump, thump! I adjusted the straps again and again as I ran, trying to get a handle on it. I hardly noticed the surroundings as I struggled through the pain. I remember little – think I blocked it out.
Beyond stage one, I started to get used to the thumping and find a rhythm. I concentrated on my footfalls, attempting to lay the foot soft on the sand, projecting it forward, skimming the surface and trying not to push off, as I would normally on pavement, so I wouldn’t sink deep and slip out. (Later that night, Carlos would tell me that my technique was too costly, so I changed my strategy for the long day, running normally.)
I kept pace with the Danes for a while, their banter and camaraderie infective and inspiring. They passed me sometime in the third stage long before the white mounds of stone and the sandy rise to the upcoming oasis. You could see the oasis from miles away, and the sight of it was deceiving. I suppose the desert is like the sea, the lack of landmarks makes things seem closer than they are.
The Third Checkpoint is the Charm
Finding myself still in the mid-thirties (place in the race), I came into checkpoint three with beautiful smiles of volunteers bearing water and an oasis of cartoon-like perfection. Stunning! I rested in the shade, partook of those welcome ratcheted mists from the heavens and ate.
Snowdrifts in the Desert
After collecting myself for the final 14km stage, I caught sight of Ricky just ahead and worked to catch up. We slogged along over the white rocks that looked like snowdrifts in the desert ahead and spilled out onto another vast and endless field of sand, deep and unforgiving on the aching legs. From here it was a thirsty and everlasting walk, hence the title for the day: “The Spring to Nowhere.”
Ricky and I stretched our legs across the sand, jogging then walking along this endless plateau dealing with each step as it came. My thoughts were of my mounting thirst and the sand in my shoes with the tender toes purple and swelling in the heat and pain. Somewhere around 10km in, we turned a corner and came over a dune. We could barely make out the white of the tents deep in the distance just beyond some pillars of stone at the foot of some rather impressive peaks, but that goal was to be far more elusive than we expected. These last few kilometers were an unimaginable grind, a taxing task of total irritation, a toil nothing short of an incitement to rebellion (ha! ha!). “OK, if I just finish today,” I thought, “I can rest and quit before the 100k day – after all, I’ll have finished four marathons in four days, in the desert… that’s enough isn’t it?” The justification for quitting, I made moment by moment as the thought of the next day’s distance would make me give up for sure. Just make it through today… when I finished, I wasn’t singing, but I was happy it was over.
The first part – “the training daze” was over, and there was only one day left to go. I felt confident that I could start, and allowed for the possibility that I could run for a while and if I felt sick or my knee (with 30% of the ACL left) hurt too much. I could stop and ride into camp. Though it might seem like a negative outlook to think about quitting, it was the most positive way for me to attack the problem that seemed so insurmountable. It allowed me to start, to assess and to continue. (6:09:20)
That night there was dancing, and a strange sort of elation ran through the camp – the day of atonement was close at hand, the four hard days of training complete, we just had one day of running remaining. Camp Mars they called it. With dunes rising above and great pillars of stone all around, it was at the same time harsh and beautiful!
I ambled around camp, and decided to climb above to attempt a yoga pose in the sand, take some pictures of the camp laid out below, and was inspired to a recitation of a Langston Hughes poem (the one that had inspired my world travels back at 21):
Tonight, I slept with a new sensation, on less of fear and more of accomplishment. I also am finding that my body has changed. I feel different, and not so tired, but somehow more young – if this is possible. I think it might be all the sweating and the 9 liters of water a day I’ve been drinking.
Tonight, I dance in dreams… gentile night, whirl, whirl!
No comments:
Post a Comment