The final night in the desert under the stars was spectacular. Out on the sand dunes, and a long way from "civilization", the sky was illuminated with the most bright lights I've seen in a long tme. At one point I could not keep count of the flaing tails on starts shooting in all directions.

As I struggled to find sleep I listened to the hundreds of different breathing rythms around me and the sound of a great inhaling and exhaling- it felt very tribal. It is rare to share this type of self-reflective adventure with this many other people, all moving through powerful and different evolutions.

On the bus ride home I began reflecting on the past 7 days and, more importantly, the past 7 months and I spent some time thinking about three important players in this journey.

Ryan Dipede has become an incredibly close soul mate over the past 10 years as we have tested our physical limits in the mountains of Davos, Switzerland to the coastline of Big Sur, California to the ups-and-downs of South-Africa through the desert in the Gobi. Ryan has pushed me and we have established a spiritual place where we are able to helf-evolve together- for this I am deepy appreciative.

Alison is my all-encompassing training coach. To keep balance and focus Alison has provided with the right questions at the right time and the support required to not only train, but to raise four of the greatest kids, conduct business and ensure we keep in close contact with our friends around the world. My love for her only grows with the opportunity to continue achieving and developing as a person.

My Mom's determination was the impetus that pushed me to sign up for this adventure. This is the Mom that appeared in the local Toronto newspapers as the "the fittest pregnant woman in Toronto" before my sister Shauna was born. Mom is the person out the door as the sun is only considering getting up riding the streets of Goose Rocks and she has provided our family with endless amounts of energy and commitment. It is in my Mom's name that we have raised almost 20K for a charity in which she worked tirelessly, Ronald McDonald House Charities.

A word also of thanks to my fellow competitors who worked so hard and were there when I needed to share thoughts, the "flying frenchmen"- Francois and Ollivier, Stu, Ricky, the young Estonian, Ironman Mark, the dutch manager of the Pacific, Lynn, Tony and many others. Congratulations to all of you for the effort.

Finally to my friends and my beautiful extended family, thanks for the ongoing support and words of encouragement over the past weeks/months. Although it may not always show, I am extremely appreciative of my chance to walk this great path we are on with you all. When I think about this I thnk of one of my favourite lines from "The Little Prince",

"What is most essential is invivsble to the eye- it is only with the heart that one can see rightly." 

xo

100K was an experience- much of it alone in the desert in temperatures close to 40C (fortunately the clouds sheltered us much of the day). Thought a lot about my kids and what a privilege it is to be a Dad. How connected I can feel to my family, my sisters and parents, living thousands of kms away from them and now being thousands further. How important good friends are for the spirit.
This was the soul searching stage. 
 
Tough day on Stage 4 as the tent mate I wrote about earlier, Nick, was rushed by ambulance to a local hospital with dehydration and sun stroke and he was "somewhat stable" as of last night.
 
Also, Stewart (whom I've mentioned I've been running with a fair bit the first few days) and I picked up 2 of the front-running members of the Chinese team who were in some trouble without water and food and another 8 km left to go. I've never seen someone eat a handful of sports beans with as much voracity. We gave them some of our water and took them with us at a good pace. They were incredibly thankful and held hands with us for the last km (their Chinese crew interviewed Stew and I and asked us why we stopped to help them, we simply told them that's what we do in our countries. Frankly, what else do you say?)
 
Ryan is my good friend who is here with me. He just came in and I ran to him as I've been concerned this morning as stories came in about Ryan having convulsions in the desert, hallucinations and that he was on an IV drip (the rules here are that if you need 2 IV drips you are out of the race.) I was most concerned he would continue when he shouldn't rather then not finishing. I am extremely proud of his determination as I can't imagine what he has been though (he's in the medical tent and I'll de-brief after blogging). Amazingly there are still 50 competitors working towards the 36 hour time limit.
 
Alison should take this paragraph off as I had the "my wife will not be happy if I'm lost in the sand dunes forever" moment last night.
 
After leaving checkpoint 8 (88 km) in a very good space I started heading towards huge sand dunes. I bumped into one of the lead Chinese guys (one of the same as above) and we could not find any pink flags (these are marking the route). We finally saw a few on the dunes. I could see there were some running shoe prints in the sand so continued. After an hour I was in the dunes and completely disoriented with no markers and no people within site (and no more shoe prints). All that was going through my mind was Alison and the kids and as the sun was setting I started to get concerned. (By the way, Chinese kids love these pink flags and had taken some of the flags and moved others to different locations).
By some great luck, my emergency whistle blowing brought a Chinese local to the top of a sand dune peak a km away and I made my way to him and he was able to point me in the right direction. abot 6 km later running up and down dunes. I had been lost, really lost, for 90 minutes and without anything to drink. This made me quite sick but I made my way in and finished Canada Day feeling like a strong Canadian. Then slept hard.
 
Another tent mate Christian came in while I slept. He really took this running thing up for very personal reasons. His girlfriend dropped him a couple of years ago and ran the Gobi Desert Run (she finished second last in '08). Christian decided he might win her back by running the Gobi but in the training realized this was not about her but rather about him. This Royal Air Force graduate and now engineer has put on a great performance and finished well above his expectations. (I'm sure his new girlfriend will be pleased).
 
There is a final leg tomorrow. It is suppose to be quite easy but currently they are talking about 20+ km in the sand. I think this will be too hard for some of the finishers that are making it into camp on their last legs today. I have my first blisters of the event which I received in the sand last night. I'm hopeful the course will be sized so we don't lose any more competitors (and I can save my feet).
 
Time to check in on Ryan in the Medical tent. I'll try and write one more blog tonight if possible.
 
Thinking of you all and really appreciate the flow of blog and e-mails.
XO
 
PS Someone with a thermometer just entered the tent and showed us the temperature is now 50C.

Generator is out so the computers are on battery- limited time.
Sun is settingbeyond the distant mountains and everyone is exhausted. The last arrival was at 7 pm today- 37 hours- HUGE standing ovation.
I forgot an important message earlier.
When I was running through the dry salt flats yesterday I had one saying on my mind, thanks to my kids and one of their favourite movies, 'Stripes' (the racing zebra, not the Bill Murray/John Candy classic), "Don't look back, leave it all on the track."
I'll try and post a final blog tomorrow when we return.
xo

Stage 4 was entitled "Flaming Mountains" as we made our way into the heart of the red-scorched sands of the Turpan Basin. This was a day in a desert, incredibly dry heat and no where to find shade. We climbed a series of spectacular sand mountains and made our way through mazes of gulleys. Those in the front half of the finishers enjoyed the best of the day after our 6 am departure. It is now 12 hours into the race today and the campsite has become quiet. There are still racers out in the sun and the temperatures are over 40C in the sun.
 
This is the Heart of the Silk Road and it is the driest place I've ever experienced. That said, we are actually sitting in the mountains.
 
I've mentioned Stewart, a guy I've been running with on-and-off the last couple of days. The 2 of us were coming over the top of a ridge and ran into the number 2 runner who was without water and food. I've never seen a person eat 10 sports beans in one mouthful, and with such vengeance. He joined us and we picked up another Chinese front-runner 30 minutes later, also without food. Needless to say, young guys who have not been briefed well on how important nutrition and hydration are in this sort of activity.
 
Stan Lee is a self-styled "go-getter". 50 years old and full of beans. Stan was at UBC the same time as me and happened to be in the same residence as sister Suz (Totem). Stan set the record for longest Totem resident, he was there for 9 years as he made his way through under-graduate school and then nursing (2 guys and 150 girls- best time of his life). After that, he decided to become a dentist. Stan lives in Victoria, BC now and to keep himself busy he has opened a pizza shop "Pizza Pi" and a coffee shop "Wild Beans". Stan's attempting to run all 5 of these events this year (and instead of carrying freeze dried food Stan carries cans of food- his pack weighs 40% more then the average).
 
We're staying in an old Buddhist Monastery which is no longer used- it actually looks more like a big sand castle. Highlight was the local river for clean-up at the end of the day (until the Police came and let us know we did not have a permit to be on this land. Interestingly, I spent 30 minutes with one of the Policemen who sat down beside me as I'd snuck away to read. He wanted to practice his English and we had a very broken and slow-evolving conversation about his English class in 0-8 and some confusing matter of why he was not a teacher but a policeman.
 
Probably a good time to mention the volunteers. There are 60 volunteers standing out in the same blistering sun as us (albeit under a tent) handing out water, getting up early in the morning to boil hot water and setting up and knocking down our tents each day. Pretty impressive work. It makes me think of my support crew-the Lang Prague team, the larger Lang Gang and friends- thanks for the support.
 
Tomorrow is 99Ks. It will be a real test and I don't expect I'll be composing a blog until Friday. Mom, this is a good time for those prayers.
 
XO

Dan Parr, a young Englishman, is leading the race and I had afternoon "tea" with him. As a follow-on from the small world theme the last few days, Dave worked for the GEM Group (Global Experiential Marketing) at the same time I did in the late 90s. He was working for a UK based event activation company whose owners have now bought back the company and moved Dave to Singapore. This is Dave's third attempt at competing in a desert race having had a son 2 years ago and a daughter recently. As we are sleeping in a village tonight, Dave has secured the only bed in town, the rest of us have the luxury of beautifully carpeted raised flooring (luxury). What these villagers must think of the flip-flop wearing, smelly crowd of freeze dried food eaters I can't imagine.

Great course today as it was three very distinct landscapes (called 'Never Ending Canyon'). The first stage was in a deep river bed with big rocks and 6 river crossings. The terrain was really challenging wit bogs and quite a bit of dry brush but magnificient mountains towered on either side so it was cool. The second stage was the entryway to te desert, a long slightly declining rocky/sandy road which provided a view to the flat desert awaiting. The third stage was small up-and-downs in clay shale. This led to the outskirts of the desert, Daheyan Canyon,  and we were led into a beautiful little grove with a small snow fed river flowing through which was great for the feet.

I've just been told the 'Cyber-Tent' is closing early as we have been alerted that tomorrow's run starts with a 4 am 1.5 hr bus ride to who-knows-where. Hot water for breakfast will be ready at 3 am. Today the heat came in the afternoon, I'm told around 38C. Tomorrow will be over 40C.

Kyra, Solenne and Torin, Dad is super impressed with all your Sports Day accomplishments- Dad is thinking about you and very proud in this little spot in China.

Fantastic blogs and e-mails, really appreciated.

XO

BL

 

Just had dinner with Arjan, a Dutchman living in Singapore (which reminded me of a new Arjan in Prague- went on about the greatness of their football squad). Great guy who is working with an Australian bank (ANZ) managing some of their business in the "Pacifics", which includes Fiji, The Solomon Islands, Borneo and a few other islands I had not heard of before. Really interesting man who finds it challenging to continue balancing the need to drive profit for the banks with the need to invest in these very poor islands. Arjan was extremely sick yesterday (I forgot to mention that we were at high altitude, just over 7000 feet) and today was a slow recovery day.
I've also mentioned I have tentmates. Nick is an American living in Shangai and is a trooper. He is one of these guys who heard about the event and wanted to give it a try. So he has spent 15 hours out in the hot sun with more clothes on then I have in my winter wardrobe, walking sticks in hand, having a grande time. Nick is the IT guru/Jeopardy Champ who can provide technical input on generally any topic discussed in the tent, from drug components to GPS tracking code. We're all cheering for him as this is new territory and he is definitely working close to his limits. (He's also the guy who slept in this morning with all of us packing, eating and making plenty of noise and got out a little late).
We had some vey humourous fans part way through today's trek. Imagine running along a dry river bed, dry mountains surrounding you, a few dispersed cattle, and a Chinese farmer in local dress cheering us on while talking on his mobile phone. In a place that looks so big, so remote, so lost from "civilization", it can be so connected. I started thinking about this man's life, the simplicity- I wonder how the connectivity fits in and changes his life both in good and challenging ways.
Another beautiful campsite tonight, "Daheyan Canyon", whereas last night we were in a pasture surrounded by mountains in the distance, tonight the mountains tower directly overhead- the sun is starting to head behind them and the shadows are approaching.
The scoop around the campsite last night was the revelation that they have shortened a few of the initial days and extended Day 5 to 99 kms into the Turpan Basin (aka "The Furnace").  I think today's run was a good confidence builder for most people.
Thanks for your e-mails and blogs from UK, CZ, Belgium, US and, of course, Canada. Something to look forward to at the end of the day.
Arjan, let me know how the Dutch do.
XO

Tonight we are camping surrounded by stark mountain ranges of beiges, light greens and chrome rouge. The sun is starting to set which has brought the cold wind again from the north-west and we are all bundled in all the clothes we have brought.
It seems the organizers decided to start with hill climbing on the first day. Although a short distance of 32K, the last finishers just arrived after 9.5 hours on the course.
We spent much of the day following winding river beds and sharing our course with cows and sheep being tended to by weathered locals. There were a couple of incredibly solitary moements where I believe I could see for hundreds of kms in a few directions and could only recognize mountains, sky and a few wispy clouds.
Enjoyed spending some time with Stewart from Hong Kong (displaced Aussie) who has been doing these types of events for a few years- great to hear others stories and why they take on these types of challenges.
In case anyone from MasterCard is reading, I lined up at the front line with Ajay's replacement at Citi and his nephew- actually took their picture with a camel- a reminder of how small the world is before spending the day in the China 'Big Country'.
A great by-product of this type of event is time around the campsite after the event and meeting people from around the world- there are some great teams from Singapore, Hong Kong and Shang-hi.
I spent some quality time with Kirsten from Canada who just turned 50 and is on her 3rd event- gunning for 5 events. She's from Canmore, has 2 kids 22 and 20 and is from Canmore and is just an adventurer at heart. Very warm woman who really seems to love life and realizes how fortunate we all are to be out here, in the desert, doing what we love doing.
KSTD, Dad had a picture taken with camels and cows for you to see. Kyra I thought of you as a group of 20 horses slowly galloped by us at dinner tonight, being moved from one grazing place to another. Frankly, there is so little to eat I'm not sure what they have for meals.
I found out tonight that you can send an e-mail (under 'multimedia- e-mail a competitor') or blog (thanks Les for the blog).
Thanks Al for the message.
XO

Magical sunset tonight over the distant mountains past the sheep herders bringing their animals in for the evening. The locals are playing some music for us which mainly consists of some fast-paced rythmic drumming and an oboe-looking reed instrument (Baz and Al D would appreciate). It reminds me of the African drums running below the Moroccan snake-charmers.
We've arrived at our first campsite which is well sheltered in a grove of trees away from some cool winds coming from the snow-drenched mountains in the distant and across the plains. Good meal with a few treats of fresh fruit and my new Danish friends had a few Oreos which made me think of my Oreo-loving kids.
Ryan and I are in tent 3- "Han" and I've now met most of my tent mates- we're a good mix of Canadian, Brits, Americans and Aussies (I think). Kyra, Solenne, Torin- there are 9 people in my tent but we have to sleep as cose as we do in our red tent. Stan Lee is in our tent, a Canadian who is in his 50s and competing in his 6th desert ultra event- he has become the Advisor.
Exciting ride to the campsite from Urumqi with a few difficult bridge crossings for the buses and, after a bus grounded and had to be dug out, we ended up arriving quite late to camp.
Weather looks good for tomorrow although they are expecting solid winds.
Time to head back to the fire pit to listen to more music and start preparing for a good night sleep in the tent.
Thinking of family and friends (and running).
XO to KSTDA
BL

Relaxed morning (fantastic breakfast) in Beijing and nice flight to Urumqi in which we started meeting other competitors. Exited the airport in my shorts and linen shirt and met a cold breeze (13C) and pouring rain. 
Looking forward to check-in and heading into the desert tomorrow.

After an uneventful 16 hour journey Prague-London-Beijing, spent the afternoon in the mysterious Forbidden City and the glamourized Tianamen Square (large projector screens showing beautiful flowers and highlights from Shanghai Expo). Small motorized rickshaws and "art students" seem to be the most interested in drawing our attention with their horns and whispered words of great "art deals" that benefits students trying to get ahead.
Great catching up with my co-conspirator, Ryan Dipede.
Already miss Alison and the kids.