It's 8pm here, the sun is high in the sky. Today's camp sits on what i'm told was once a cemetary/earthquake site. we're surrounded by pastures set against some gorgeous mountains. some cows and goats are close enough that i could hit one with a baseball (maybe not the goats--they're smaller and quicker and my arm's not loose). and everything else has settled into its usual routine. i guess after 4 days of running marathons through mountains, sand, rock, farmland (who knew?), heat, and altitude; sleeping in the same tent with the same group of people; and eating the same rubbish food... one establishes something of a routine.
 
i'm blogging a bit later in the day today, have eaten a full meal (rehydrated beef teryaki, yum, followed by a couple oreos), and am feeling pretty relaxed. today was a pretty hellish day for most people, and we're guessing there will be a handful of walkers who come in after 10pm. they wont be too happy when they find out about tomorrow: at 6:45am we load onto a bus (our first time doing this since we were originally dropped at our first campsite) and will ride about 2 hrs (i hear) to the start of our next stage...which is somewhere around 80km.
 
i'm told also that the top 25 or 30 competitors may have their start time delayed by 2 hours. i dont fully understand the rationale---something about it being really cool to pass everyone, have a full day in the heat, and, if we're slow enough, run in the dark. might not be true, but even if it is it adds 2 valuable hours of recovery time, if nothing else... which are likely to be negated by the busride anyway!
 
today was a pretty serious challenge, but rewardingly so. we opened with a serious climb basically to the top of a 10,000 foot mountain--to heaven's gate, the arch i wrote about yesterday. from the top was an amazing view, which i enjoyed for (literally) approximately 2 seconds. it's pretty well ingrained in my memory though, and i'm sure there's someone out there willing to sell me a picture of it. the altitude really gripped many of us on the way up. i felt it mostly in my lungs, and just tried to power through it, knowing that we'd be back down to a more manageable level soon enough.
 
the course actually got a lot harder from there, with even more serious climbing as we scaled around 10 ridges before descending into a magnificent canyon. i found today particularly rocky--your feet and ankles take a pretty serious beating on this terrain, and i think the accumulated effect of the last several days started to show. tonight i re-drilled the original toenail, as well as the one i had to drill last night, and (ta-daaaaah) a third one. marvelous. i also took a needle to 7 or so small blisters. will need to get up even earlier tomorrow to tape it all up properly--an art form that i'm learning by doing.
 
it seems that the field widened a bit today, although the top guys were reasonably clustered. pat and i came in together at an even 6 hours (7th and 8th), and to our pleasant surprise steve came chugging around the corner five minutes later to take 9th place for the stage--a great effort for the big guy. we've kicked ourselves a bit for disbanding as a team (we'd be crushing the team race), but in the end we did each want to run our own races and get out of this experience everything that we can. it's a great feeling to have all three of us doing well (touch wood) heading into the long day, as we call it.
 
we're all looking forward to our first real meal, our first real shower and toilet and shave in nearly a week. people have already started planning their meals (my first will be pizza--a popular choice). a lot of ground to cover between now and then though. i think tomorrow will be particularly tough after today's stage, which was easily the week's toughest--the times probably tell the whole story, with most of the top competitors coming in a full hour more than what we've done previously.
 
all three of us are slowly clawing our way back up the leaderboard after the penalty, which to be entirely honest we're not all that pleased about. but hey--coming in we didnt expect to be thinking much at all about our individual rankings anyway, so it''s a matter of perspective. at the very least it has given all three of us a bit of a spark. for pat and me, the 6 guys ahead of us on a given day are machines, guys we realistically cant hang with on a 40k stage. there was a seventh, but unfortunately he's been hit with what sounds like a stress fracture in his foot. he still plans on walking and finishing though, so good on him if he can gut it out. steve meanwhile seems to have gotten stronger each day--doesnt seem impossible that he'll be waiting for pat and me at the finish tomorrow. anything can happen on this long stage, so it will be exciting to see how the dust settles.
 
i didnt expect to be writing about the rankings so much. i should probably spend more time writing about the dead goat that we saw, or my lost waterbottle, or the spill that i took today (ouch), or the various animals we've seen (goats, cows, camels, sheep), or the plants (the villages are surrounded by poplars, there's a spiny bush that has shredded my forearms and shins), or the dozens of interesting people i've met, or even about whether or not i'll enter another one of these crazy events at some point. another day, perhaps.
 
i hope youre all well, and thank you once again for all the messages of support both via the blog comments and the messages through the site. they're a nice shot in the arm each day after the race.
 
signing out,
cinqo tres

Shortly after I sent my blog yesterday I paid a visit to the medical tent to get some advice on my toes. My second toe is longer than my first, and it spent yesterday's rocky stage slamming against the front of my shoe, creating something of a blister, with pressure under my toenail...the solution? why, drill a hole in the toenail of course! so using a beveled needle i released said pressure. it was pretty sweet.
 
a bit of controversy with today's stage, and i'm curious to see what, if anything, they do to resolve it. the short of it is that at a point a bit after halfway through the stage someone sabotaged the course, moving several of the flag markers that guide us, sending people up a nasty climb into a barren plateau. it basically caught everyone in the top 15 or so, and will create a bit of a shuffle in the standings. i lost about a half hour (i think) due to the detour and time spent searching for the next flag. when we finally descended the ridge several other runners were making their way up to where we were--a bit of a psychological punch in the stomach. pat and i barreled up the hill from that point, upset and determined to claw back some ground. from the final checkpoint, we had a long, slow 400m climb over 8.5km. the altitude really began to take hold (i believe we went from about 2100m to 2500m) and i (like many others) flagged a fair bit. pat is a demon on hills, and i think was still seething from the earlier detour, and took off up the rocky trail to finish the stage, about 7 minutes ahead of me.
 
the buzz among the competitors is all about the detour, and several of the top runners are rightfully upset. while the atmosphere is very collegial, with eveyrone making fast friends, just about everyone has a sense of where they're ranked and who's around them. i guess we'll see what happens. otherwise, it appears in the official standings that team kuma has now been docked our one hour for splitting up (per my previous blog), so the three of us will have some work to do if we're going to climb the ladder. the next two days are going to be pretty brutal---several climbs over ridges tomorrow with substantial elevation change, followed by our 80km day. i'd expect to see a lot of shuffling in the leaderboard.
 
physically i'm feeling pretty well. my legs are a bit shot today after all the climbing, and i expect to be sore tomorrow for the first time this week. will do a lot of stretching and work on getting some of the lactic acid out. i'm coping with the altitude a bit better now (now that i'm not running, i suppose.) it's about 4:30pm so we still have plenty of time to recover before morning. everyone is running a pretty significant calorie deficit right now---i'm eating around 2900/day, but burning around 5000 on the runs alone. i've overbudgeted calories for tomorrow and thursday, so may move a bit of that forward to tonight to re-energize a bit for tomorrow's hard day. it's amazing how delicious something as simple as honey cashews become. (thanks, will---i truly owe you for that one.)
 
tonight we're camped out somewhere below shipton's arch (also called heaven's gate) which is (i believe) the largest natural arch in the world. apparently this arch was discovered decades ago, then lost, and was only rediscovered around 2002. pretty wild---gives a sense as to the middle-of-nowhere feel out here. tomorrow we ascend to the arch--should make for stunning views. as an aside, running through small villages today and being greeted by smiling faces of all ages got me to thinking. (surprise surprise.) i'm pretty fortunate to be in a position to engage in such frivolities as running across a desert, "for fun".
 
oh, forgot to mention--the weather turned today, to overcast and cool, a welcome change. we'll see what the desert throws at us tomorrow...
 

I should start by thanking everyone for the messages. i apologize for not being able to respond to you directly. i have the right to compose a grand total of  6 blogs/emails this week, and the blog is the more efficient way to reach everyone, especially if i want to write everyday. (mom and dad, thanks especially for your messages--they count the most.)
 
today was a much better day than yeseterday on pretty much all fronts. i think it all started with my resolution of the smartube issue---turned out to be a gross (and nearly costly) user error. oops. issue resolved. my hydration was fine all day today. a couple of small blisters developed, but i treated the potentially problematic one quite early. pat and i started out with the primary goal of going out strong and getting as far as we could before the heat really kicked in. (it turns out that my watch was dead-on yesterday--temps were over 35, and i hear they topped out over 40. today we were about 3/4 through the stage when the temp ticked up from 29 to 35, and then reached 39 as we made our way through an amazing sandy canyon. we finished before temps rose further, and plenty of people continue to comment on the poor souls walking who will spend all day in the sun.
 
my legs are feeling pretty strong, and in general we've done a good job of holding back, keeping something in the tank for the rest of the long week ahead. it all comes down to feet and hydration in my view, and management of both.
 
the atmosphere has grown increasingly fun as everyone gets to know each other a bit more. as i type, bryan adams is blasting on the speakers, people are lounging around drinking tea and protein drinks, walking gingerly in sandals and sunnies, the irish girls have hung a flag out their tent, and spirits are generally pretty high. a few people have pulled out of the race so far, victims of hydration issues, i believe. one was actually quite an experienced racer, who just couldn't keep anything down--might have been the altitude, i haven't heard the full report.
 
i neglected to mention yesterday that we stayed overnight in a small rural village--yet another warm welcome, once again with smiling faces, music and dancing. local children crossed the finish line to a banging drum with every racer. we were spoiled a bit in that we got to sleep on a floor indoors... although i think i prefer our current camp, a straw covered field.
 
i don't know if information on the various stages has been posted on the 4deserts website--i've heard that they've posted some videos and photos, which will do better justice in sharing the view than my dearth of adjectives. today was highlighted by a run through dunes of red clay--believe the stage was called Mars on Gobi. we finished by running through an inferno of a canyon. we were lucky enough to have a breeze for much of the day--which was particularly nice as we made our way across some of the rockiest, undulating terrain we've had.
 
i have about 5 people standing behind me eagerly awaiting a turn at a computer, so i'm going to close out for now. thanks again for all the support---the messages sent through the website have served as a great boost, so please do keep them coming. they really mean a lot.
 
Until next time,
shawn

so stage 1 is down, 5 remain. i didnt get a chance to post last night before the race. plenty of builldup--equipment checks, a 3hr bus ride, and a delightful welcome ceremony in a local village, replete with singing, dancing, and that awesome game with men on horseback and a dead goat from Rambo III (or something akin to it anyway--none of us understood the rules). events like this give great perspective--i had never have pondered the unique and wonderful cultures we've encountered here, and the welcome we received was tremendous and flattering. i cant put it into proper words right now--regretfully i'm a bit lacking on creativity post-run.
 
day one itself went reasonably well, with one bit of negative news. pat, steve, and i entered as a team, team kuma. the rules of the race dictate that teams must stay together throughout the event. if you split up, you're out of the team race. unfortunately, that's what we did. we knew coming in that it was a possibility, but we figured that we'd give it a crack and see what happened. it was a tough decision, but pat and i pulled ahead of steve around the 25km mark. we'll each get penalties on our individual time now, but realistically none of us is in the running for the individual title anyway. :) (sorry smalone, if youre reading)
 
otherwise, i managed my hydration a bit poorly today. i took a risk by trying out a new hydration system (a smartube) which was a miserable failure. water was sloshing out. i'm not sure if it wasnt on right or if the design doesnt lend itself well to running, but i quickly threw it into my bag and reverted to bottles-only... i carried way too much water at one point, and way too little at another, and did a poor job of steadily hydrating. electrolytes were fine though. lesson learned (early, fortunately).
 
the heat hasnt been too bad. my watch showed that it hovered around 35c, reaching 39 or so. i think the readings may be a bit high due to the direct sun exposure. the sites/terrain are amazing--on a more creative day i'll hopefully do it more justice. the gobi is not a sandy desert (around here anyway--i hear it does contain the world's tallest dunes in another area), but it is a rocky one. much of today was on rocky paths and a few roads--a bit hard on the feet at points. today was one of the 'easier' days we'll have--if a marathon is ever easy. one of the great things about this race is that your pack gets lighter everyday as you eat your food. i started at around 10kg--22lbs--(half of it food, roughly) before water, of which i've carried about 2 liters (2kg, 4.4lbs) at any given point. i'm not counting on speeds increasing much from here though!
 
happy to report zero blisters thus far, which is good considering we had a few river crossings right off the bat--wet feet increase your odds of blistering. it's about 430pm here as i type. will spend the rest of the afternoon and evening here rehydrating and enjoying my first rehydrated meal of the trip. yum. it's pretty wild here in that the sun doesnt set until around 11pm or so. like the rest of china, this area runs on beijing time. gotta wonder if that changes at some point.
 
otherwise, the atmosphere here is amazing---we've met a lot of interesting people doing a lot of really cool things---i've had fun trying to get inside the heads of the folks who have done several of these events. a lot of expats it seems---very few people seem to have always lived in their home countries. no real surprise, i guess, but inte.resting nonetheless. i think somewhere north of 20 countriees are represented in the field of around 130. it was actually tough to go to bed last night because several of us were hanging out around a campfire exchanging stories. the altitude, slight jetlag, rocky ground, and general lack of sleep leading up to the event (including the 24-hr sojourn to kashgar) have made sleeping difficult for all... not to mention the snoring, and constant shuffling of people getting up to urinate---which happens to all of us after a few liters of water in the evening!
 
we have a great group of tentmates, who've warmed quite nicely to team kuma''s antics--always a risk on that front. in true extreme fashion, one girl is making us all look bad by having signed up only 2 wks ago. another guy arrived with zero, i repeat zero, gear after an airline snaffu. fortunately he's received a lot of donations... unfortunately those donations dont include a sleeping bag. he's an easygoing bloke though, and he'll gut it out just fine.
 
ive rambled on a lot of stuff, and i'm sure i havent adequately described this all. but it is truly a great experience (thus far--ask me on the 80km day). i havent been this focused on the present in quite awhile, which is a darn good feeling, rivaled only by that of not having my blackberry.
 
pat (diaz) is sitting next to me right now working on his own blog post, which you should check out. hopefully he's giving a bit more color than this guy. i'm off to drink some tea and put my feet up (literally--fighting the lactic acid buildup). will try to update each night after the run, but no guarantees.
 
be well,
shawn

The excitement grows, the anxiety abates.

The anxiety grows, the excitement abates.

Did you ever have one of those little wave machine things that sits on your shelf and goes baaaaack and forrrrrth, baaaaack and forrrrth? That's me right now. (If the manic posts, re-posts, addenda, etc. weren't evidence enough...)

I realized that Steve, Pat and I have disparate groups of friends/family who will be reading our respective posts, so I thought it might be good to give a bit of background on who we are. Pat (Diaz) claims he'll be launching his blog from the desert, and I think Steve (Kodish) might also, so if you read mine then you should definitely read theirs. The three of us thrive off poking fun at one another, so if one of us embarrasses himself on the run next week then the other two are bound to tell a good story about it.

The quick summary: Pat and Steve are good buddies from school. (Aussi translation: Pat and Steve are good mates from uni.) Both had itchy feet and ended up in foreign lands--Steve in Tokyo, Pat in Sydney. I, meanwhile, have lived a nomadic life of my own--after uni I lived in Switzerland, then London, before moving to Sydney. It turned out that Pat and I live a few blocks apart, and have led oddly parallel lives--both wrestlers from Michigan who ended up working in finance and living in Bondi Beach. That's a pretty small sample set.

While our friend Will (the Englishman from an earlier post, enjoys mayonnaise; still following?) planted the seed about doing a race like this, it was Steve who convinced us to enter the Gobi March. And thus Team Kuma was born. While Kodish and I have only met once in person (on a legendary night out on one of his Sydney visits) and communicate mostly via email, we share two very important bonds: 1) the Gobi March, and 2) making fun of Patrick Diaz.

While Pat and I have had the luxury of training together for the past several months, Kodish has been stuck in Tokyo running on a giant hamster wheel and inhaling car exhaust. I do believe that city might be the least conducive in the world to training for an extreme endurance event, especially when Geronimo's is open.

If the stars align, the three of us will arrive Friday morning in Beijing on separate flights from Tokyo, LA, and Sydney, and meet to begin our journey to Kashgar and beyond. We plan on making Kodish carry our packs (he's the biggest) while Diaz and I shop for our mandatory equipment in duty-free. (What are electrolytes? Where can I get them? ...kidding---lame endurance humor.)

So far we haven't had too many issues... except for the fact that Pat mangled his shoes with epoxy yesterday and I had to buy him a new pair because they'd discontinued the line in the US, where he's visiting family before the race. (Sorry, buddy, they doubled the price since your last pair.) But he likes challenges, which is why I won't give him his new shoes to try to break in until he trades me his Expedition Spaghetti Bolognaise for my Backpacker's Pantry Kung Pao Chicken. That stuff's the gift that keeps on giving, Clark...

Someone once told me that your first thought is the purest. It contains the most truth, is the least dressed up. So when you write anything, goal number one should be to get the first thought onto the page. Everything from there is support and editing. I don't know if that's true, but it sounds like a nice theory.

I've never written anything so public before. Sure, this little community is fairly well contained, with many of the people bound by a common experience, but the doors have flung open of late. Perhaps it was a bad time to be honest.

I received a couple "WTF?" emails from people close to me about my post on the 'why' (which was actually titled Dr. StrangeVent, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the 'Why'--title got shortened by the website; if you don't get it, don't worry.) I figured that I should clarify.

My first thought got lost in the mix somewhere, and has been misidentified. The point of the 'Why' blog entry was to try to express how frustrating it is repeatedly trying to articulate a very complex idea in just a few words that often seem to fall on deaf ears. (That's why I thought Nick's Dawson's Creek comparison was so apt, even if his reasons for saying that were entirely different.) It (the entry) categorically was not about comparing my experience to anyone else's. In a certain sense I was imploring people a) to listen to me fully in trying to understand the 'why' (i.e. ascertain it yourself rather than swallow a soundbyte) and b) to think more critically about their own 'whys'. To me the driving force of the post was the analogy to the guy with the broken foot--that is what caused me to write in the first place. At no point did I intend to compare the Gobi March to anything anyone else has undertaken.

I seriously considered pulling the post, but I figured that in the spirit of intellectual honesty, and of preserving the integrity of this experience (warts and all), I'll keep it up there. I hope I didn't offend and/or sound like an arrogant jerk. Because I am one and I try to hide that.

So that's two posts, two apologies now, and a lot more philosophical mumbojumbo than I intended. As an aside, the mayonnaise furor grows. Who knew people were so passionate about a condiment?

...I deeply offended a friend/Englishman recently with my mayonnaise comments. I thought for awhile about how I could apologize without actually having to apologize, but couldn't come up with anything. So, to all the mayonnaise lovers out there, who may or may not happen to be English, I apologise. (See, I even spelled it right... Oops, spelt it right.)

It's not your fault that you're addicted to that hideous goo.

In other news, my 'taper' has more closely resembled a 'stop'. I've taken "listening to my body" to a whole new level by a) drinking a bottle of red wine with dinner, twice in the last week, b) eating an entire Sara Lee Bavarian chocolate pie last night, just because, and c) opting not to go running on several days because I "don't want to do too much". The good news: I feel pretty darn good, and I'm genuinely excited to arrive in Kashgar, meet everyone, and get this event underway. (Even if Kodish succeeds in convincing me to leave early, re-route through Tokyo, and have a big send-off in Roppongi...)

I spent a fair portion of this weekend with my friend Will (an Englishman as well, enjoys mayonnaise) who ran the Marathon des Sables last year. It was nice to get his take on everything, to keep things in perspective while I obsessed over the 'honey cashews or regular cashews' issue for 10 minutes in Woolies on Sunday. I've finally realized that all of my last-minute planning is really just circle-running. The big pieces are in place. Whether I decide to bring an iPod or not (probably not), or if I bring both Body Glide and Hydropel (probably), or if my sunscreen is SPF 28 or SPF 30, will probably not have much bearing on how I finish the race. I will have gaiters on my shoes (velcro glued this Saturday, grrrrr). I will have plenty of food (thanks to Back Country, Oreos, High5). My patches will all be properly sewn on my shirts/jackets (grumble, grumble). The rest, just details.

In my head I keep coming back to the "chance favors the prepared mind and body" quote that I mentioned previously. For the most part I think I know what to expect in the Gobi. From here it's just a matter of reacting appropriately, executing. The next couple days will be spent working, relaxing, and reaching out to friends and family. I've mentioned elsewhere that the charity fundraising aspect of this event has taken on a bigger meaning than I could have expected, and I'm quite thankful for how personal this journey has become. It feels good to have taken part in helping raise awareness for an important issue.

So... it's finally here. Almost. Well, not yet. Close though. Is there still time to train harder?

My mom emailed yesterday and knocked me off the rails. "Don't comprehend quite why you are doing this, but this is your journey and you have to do what you have to do in your life." Thanks Mom, I think.

Nick Anderson said it best recently: "I wanted to write one blog about why I am doing the race and I am still a little undecided. Every time I try and write about it, it sounds a little like a script for an episode of Dawsons Creek."

That's where I am too. Maybe it's the anxiety associated with the management of the last few pre-race days (yep, my shoulder strap on my pack broke, I have no gaiters and am no longer friends with Australia Post, and I still haven't told half my friends that I've entered this race or hit my charity fundraising goals), but my replies to the 'why' question have become increasingly curt and borderline confrontational.

Part of me thinks that the answer lies in a bridge of understanding that is wrought by the experience. I suppose it's tautological to say that you can't comprehend why unless you're actually doing it, but truth lives in that statement. The counterargument might be that there had to be a reason that I entered the race in the first place. Fair point, but my response: There doesn't have to be a good, articulated, reasoned reason, however.

I don't think I'm alone in that feeling. I'm running the Gobi March because I want to, because I can, because it's a high enough bar that I feel like I'm accomplishing something. I have a relatively comfortable existence, and this is my way of pushing out of that to remind myself not to coast too much, to relocate the boundaries of my character, and to provide a new, unique perspective on my human experience. Maybe that's why I've grown sick, almost offended, of the 'why' question. Because welling in me each time I hear it now is the desire to snap, "Figure it out yourself!"

Or something like that. This isn't at all a jab at the people who pose the 'why' question. It's more akin to the guy who breaks his foot and is on crutches, and *everyone* asks him what happened. Sure, each person is concerned; they genuinely care for his wellbeing. But when everybody asks, the patience eventually wears thin. "Yes, I broke my godd*mn foot. Now will you please just hold the door for a second?" (Can you tell that I'm there?)

The question I ask myself is, "Why do people ask 'why'?" Would they really reflect on the real response, the Dawson's Creek one? Or are they just being polite? In a world of sound-bites and short attention spans, are they perhaps just looking for an answer like, "I'm on a reality television show," or "if I finish it I win $10,000 and I get to meet the Queen"?

Most of us have busy lives. I live thousands of miles from most of my closest friends, and I don't communicate with them anywhere near as much as I might like to. Many of them will not have read this blog. And all of them have asked me 'why'? My response, with all due respect and love, is to have the patience and fortitude to figure it out yourself, perhaps for yourself.

Not a full update today, just this:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601093&sid=adox.IK.9cFc&refer=home

(You'll need to have read the 'mayo' post.)

I'm at dinner last night in one of my favorite restaurants in Sydney with some wonderful friends who are new to the city, and I'm all excited because I have the table's attention and I'm really animated and telling all about this desert running thing that I'm doing and this great charity that I'm raising money for, and then the bomb hits from the far corner of the table...

"Did you hear about this documentary that Matt Damon's sponsoring? Some guys are running across the Sahara and he's raising money for some clean-water-Africa group as well."

Get back in your box, Shawn. 

I googled "matt damon documentary water desert" when I got home. Sho nuff. It appears that some guy named Matt Damon has co-founded a charity that does similar work to that of WaterAid, and they're producing a documentary around three guys who are going on a run across the desert that boggles the mind. For the avoidance of doubt, I've never heard of this character and I'm pretty well chuffed that he'd nick my idea. What's a guy gotta do for some attention around here?

Training update: no news. I sleep rather than run now.

Gear update: somehow I still have yet to acquire about half my gear. How did it come to this? What have I really been up to the last four months? Do I really need gaiters? And how am I meant to sew (seriously, sew?) patches onto my favorite kit?

Food update: I love dehydrated/freeze dried food. Love it. Really. Especially the spaghetti bolognaise. I don't think I'm bringing anything else. Maybe some jerkey (or biltong, for my South African boys, eh.)

Charity update: I really have been floored by the positive response to my efforts thus far. I haven't even started begging yet. And as an aside, my teammates Pat and Steve are having a great go with their charity as well, LUNGevity, which is another great cause with a more personal story. Check it out here: http://events.lungevity.org/site/TR/Events/General?pxfid=9960&fr_id=1030&pg=fund&et=iC0oqr0dqxGOw72JcShMjQ..&s_tafId=1061

That's all for now.

As if I don't inflict enough pain upon myself, others are raising the stakes for me. "Sure, I'll gladly sponsor you with a donation to WaterAid... but I'll double it if you eat two mayonnaise sandwiches."

I hate mayonnaise. It is a vile substance that serves no positive purpose, nutritionally or culinarily (if that's a word), in this universe or any other. It is slippery and gross and bad for you. The English love it, and insist on putting it on everything. Go to a Pret in London and you can find one (count 'em), one sandwich--the salmon, mind you--without mayonnaise... in an entire sandwich shop. And we all know that the English have awful taste in food. (Although they did produce Jamie Oliver and F-bomb Ramsay.)

The fool that I am, I make it known that I detest mayonnaise. So if you go to my Aussie fundraising site (http://www.everydayhero.com.au/shawn_harmon) you'll see the formal offer for a doubled donation from one GJ and, daringly, a youtube clip of the act. I will likely vomit, but others have agreed to double their own donations as well. And, well, I can't let this money escape WaterAid. So, if running 250km through the desert isn't enough to get people to donate to this great cause, then perhaps my going through true pain and suffering will be.

Date/location of the act: TBD.

Until next time...

“Dude, we beat Dean Karnazes.”

“How’d that happen?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was it a mistake?”

“Doesn’t look like it."

Sure enough, after 100 killermeters, we finished ahead of The Ultramarathon Man by about seven minutes. Granted, the guy apparently ran a 350km race the weekend before, was jetlagged, and rumored to be injured, but it doesn’t say that in the results as far as I can see (http://thenorthface.racetectiming.com/CategLB.aspx?RaceId=329). And in his words, “I would rate this race as the toughest hundred kilometers I've ever done without a doubt, so I applaud anyone who finished.” (I bet you say that to all the girls, Dean.)

Indeed, there were a lot of DNFs. With no disrespect at all toward Karno, we were encouraged to have a) finished so well, b) had no significant injuries, c) had no feet issues, and d) experienced such a valuable yardstick a month out from Gobi . More than anything, Saturday let us know that we’ve done a lot of things right in our preparation. We definitely need to adjust several things, but Pat and I both learned a lot in this race.

At about 82km my body began to break down a bit, which started to pull my mind with it. It was dark, and we were running (well, walking) up an interminable hill that rose about 900m in less than 10km. Fortunately, the last checkpoint came at 89k, where we loaded up on food and drink for the finish. We didn’t have any support crew of our own, and in self-sustaining style had opted to carry all our mandatory gear (including extra food) rather than use drop bags.

The last 5km were probably the longest I’ve ever run—highly technical, wet, wind howling, body busted, and guided by a headlamp. I’ve been amazed before by the swings that I have in long runs; the lulls contrast so much with the ‘second winds’. I could see that a lot in this 100 km, and it felt great to feel that I had something in the tank at the end it all.

Crossing the finish line was a huge relief. I can’t say enough about how well The North Face ran this event or about how enthusiastic and helpful the volunteers were. I never expected to have someone hand me a massive blanket and make me tea after a race. (Don’t worry, RTP, I’m not getting used to it!)

I took a full three days off running, with a leg massage in the middle. Three days felt about right. (How long do you wait to call a girl when you meet her? I don’t know, three days? How long do you wait to run after you smash your body? I don’t know, three days?) Today I ran about five miles with a light pack and the body felt ok. I have a bit of a twinge in my knee (see the 82km body breakdown, above), but otherwise feel great. Zero blisters on my feet after Saturday’s ultra. To me this means that I’m wearing the right shoes and socks. (Another giant ‘thank you’ to the kind folks at The North Face.)

So yeah. I guess this is a bit of a dry report, but it’s a satisfied one. I finally paid for my flights to China today, so all the big pieces are in place. But the question arose the other night… What will the next challenge be?

…Oh, I almost forgot the most important thing. I’m raising money for WaterAid, a great organization that provides clean water, sanitation, and hygiene education in developing Africa and Asia . It’s a great group where the marginal impact of a dollar spent is tremendous… They save a lot of lives. I’m excited to be able to help out. You can check out my fundraising pages in Australia, the US, and UK the below. Please spread the word!

Aus: http://www.everydayhero.com.au/shawn_harmon 
US: http://www.firstgiving.com/shawn_harmon 
UK: http://www.justgiving.com/shawn_harmon

 

 

Fail!: While I’m often accused of thinking too much, I’m not always guilty of making good decisions. Case in point my blood donation prior to my last post. Now, common sense might advise against such an action whilst training for a grueling endurance event. Blood contains red blood cells, which carry oxygen to the rest of your body. When you donate blood, you give away about 10% of what you have. So, all things being equal, your capacity to get oxygen to your tissues (e.g. muscles) decreases immediately by 10%. (Correct me if I’m wrong here.) Wikipedia says, “Red blood cells are replaced by bone marrow into the circulatory system at a slower rate, on average 36 days in healthy adult males.” So… I guess it will take about a month for me to be back at full capacity. Or something like that.

Which might explain the horrendous training sessions I had the weekend after my donation. Like, “holy sh*t I can’t believe I’m this winded and my legs won’t push up this hill and I want to go rest for a week” horrendous. It was bad. If the blood wasn’t enough, I decided to round it out for the Training Trifecta: 1) blood donation, 2) overzealous consumption of red wine, 3) lack of sleep.

Pat wasn’t impressed. Nor was my masseur, a torturous Chinese man with a knack for evoking profanity. “You should have rested,” he stated softly. “Now your muscles not recovered properly.” So I succumbed and did what I haven’t really done in four months: I rested. 

And it bloody worked. Pat and I have been training 5+ days a week for months, rarely missing a workout, with increasing intensity, duration and weight. Both our bodies ended up cracking a bit around the same time, and we took last week almost entirely off. On the weekend, we did a 4-hr run and a 3-hr run with full weight, and were back in form. We’re both resting a bit more this week as a mini-taper into an ultra on Saturday—more on that below. 

Fundraising: It took me awhile, but I settled on a charity that a) I’m passionate about and b) is a fundamentally critical cause. Due to my nomadic life, I’m setting up donor pages in the US, UK, and Australia, so as to allow for the tax benefits of local currency donations. More on this in a separate post, once I craft the persuasive appeal with which to woo money. Facebook friends will surely hide me from the News Feed before all is said and done. I will put in a plug as well for my teammates Steve (in Tokyo ) and Pat, who are supporting another great charity a bit closer to their hearts. 

Food: I’m finally earnestly getting into the dehydrated food experimentation stage. Electrolytes and energy bars sorted—a big thank you to the kind people at High Five—but the meals are the tricky ones. Am big on the Mountain House lasagna—not enough calories though. (Egads.) Back Country spag bol? Mmmmm…. What about brekky? Need to read some more blogs/forum posts on this. I fully expect to build my own spreadsheet with weight/calorie ratios, as I’ve seen others reference. Nerdy, yes.

Feet: I’m officially nervous about them, because I’ve encountered no serious issues in training. Sure, I’ve lost two toenails, but once they’re gone it’s actually much easier. My right big one is ready to go, and I think Saturday’s ultra will see its detachment. I’ve not really blistered, and I have only a few light calluses. All of this has meant that I haven’t been forced to tend much to my feet… which has led to a welling anxiety that my feet will disintegrate by day 3 and I won’t know what to do about it. 

F running: Saturday’s ultra is a 100km event through the Blue Mountains. It will mark the peak of our training for Gobi, after which we’ll do a long taper. I’d heard others say it, but having events that serve as yardsticks and slice up the training really does make a huge difference. Mid-March feels like eons ago, but at the time the trail marathon that we ran really broke the monotony of our training. This event seems to be falling at a perfect time as well. My body and mind are feeling great, ready for it. (“Chance favors the prepared mind and body,” a wise friend recently told me.) It’s hard to believe that Gobi is creeping up so quickly. Gear and other logistics are gathering steam as my new obsession, but all of that can wait at least a few more days. 

As an added bonus, Dean Karnazes is competing with us this weekend. I’m told that he’s getting off a plane from an ultra in China the day before our event. The man is a machine. I don’t expect to be the only one humbly holding out my copy of Ultramarathon Man at registration on Friday. 

If I’m not hospitalized on Monday, I’ll look to post a summary of the event. I’m oddly calm about it, despite the fact that it’s my first ultramarathon. I mean, it’s just training for that China desert thing I’m doing next month. Yawn.

I gave blood today. I'd never done that before. And before I tell why I'd like to encourage others to do the same, and to repeat the gesture. It's one of those things that many of us rarely consider, but has a tremendous impact. www.donateblood.com.au tells me that one in 30 people donates blood, while one in three of us eventually needs it. That's a big spread.

My motivations weren't entirely noble. In fact, the impetus was the fact that I needed to know my blood type for this race. (Is it odd that I'm nearly 30 years old and don't know my blood type?) Only then did I contemplate what it means to donate blood. So I'm not on a high horse, but strings of good deeds start somewhere.

After I was finished the nurse told me not to lift heavy things, or to engage in any vigorous (was that the word she used?) physical activity for about three days. Here's the number to call if you're feeling dizzy or weak or have any issues. Et cetera. In the back of my head I knew I was going for a run three hours later. In fact, I'd planned it. I ate my chocolate chip cookies and doritos like a good boy, but I had full intention to strap on a 10kg pack and run 10km home from work.

The result? I was fine. I actually felt great. So maybe they only took a half-liter of my bad blood. If anything, my heart rate was marginally elevated--averaged 157 on a 5m45s/km pace. Does that sound right to any doctors out there?

On the run home the whole blood-letting thing got me thinking about other ways to train my body before Gobi . Like, how can I reasonably simulate the desert heat, especially with winter approaching here? So I turned to Pat, my running partner, and said, "Hey dude, maybe we should wear plastics in our training runs." Pat nearly punched me.

Let me explain. He and I are both wrestlers, or used to be anyway. Not like big-time WWF (now WWE, grrrr) wrestling, but like in the Olympics. The real sport, the one that was a sport long before basketball. It typically involves losing a lot of weight--a topic for its own blog. A popular technique for shedding said weight? Wearing plastic suits that trap your body heat and don't allow your sweat to evaporate, forcing yet more sweat, such that you lose substantial water weight in a short amount of time. Due to the danger, using plastics was illegal in high school, although everyone did it, and I believe it's now illegal in university. (I've also seen it ridiculously touted as a legitimate weight-loss technique on television. It's not.) Plastics for most wrestlers are a symbol of the most painful part of the wrestling experience, the 'hate' part of the love-hate relationship that many of us have with the sport, the reason that Pat nearly punched me. I'm sure he has his own stories, but I vividly remember sitting in a sauna in Las Vegas in 2000, physically spent, wearing plastics below three layers of sweats, having lost 12 pounds in the last day, wondering if I had one more to give, and how I could lose it. I'd ceased sweating, my mouth felt full of cotton, my vision blurred, my head pounding and dizzy. And I made it... face shriveled, eyes sunken, legs wobbling, ~152 pounds (69kg).

Today, I'm back at that 165 lb starting weight, but this time I'm not cutting. I'm allowed--encouraged, in fact!--to rehydrate and nourish myself. So... plastics? Probably not. Too many bad memories. And saunas? We'll see. It has been awhile... which leads me to another point. When I told my sister about the Gobi March, her first response was, "Is this some sort of 'I'm-turning-30-and-I'm-freaking-out' thing?"

Busted. Maybe a little bit.

 

 

So I just sat down to write a cracker of an opening post about my reasons for running the Gobi March, how my training is going, and blah-ditty-blee... and I got distracted, took too long, and was logged out when I went to save the draft. For the better--the thing was dry and irrelevant. Instead, dear readers, you're getting an abridged initial instalment. The short: my legs hurt, I just lost a toenail and have two more darkened and on their way off, and I'm puzzled about how to prepare for running obscene distances at elevation in desert heat. But hey, we'll get there. I'll also look to have, before long, a worthwhile cause with which to badger everyone I know for money. A few things brewing, so stay tuned. Otherwise, after being told by most of the people I know that I'm crazy, I'm beginning to believe it.

"Bid me run, and I will strive with things impossible." -William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar