Race Coverage

RACE Coverage
Atacama Crossing Blogs 2022
View All Posts 2022 From : Robert Ripley
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11 October 2022 01:30 pm (GMT+08:00) Beijing, Chongqing, Hong Kong, Urumqi
Reflections on Atacama
I’ve been back for almost a week. The wounds are healing, the memories coalescing. (The scabs itching). I’ve been taking long walks in the woods with the dogs and have ridden the bikes a few times. No running yet. I’ve been feeding my face as fast as my hands can grab ahold of food bits and yet still feel hungry (and I’m still about a kilogram shy of my pre race weight). And I’ve had some time to sit back and reflect on the week of the 2022 Atacama Crossing…
And what a week it was.
I suppose I should start with the goals I set for myself when I first set off to run one of these crazy desert multi-day ultramarathon things almost 3 years ago:
- Have fun
- Be thankful
- Don’t get hurt
Well, as Meatloaf put into song in the seventies,”two out of three ain’t bad.”
I had fun in the Atacama. I enjoyed the tent city that disappeared every morning, popping up in a different spot in the afternoon, greeting old friends and making new ones, bonding over the shared experience of the day’s travails. I loved being out in the desert, the shifting landscape anchored by the volcanoes on the horizon. I took joy from the physicality of movement, as my legs traversed the sands. Granted, much of the racing was type 2 fun, maybe even type 3, but fun it was. Out on the course, and rehashing it later around the fire.
I am thankful for the health that allows me to run, and I give thanks daily for the doctors and nurses who contributed to keeping me here and to all healthcare workers out there in these challenging times. And I am thankful to have the resources to travel to such a distant, beautiful place and participate in such a logistically complicated endeavor. I am thankful for my friends and family for their generosity, support and affection. And, most of all, I am thankful for my beautiful and loving wife, Nancy, without whom I would not be among the living. She keeps me grounded while still supporting me in my crazy dreams.
But I did get hurt. More hurt than the expected muscles aches or blisters. And, I confess, more hurt than I let on during in my race-day blogging, because I didn’t want to worry Nancy unduly (as we did not have communication during the race outside of the blog). I fell down.
When I go to my cancer check ups, one of the questions they ask is “have you fallen?,” and I usually respond, “no, I was pushed.” Because I fall all the the time, out running in the woods, on skis, or sometimes even off my bike if I can’t get unclipped fast enough. But usually, beyond a scrape or two, I don’t get hurt. (Although, I guess, the day before the Duathlon World Championships in 2017 I broke my hand in 2 places when I caught my tire in a grate and flipped my bike). And I wasn’t the only competitor to fall in the Atacama. Rob (Bilbo) scraped his leg when he fell during the long march.
I fell 3 times on Stage 2. Twice in the canyon and once crossing the open desert coming into camp. I scraped both knees. I was a little frustrated at the time I lost negotiating the water crossings. I was thankful for Jack and Malcolm who helped me up off the ground. But I didn’t feel I was hurt, or injured.
Andrew, a friend of ours, tells the story of his rugby days. If he was left on the ground in a match his coach would come out and shake him and ask, “are ye hurt or are ye injured?” If he answered “hurt,” his coach would give him a swig of whisky from a flask and leave him in the game. “Injured,” well, sidelines.
On Stage 3, I fell twice in the salt flats (thank you Jack, again, for picking me up). As I mentioned before, “frozen broccoli” doesn’t quite describe just how sharp the sand/salt encrustations are in the salt flats. I had multiple wounds to both knees, my left shin and both hands. I was hurt. Fortunately, I was able to get my hands out in time to keep my face from going into the stalagmites. (Today, 2 weeks later, the sorest muscles I have are my triceps, from the sudden eccentric loading of my arms trying to protect my head during my falls)
I managed to pick my way through the next section of salt flats, slowly and carefully, with a lot of walking, and was rewarded with a section of runnable sand, but then we went into several kilometers of sand intermingled with jagged pieces of slate. I fell again. This time my hands got caught in the rock and I dislocated my finger. Also, for the first time, my head went all the way down and struck rock. I didn’t black out, the pain and deformity of my finger was full front in my consciousness. But I was really hurt.
I should have stopped at the last checkpoint and, at the very least, let Dr. Jay tape my hand, but there was a runner in sight ahead, and I pushed through. And I tripped and fell again, twice. My reflexes were slow (or protecting my injured hand). I hit my head both times. Blood started leaking out of my hat and down into my left eye. Now I was injured. And in trouble. And alone. And about half way between the last checkpoint and camp.
It’s hard to say if I suffered a head injury, given I was out there by myself, the only witness being my own foggy recollection. But the fact that I hit my head 3 times in a succession would suggest high risk of one. I managed to get up the sand dune that blocked my way, re-dislocating my finger in the process, and drag myself into camp.
There, Drs. Andy and Arav cleaned and dressed my wounds and splinted my injured finger. Andy irrigated and sutured the wound above my left eye. (Kudos to Dr. Andy, the stitches have since come out and there is hardly a scar to be seen, not bad for operating in a tent, in a sandstorm).
At that point, lying there in the medical tent, asking myself if making The Crossing was worth risking and sustaining injury, I was seriously considering pulling myself out of the race. I discussed my concerns with the medical team, and let them know that I would abide by their decision whether or not I was safe to continue the race. As it turned out, there was a weather-related rest the next day, and by Thursday, after 24+ hours of observation, the medical team felt I was safe to continue.
By Thursday, I had come to grips with the fact that running at speed over broken terrain is not a skill I possess. When we came to the salt flats on Thursday, I had to pull up, lean back (so that the weight of my pack wasn’t pushing me forward), and consciously place my feet in a safe spot on each footfall. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Repeat. It was a slow process, but I made it through the final 3 days without a fall.
I also came to the realization that I had chosen the wrong shoes. As I previously noted, I went with the Hoka Tecton X trail shoe. I have come to depend on the extra pop I get from the carbon plates in the sole of the Carbon X and the Tecton X, as well as what I feel is a faster recovery after a long run. Unfortunately, the carbon plate shoe is probably a bit too reactive for the uneven terrain in the Atacama. I think having the carbon plate rocking you forward makes it harder to stay balanced and decreases your chance of recovery if you happen to catch a toe.
Aside from the shoes, I was pretty happy with my gear choices for the Atacama. I did have a couple of failures, though. The Shoe Goo I used to attach the velcro for my gaiters failed spectacularly on the 2nd day, in the canyons, so I ran most of the race using my back-up Dirty Girl gaiters. (I should note that the Shoe Goo and velcro made it through the Namib Race intact, so I’m guessing that the failure was due to the mechanical stressors of the Atacama surfaces). And, as mentioned, my Neoair Xlite pad sprung a leak on the last night (it is possible that I was less meticulous than usual about choosing and clearing my tentsite).
I made it through the week without any gastrointestinal problems (unless you consider being very hungry a GI problem) on my diet of Skratch powders, Picky Bars and Expedition Foods freeze dried. I started out with 4 kilograms of food (nearly 20000 calories) and could have easily eaten another 4 kg, had I been willing to carry an 11 kg pack.
As far as my training goes, I believe that I was adequately prepared for the race. Could I have been better prepared for the terrain, perhaps, but I would have had to move to San Pedro and train in the salt flats. Likewise, I could have been better prepared for the altitude, but I would have had to move houses to Colorado or sleep in a bag. My legs (and lungs) held up for the whole week, and I was happy with that.
I have been thinking about (okay, obsessing about) running The Atacama Crossing since 2109, and, now that it has come to pass, I will say that the race did not disappoint. It was an epic week. Every day presented new challenges, new vistas, new hardships, and new joy. I am glad to get this out of my head, but, in a way, I am sad to have it behind me. I feel I put everything I had into The Crossing, and I am quite happy with 4th place. Would I have liked another result like the Namib Race? Sure. But it wasn’t going to happen. Rob, Mori Mori, and Matt were running too damn fast. Kudos to them. It was a fast race. I’m pretty sure, that, if you could calculate it out on a per kilometer basis, that the 2022 Atacama Crossing was one of the fastest ever. I’m proud to have been a part of it. It’s hard to finish just off the podium, but, fortunately, I have a great deal of practice, having finished just off the podium (age-group) in the 2017 (racing with a broken hand), 2018 and 2019 ITU World Duathlon Championships.
My heartfelt congratulations and respect go out to all the competitors. I wish Mori Mori and Matt and all the Grandslammers the best of times and good luck in Antarctica.
So I guess the question is. What’s Next? And for me, the easy answer is some down time and then, hopefully, winter, and then ski season. Have I signed up for another multi-day ultramarathon? No. I’m going to let things settle for a month or two before I come up with the next big thing.
Comments: Total (6) comments
Tom Hales
Posted On: 14 Oct 2022 02:25 pm
Kelley Kadlecek
Posted On: 13 Oct 2022 03:32 pm
Jay Van Alstine
Posted On: 12 Oct 2022 06:59 pm
Teresa Ripkey
Posted On: 12 Oct 2022 04:01 am
Teresa Ripkey
Posted On: 12 Oct 2022 04:01 am
Mary Gadams
Posted On: 11 Oct 2022 09:02 pm