The final stage (Saturday) was a short 9 km run from the camp to the town of San Pedro. The day of recovery seemed to help and my legs felt surprisingly good and of course my backpack was the lightest it had been all week. Before we knew it, we were crossing the finish line in San Pedro’s main square. The atmosphere was incredible and the pizza and cold drinks were especially well-received! It was great to see all of the runners cross the line and everyone waited to cheer in the final runners. After lots of photographs and congratulations all round, it was off to the hotel for a much-needed clean-up and rest! I spent the afternoon eating and drinking with some friends from the race and also did some shopping in San Pedro’s sleepy indoor market … I have never been to a more low-key market where the vendors were almost surprised when you wanted to buy something!

The evening’s banquet was a great way to finish the week and to celebrate everyone’s accomplishments. It was funny to see everyone looking (and smelling!) clean and not wearing running clothes … you almost didn’t recognize some people! A highlight of the evening was a slideshow of amazing photographs from the week. I recognized a lot of the locations but it was also interesting to see the backdrops for many of the photographs. We were so often focused on the immediate terrain under foot, that you didn’t (or couldn’t) see the wider surroundings.

Overall, an exciting, tough, and exhilarating week: one that I will remember for a long time to come. The Atacama Desert has to be seen to be believed. I left the desert with a sense of its beauty and expanse, admiration for all of the runners (many of whom faced significant challenges throughout the course of the race), and a set of new friends from around the world. Thank you all for your support and encouragement throughout this endeavor. Thanks also to my wonderful tent-mates in Tent 12 ... we shared a lot of fun, laughter, blisters, injuries, and more! We made a great team and I have great memories from our tent, especially the times when we all kept wondering why we had chosen this race for our vacation rather than something a little less grueling! And a big thank you also to the tireless race staff as well as to the incredible volunteers and medical personnel, all of whom were so kind, caring, and energetic throughout the entire week. This is certainly a race that is much more than just running (or hiking or walking) in the desert … it is about like-minded people working to achieve their goals. If anyone tells you that running is a solo sport, tell them to run the Atacama Crossing! And if you are reading this and considering signing up for the race, my advice is simple: sign up and start training!

About 47 miles, I think (they had to re-route the course a little at the start, so that affected the mileage listed in our course notes), in 13 hours 40 minutes. Again, no land speed records here, but that’s ok! I did the last couple of hours in the dark, which was good … fortunately the worst of the terrain was long behind us, so at that point it was a matter of one foot in front of the other.

The morning started off with a section rated “extremely difficult”, so that set the scene for the day! We went through a very boggy area, which meant wet feet from early on, which didn’t help with the current blisters! I stopped at the second checkpoint and changed socks and did some blister management. I felt really good for the next section, which fortunately was very runnable, and so I managed to get some good miles in and caught up to lots of people. All week, I have not been focused much on my position (this is really an event for which you run your own race at your own pace), but it is certainly encouraging when you actually feel good. I mentioned to someone earlier in the week that this race is 80% mental and 20% feet … it is actually probably more feet than that!

From checkpoint 3 to 4 was the toughest 15 km or so I have ever tackled. It started with miles and miles of sand and rocks that eventually transitioned in to brutal frozen broccoli and coral-like salt flats. At every step, some kind of rock inevitably found the most sore point on my feet. Occasionally, there was a brief respite, but of course the salt flats returned again and again. The reward for the end of the salt flats was climbing an enormous sand dune and then traversing a moon field. I was glad I took an extra litre of water at the prior checkpoint (our standard allotment is 1.5 litres, but you can take as much as you need) as I needed every drop of it. Took a little break at the checkpoint (a rest and some blister management) and then headed off for a relatively flat section (for once!). “Flat” meaning it was only a slight uphill … the terrain underfoot was the usual rocky and sandy mix. I took out my little iPod for the first time on this stage (I had been saving it for when the going got really tough!), which helped a lot. As I headed out on to a long section of jeep track (don’t think that the terrain is in any way flat or forgiving!) with just mountains surrounding us on every side, what song should come on (I had it on random play) but, “The Road to Nowhere”. I had to laugh at the irony!!! The rest of the day and evening was a long, quite slow plod, with the occasional burst of running thrown in for good measure. Probably the hardest day of running (and hiking/walking) I have had to date, partly of course because of the almost 100 miles we had tackled in the prior 4 days.

Managed to get some sleep last night, although runners were coming in all the way until 8 am this morning, a full 24 hours after we started!!! Today is a recuperation day, a chance for the feet to rest (mine are still quite unhappy at me and are wondering quite what happened this past week), and to chat with other competitors. Tomorrow morning is a short stage but suspect most of us will be moving very slowly and gingerly! Can’t wait to finish and to enjoy a cold drink (not water!) and some fresh-cooked food (and yes, French fries fall into that category!).

Thanks again to everyone for their support and well-wishes … it has really helped a great deal this past week. With any luck, if the Internet connection is ok, I will be able to blog tomorrow (Saturday) at some point after the finish. Of course, don’t expect any novel insights at that point! Cheers, Elliot

That was a long, hot, tough day! 27.5 miles in 8 hours! Not exactly breaking any land speeds out here, but that

Another tough day today but I somehow felt good all morning and did a lot of running (as opposed to hiking/walking!). Given the way my legs felt this morning (they were a little upset at me, I think!), it was so nice to feel energized and to have some terrain that was somewhat runnable. Perhaps it was the fact that I had extra dinner last night

That was quite a day! 28 miles in 7.5 hours

Hi All!

Day 1 completed! Yesterday evening we arrived at the first camp and all eagerly prepared for today

We just had the race briefing and then it is time for our mandatory equipment (a very long list!) to be checked. I managed to fit everything in my backpack -- just a couple of final decisions to make about extra clothing for the cold evenings (it may get close to freezing). This afternoon we take buses up to the first camp, which is at about 10,000 feet. Fortunately, the altitude decreases as the race progresses, although I'm sure the terrain each day will involve lots of ups and downs! At the race briefing, we also learned that there will be quite a few river crossings and most of the first leg on day 2 will involve running in a river. Sounds interesting ... didn't really do much (i.e., any!) river running in training but I'm sure I'll learn quickly! Apparently, the depth of the water is "usually only up to your knees at most" ... hopefully that means knees for someone of my height!!! That's it for now -- next update should be from the desert!

For some preparation and a few pre-race photos in Chile, l'm @elliotruns on Instagram. Various folks are also posting under #atacamacrossing. This is a truly international race -- I've already met folks from China, South Africa, the UK, and Canada! I'm sure that list will grow rapidly. Look forward to meeting some people I've been Instagramming with before the race.

A big THANK YOU to you all for your encouragement and support. In terms of my fundraising for BACK ON MY FEET NYC (www.nyc.backonmyfeet.org), you have contributed well over my $5,000 goal (see www.crowdrise.com/elliotruns), which is very much appreciated. The money will go a long way to helping homeless and other underserved individuals get back on their feet (literally and figuratively).

Now I'm off to do last-minute shopping for some final food items for the next week. Not sure what will be on offer locally, so I'll make it up as I go along. All runners are required to bring a minimum of 14,000 calories for the race and I'll probably be quite close to that. A close inspection of the candy at the airport revealed that Starburst have a good calorie:weight ratio, so I'll have a few as a treat each day. Zero nutritional value but will provide a quick energy boost when needed and, maybe more importantly, will make me happy! I didn't give use them in training, so I can't be certain they'll pass the "will it melt in the heat?" and the "can I open the wrapper while running?" tests, but we'll soon find out (I am a rigorous empiricist, after all!). After the food is safely stowed in each daily ziplock bag it will be time for the (hopefully) final packing/re-packing of my backpack -- with any luck, it will all fit in there. (If not, perhaps I'll do some pre-eating of select food items!) I've already seen numerous people with sleeping bags, mats, and various other items (what have they brought with them?!) strapped to the outside of their backpacks, but I'm planning to avoid that (I can't imagine running 155 miles like that!). Ok, I'm off to shop and explore the town now and maybe I'll take an easy jog to see how well I can breathe at this altitude. And I should probably drink lots of water and ingest some carb-laden food! P.S. During my race blogs, feel free to mention in comments what delicious food you are eating ... I'll think of it while I'm devouring my daily rations!

Finally arrived in San Pedro de Atacama, the small gateway town to the Atacama Desert, the driest and highest desert in the world. The trip started well, with an on-time departure from JFK on a new 787 Dreamliner. On the plus side (for a plus-sized plane!), the 787 is a modern and roomy plane. On the not so plus side, when there is early morning fog in Santiago and your flight is re-routed to land at an airport 90 minutes away, it can lead to a 12 hour delay before they find another crew that is able to fly the plane! Our plane caused quite a stir at the relatively small airport -- when we arrived, the ground staff were so taken aback at its size, several of them were taking photographs of it! Of course, we were initially told the delay would be just a couple of hours, but c'est la vie. There were some other race participants in the same situation (we are all easy to spot with our desert-ready backpacks with obligatory accompanying water bottle holders!), so it was at least good to meet some like-minded travelers. It also meant that I had an unexpected overnight stay in Santiago (and a fun scramble to find a hotel at 11:30pm to at least get a few hours of sleep before my flight to Calama), which delayed my arrival in the desert by almost an entire day ... oh well, either way there wouldn't be time to fully acclimatize to the high altitude.

A few more days of work and then I'm off to the Atacama. This past weekend I packed, re-packed, and re-packed some more! Will do some more fine-tuning when I get to Chile but it looks as if everything will just about fit into my trusty 25 liter backpack. It weighs in at about 19 pounds currently (a reasonable proportion of which is food) and I suspect I'll be able to shave a little more off that. For the last month or so, I've been running with the backpack at 20 pounds, so hopefully that training will pay off. Of course, I haven't been running in the desert or at altitude, so we'll see how those issues (and many others!) affect my runnning. A big thank you to everyone who has supported my fundraising efforts for Back On My Feet New York City. Together, the more than $5,000 that you contributed will enable the organization to provide new educational and vocational training opportunities for at least 10 homeless and other underserved individuals in New York City. For more information, see www.crowdrise.com/elliotruns.