Well, its done and dusted!  I finished Stage 5 of the Gobi.

Summary:

The Good - I completed Stage 5 (76km) in 15h30m odd, a good four hours better than the Atacama long march (again close to 75km) where I took a little over 19h30m.  Also, I aim to finish this entire race in sub-50 hrs (fingers crossed), which would be ~9-10hrs better than the Atacama overall :).  Even adjusting for terrain differences, etc, my performance in this race has been super and I am quite happy with what I have done.

The Bad - Wanted: A fresh pair of hips and a new arse! 

The Ugly - Absolute bad (rocky) terrain for the first 45km of Stage 5 - it just comprised stones and gravel underfoot as well as a couple of undulations.  My feet have been brutalised on the undersoles and sides.  Also, I have no feeling left in my calves.  Will need to stretch and stretch some more now to get ready for tomorrow's 15km back into town.

Stage 5 comprised 7 Check Points varying between 8.5 and 10.5km.  We started off at 10 AM y'day.  I had buddied up with John from T17 on Stage 4 and we agreed to complete Stage 5 together.  The strategy was to ensure we got to CP3 with adequate time to spare.  We were extremely comfortable time-wise all the way to CP5.  I kept rubbing pain balm at each checkpoint and dosing myself with painkillers every 4 hours, since ITB syndrome was acting up BADLY on my right leg.  We stopped at CP5 at 7.45pm for a quick meal and rather than rest there, decided to move on.  It was a straight 30km run from there to Camp Kashgary which John and I completed in about 5h30m.

I literally collapsed in the tent from exhaustion.  Today is R&R and a fair bit of stretching and toning ahead of tomorrow's 15km fun run.  I am looking forward to the banquet as well.  A chance at proper food ;) after a week.

Thank you all for your kind wishes and support.

I'll put up a detailed race report on my running blog when I am back in India.

Best

Sumanth

Summarising Stage 4 - Treacherous but enjoyable at the end of it

We started off with a 7km uphill climb to Heaven's Gate.  The last 1 km to HG was on ladders and we also encountered a steep incline upward. The view was spectacular but I did not stop much. Came down to CP1.

CP1-2 and part of CP2-3 was quite bad.  Several 30-50 metre steep hills that we had to cross across a 14km distance, comprising dirt and animal tracks.  The incline at certain places was almost 60-70 degrees.  We had to tread extremely carefully coming down since the path was at best a feet wide in certain places and was a sheer 50-70 metre drop down.  Well, the next adventure is always around the corner ;)

I felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment on completing CP3.

CP3 to finish was a straight walk through a river crossing, an open road, some fields and finally past a quarry.  I was quite relieved to complete.  Finished the Stage in 10h20m.

Am in Camp now nursing a sore knee, I think it may be ITB syndrome due to the endless downhills for almost 14km.  So need to stretch a bit.

Stage 5 finally tomorrow, the long march for 75+ km.  Will update onc I complete.

Gary, buddy -  just  saw your email.  Thanks a bunch for the wishes.  Looking forward to reconnecting soon :)

Best

S

Stage 3 was both good and bad.  The distance to the Check Point 1 was a nice paced warm up.  Things sort of went downhill for the next couple of stages.  I recovered time between CP3 and 4, to finish at 7h20m thereabouts.  I seem to have moved up a fair bit, am sub-100 now up from 125-130 a couple of days ago.

The most brutal part of the day was between CP1 and 3.  The first half of this was a gravelly road followed by ascending and descending steep hillocks, one after the other.  The heights were ~10-20 metres, sometimes higher, but with an incline of 60 odd degrees, going and coming.  We went through roughly 3-4 km of such terrain before reaching CP2.  CP2-3 was on a track and river bed with just rocks and huge pieces of gravel.  Not very nice on the feet ;).  By the time I got to CP3, I was fairly exhausted.  The sun was also out fairly well and pretty much drained the juice out L. Anyways, I cant complain.  No blisters so far and I did soak my feet in medical water so they look OK now.

CP3 to Camp was a winding uphill dirt track with a sharp incline.  I realised that we ascended 1000m during the day’s run, with a 450m elevation gain in the last 8km leg alone.  Essentially, I just kept plodding on and was quite thankful to hear the Camp drums. 

Thanks again my dear Missus and Atri.  Will be back soon, just a couple of more days of runs in the sun.

To all my wonderful friends in G2 – primary hunter stats of agility and stamina were put to very very good use today.  If not for the extra weight, I’d have loved to have done it decked in T13 gear for the heck of it ;).  Thank you all for your support.  All the more genned now!

Dear Mama, Kurush, Shashank, Shanky, Anand, Fiona, Preethi, Nandini, Ashwin, Sunda, Niki, Jean/Herve, Tim, Martin (roomie), Gary, Ravi, Ani, Bhasker, Anil, Michelle, Mayank et al for your kind wishes and support.  Krish, I got puzzled looks when I enquired for the “item” ;)

Camp for the night is called Heaven’s Gate and tomorrow’s stage is called Stairway to Heaven.  Appropriately, tonight’s music shall be from Led Zep ;)

One of my tent mates is a 48 y/o lady from Reunion, Isabel Dufour.  She is a rock star.  She just completed a 555km (yes you read that right) in 6 days in Northern Africa before heading here to run the Gobi.  Totally inspirational to all of us in our tent.  And she is giving me the mental boost to tackle the long day Thursday!

Next update after Stage 4 tomorrow.  Keep the good thoughts coming.

Best

Sumanth

The stay last night's home stay was pretty good though I did not get much sleep.  I am eating well though - looks like the Indian diet seems to work well - it's more savoury than the sweetened/powdered food I carried in the Atacama, and helps cut the edge of the sugary gels I consume in the day.

Anyways, on Stage 2 - the word that best sums it up is gratitude.  I was thankful at several points through the course to vayu, surya, agni vaisvanara, the ashvins, the maruts, pusan, parjanya and several other gods for their kindness through out the course.  I kept chanting hymns from the rg on some of the tougher parts of the course and just kept my mental balance focused on getting through each checkpoint, one at a time.  It worked and I fin with a time little over 7h30m.  Anyways, official timings will be out tomorrow ;)

We started off 8 AM from Tashpushka. The stage to CheckPoint 1 was alright.  7.3km on a good track and not much elevation gain.  Made it comfortably to CP and then moved on.  Nothing much to report here.

CP1-2 was like a multiple up/down course - climbing anywhere between 3-15 metres at a steep 50-60 degree elevation and descending; and rinsing and repeating this 10-15 times - I just lost count.  I took 2h30m to get to CP2, an average speed of 4km an hour. I buddied up with Sara from Australia for this course and through the rest of the day.

CP2-3 started off ok for the first 6km and there was a fair bit of sun outside.  The last 3-4 km was miserable and I died in the arse several times.  It was through a (dry) river bed and the rocks, gravel, pebbles and such just kept hurting the soles of my feet upto a point where I was almost close to hobbling.  Luckily, I checked when I reached camp - no blisters and no sores.  We made good time, ~2hrs.

CP3-4 was peaceful - ~9km of asphalt road followed by 2 km of a dirt track into camp.  Sara and I had Nigel for company here and we completed this in 2h10m, I think.  We ran across the fin line together and posed for the pictures :)

My undersoles are sore as are my back and shoulders.  Will just chill out and rub some cream, eat and sleep.  My tent mates are just AWESOME.  One of them, Mo who's from Saudi Arabia, is currently placed second overall and is just burning the course. The rest are all strong finishers and am learning severally from them all.

Axa/Eigoom, if you are reading this - well, just picture a very very young Vrika starting up in Darkshore and working his way down to Tanaris.  No nagas or silithids though, on the way ;).  I am feeling good that I completed this stage.

We are at Camp Langerville.  Tomorrow is the 3rd Stage, The Farmlands of Langerville.  More when I complete.

Thanks again for all your kind thoughts and wishes.

Sumanth

So we reached Camp 1 (Gazi) last night.  All of China follows Beijing time which is 2.5 hours ahead of local time.  While it was funny to joke about it, in reality, it turned out to be a headache.  It turned dark at 11pm last night and by the time I slept, it  was 12am.  Woke up at 5 am, slightly disoriented.

The day also started badly.  My bottle of sunscreen lotion broke and there was cream all inside the backpack.  I managed to clean it as best as I could but I’ll know for sure later today if my dinner is SPF 30 flavoured, haha!

We took off from Camp at 8AM on Stage 1 – Canyons and Camels.  The first stage was Ok.  The second stage was a bit of a bastard – we had to walk/run a 10.5km distance over a peak incline of 45 degrees and undulated up/down a couple of times.

I made it to CP2 alright and set for the next 22 odd km.  Strong headwind all the way through to base camp, added to the fact that I had a pretty heavy backpack that was biting into my shoulders.  I finished the stage in 5h40m (I think).

We’re staying at a local village, Tashpushka -  a nice little homestay by tent.  I just plan to soak my feet in cold water, eat and sleep. 

Tomorrow’s course, Mars in the Gobi, has a lot of red sand and undulating terrain/dirt roads.  Will pamper feet ahead of this ;)

Thanks again for your kind wishes.  Keep them coming

Sumanth