After actually sleeping through the entire night, I woke up
at 6 am to the sound of the bass heavy speaker repeating those same songs
previously mentioned. I popped up and proceeded with the standard routine:
change back into my running shorts and t-shirt, breakfast (including a
Starbuck’s instant coffee, but only about 2 sips, and the only 2 sips I would
have of coffee all week, because I really just didn’t have a taste for it),
brush teeth, bathroom, re-pack, and head to the starting line. I even had a
chance to catch up with Vanessa for a few minutes to get some pictures at the
start line before she left for CP 4 for the day.
Even having run 31 miles yesterday, I was still feeling
fresh today. In fact, everyone around the camp was still looking like they were
in pretty good shape. As I learned in the Gobi, however, the hobbling and
slowness with which people walked around camp in the morning would likely start
showing on day 3, and definitely would be in full force by days 4-5.
Nevertheless, at the moment, everyone seemed ready to tackle another day.
As we made our way to the start line, the drone was hovering
overhead, and Tess and Colin asked us to put our hands in the air and wave.
Everyone, including myself, must have just blindly thrown their hands in the
air because we were looking up and facing directly at the sun. Colin then gave
the course/weather briefing, which offered a very similar forecast to
yesterday, minus the possibility of rain. The other difference was that later
in the day, the temperature would actually feel higher because the last 13
miles of the course were wide open and completely exposed to the sun.
The countdown to the 8 am start began, and off we went.
Feeling like running at a good pace, but knowing that we would be dancing
through cacti and brush all the way to CP1 (similar to what the last 8 miles of
yesterday entailed), I jumped my way near the front of the pack right away to
avoid getting stuck weaving around people and cacti. In doing so, I hopped in
somewhere around the top 10 when we hit the more technical terrain. Feeling
good, at some point, I passed some people and ended up coming into CP1 in 3rd.
As I was running, I even noticed Michele’s
number laying the trail. So I picked it up, carried it with me, and handed it
off to the volunteers at CP1. As I exited CP1, there were a bunch of us really
close together, and I recall at one point hearing Carl say behind me: “Let them
go Brandon, it’s not worth trying to keep up. Run your own race.” Carl was, of
course, referring to the two leaders (Michele and Mo), who were just ahead of
us and weren’t really going that much faster through the technical terrain.
After passing CP1, we turned left towards the mountains
towering over us. This would be our first real chance to get some
climbing/elevation gain in. And man was it a pretty steep, long climb. In any
event, I like climbing and descending, so this was definitely a portion of the
course that played to my advantage. Clearly, no one was going to run up this
thing, so it really just came down to how fast you could power hike it and not
stopping no matter how heavy the breathing got. Once at the top, I exited in
the same position I started in. We then had a few miles of flat and smaller
climbs all the way to CP2. At some point leading to CP2 or just after, I was
running a small uphill when I suddenly started feeling like I was towing more
weight and slowing down. After a couple seconds, I looked back, and there was
Garth, holding onto the tow-strap of my backpack…Haha. After sharing a few
laughs and chatting a bit, we both continued on running.
After CP2, there was one more medium climb and then a
massive down, which was comprised of loose rock/gravel and tight turns. While
this was a really technical portion of trail, and probably viewed as pretty
dangerous in normal circumstances, I viewed it as an opportunity to ‘bomb’ down
the mountain. At this point, I was just behind Joe (a British guy, who was a
really strong runner and who I would run near for the remainder of the day, and
on many later days, as well). Joe was lucky enough to be carrying poles for
this section of course. However, looking back I still would NOT take poles for
the week because I would have rarely used them. Still, for this particular
section, they could have been helpful. The difficulty was with the tight turns
going down, which required me to majorly slow down every 50 or so feet; this
was killer on the quads, but I sucked it up, and it ended soon enough.
By the time we reached the bottom, I was starting to feel a
little energy depleted and hungry, so I popped a few peanut butter balls and
espresso beans to liven up a bit. In doing so, I briefly lost sight of the
flags and got lost (maybe for about 100 meters). This brief section of trail
was pretty heavily wooded, so I had to back track to the last flag, and I
quickly found my way. Soon I was at CP3.
I have to say, as someone who really enjoys trail running,
to this point in the day, things were going really well, and the course was
fantastic. However, the section of the course from CP3 to CP4 to the finish
(~10 miles) was really lame, was really hot, and the combination of factors
made it difficult to stay motivated to run. It consisted solely of dirt roads
that were in a wide-open valley with nothing but rolling hills and only
mountains/buttes way off in the distance. In short, it was boring and did
nothing to peak my interest. Still, going to CP4 I could at least look forward
to seeing Vanessa briefly. So I mixed it up with a good amount of running the
flats and down hills and walking the up hills. Through this entire stretch, I
was just behind Joe, and there were some others not too far behind us.
Finally, we made it to CP4 where Vanessa was yelling and
cheering. As I came in, I noticed Mo sitting at the CP looking really
discouraged. Apparently, he had gotten completely lost at some point, and it
messed him up really bad mentally. He might even have run out of water. As
such, he wasn’t feeling good, and unfortunately, he would ultimately drop from
the race. During my brief chat with Mo,
I quickly filled my water bottles and made my way out of the CP thinking I was
good enough to finish off the last 6 miles with an easy run. At the time,
however, I did not know the stretch from CP4 to the finish was identical to the
stretch from CP3 to CP4: boring! In
addition, it was really starting to get hot, and we were directly exposed to
the sun.
Looking back on the race as a whole, I think this particular
stretch was probably the worst section of the whole race for me. I felt like
shit, I could feel the back of my calves starting to burn in the sun as I ran
to the West (away from the sun), and I had to start rationing my water because
the finish just seemed to never appear. My stomach was starting to feel upset,
my mouth and lips were drying out, and we were headed directly into a major
head-wind, which made the effort even more difficult. I mixed it up as much I could by running
intervals and offering myself a reward of a walk break after running a certain
number of flags, and some other tactics to keep moving, but nothing was making
this section feel any more comfortable. Moreover, about 4 miles into this 6
mile section, we were required to cross a river that looked like it had formed
as a result of the recent flooding (this would actually be the only water
crossing of the entire week). While normally this water crossing would have
been a welcome site in this situation, it was simply a 1.5 foot deep mud bath.
There was no way I was dipping anything in that water other than my shoes/feet,
which was unavoidable to make the crossing. I did later learn that Nick somehow
went up stream a bit and found a way to cross without getting his shoes wet,
but at the time, I didn’t care to even look. I also later learned that Garth
and Ken had found some large water reservoir just next to the road to dip their
hats and buffs in to keep cool. But again, I was way too out of it to have
noticed. I just wanted to finish.
Needless to say, a couple people passed me on this section. Finally,
however, we could see Camp 3 in the distance. As we approached, Joe and I were
still together and Sara had joined us about 200 meters from the finish. As Sara
ran up, we all started running, and I am not sure if Sara thought we would try
to outrun her or what, but she asked if we could all run across together. As we
all formally agreed (haha), we all crossed together (side note: crossing
together is always an unwritten rule in these types of events, as it would take
a real asshole to sprint ahead to beat others in an ultra, especially when
you’ve spent time with them throughout the event).
As I crossed, I really felt awful, but I think that might
have been the consensus for the day, as many others also felt awful from the
sun and the boringness of the last couple sections. In any case, within about
an hour I was feeling normal again when I got a recovery drink and some food in
me and changed into my recovery pants. Similar to yesterday, I spent the
afternoon cheering others into the finish and chatting with various people. I
also received my first set of emails of the week and had a chance to send out
an email in the cyber tent. Finally, I made my first trip to the medical tent
(actually my first ever trip to the medical tent in this event or the Gobi)
because I was feeling what I thought was some pressure under one of my
toenails. Luckily, it was just a blister on the tip of my toe, so one toenail was
saved. Once it was popped and re-taped, I felt as good as new, minus the
chafing on my back, of course, which the medical people again taped for me.
In this regard, I have to say that the KT Tape the medical
staff had with them was real shit. It was the cheapest cotton KT tape
available. Even with the adhesive they sprayed on my back, the tape fell off by
the time I made my way back to my tent. Fortunately, I had brought additional
synthetic KT Tape, and my tent mates were willing to share some of their extra
tincture (adhesive) and Rock Tape, which got me through the week. Garth helped
me get re-tapped later that night and it stayed on much better.
At the end of the day, I was happy to see that all 5 of my
remaining tent mates had made it to the finish! We would all be going on to
face the long day tomorrow. After that, it would be all downhill; just a couple
marathons left. It was great to see Andy feeling good and ready to take on the
long stage, as I really wanted him to get through the race after having to
unfortunately pull out of the Gobi with an injury. I was also happy to hear
that Nick’s electrolyte replacement plan we had discussed the day before worked
and made his day much more enjoyable than day one. And Brian looked remarkably
fresh, as he took it relatively easy the first couple days by pairing up with a
couple others to complete the course, in part I think, to avoid any major
blow-ups later in the week. Despite the tough climbs, Phelim actually also had
a much better day, as he took it a little slower on the climbs to allow him to
adjust to the elevation gain.
Unfortunately for Ken, Garth, and myself, however, because
of our current standings (top 15), we would be starting at 10 am tomorrow
morning, while everyone else would start at 8 am as usual. Based on my own
estimated finish time, this meant that I would probably hit the dunes at night
and be on the course until around midnight. It also meant we would be hitting
some of the major climbs in the hottest part of the day. And while it seemed that
I could benefit from sleeping in a little, this was not the case because the
music would still be going at 6 am for everyone starting at 8 am. So it really
just meant a couple more hours of sitting around in anticipation of the start. Despite
all of this going on, we had no problems all falling asleep around 8:30 pm
again. Everyone was just a little more beat up than they had been after Stage
1.
-To Be Continued-
Camp 2:
Stage 2 Start Line:
And we're off:
One of many cacti mines:
View from the top of the mountain:
Somewhere between CP2 and CP3:
CP 4:
Finish line and Camp 3:
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