Howdy,

Wow, I’m sitting here trying to not let anyone see the tears and snot after reading your email posts. Thank you so much … some have mad me laugh and others mad me cry …. I’m very grateful and feeling very fortunate right now!!

If you could be here with me now you’d be blown away and the scenery … I’m not even sure how to put into words how magnificent and awe-inspiring nature is in her all her splendour. We are on our rest day camped by Sayman Lake (? Spelling) with snow-capped mountains across the other side maybe 5km away and rolling green hills with granite crags an pine forests interspersed with deep valleys. The sun is shining a lovely warmth on us (still have beanie and down jacket on!).

Now, yesterday, where to begin??

The big, tall, Swede Frederick (Ted) and I agreed to tackle the day together given we’d matched up so well the day before on Stage 4. We had  cracker of a day though and worked really well together. He’s a hell of a nice bloke; an orthopaedic surgeon from Stockholm who so deeply loves his kids. Prior to this week Ted had not even run a marathon and now he’s completed 5 stages that were technically 3 ultra-marathons and two sub-marathons!!!! Amazing effort.

Starting off quite a few people took off like sprinters out of the blocks which was bloody stupid of course. Ted and I ran for a few minutes and both feeling pretty heavy in the legs decided to walk for a minute and then settled into a 5-minute run, 10minute walk strategy for the first 16km. The course climber slowly right from the first step up to CP2 then the angle of climb increased quite dramatically for the next 20km. It was physically and mentally tough to climb, climb, climb with very little respite. We used the same approach as the day before … run any flat patches and gentle ups but mostly we power walked as best we could. It was fairly hot so we took any opportunity to soak our hats in streams etc.

I think the Chinese security services must now have a data-base of about 200 photos of me that they’ve taken over he duration of the week … no idea why they’ve been doing it … maybe we look dodgey in the weird get-up and back packs??

I’m struggling today to remember individual times or stages as I generally, when I run, try to stay so “in the moment” or “present” that I don’t think about what went before or what is to come …. It can be unsettling to think of the road ahead. Sorry, will keep trying to articulate …

We climbed to the maximum height of 2,800m (I think this section was 1,700m of climbing) and bit by bit we passed one, then two people etc. One section up a mountain side was like stepping from grassy mound to grassy mound with boggy stuff in between. Ted interested himself by singing (poorly I might add) … the first song was a Swedish song that went something like, “She killed her father and threw him in the creek, they couldn’t drink the water for a week, so thy had to make do with gin. She set her sister’s hair on fire and danced around her funeral pyre…”. Worse still he moved onto Sex Pistols ‘Friggin in the Riggin’ and o & on it went!! All the while climbing, climbing, climbing!!!

We crested the mountain saw a kite (as in bird of prey!) circling high above riding the air currents and I had one of those ‘wow’ moments as we looked across the panorama. This was CP4 and from there we were told it was 7.6km downhill into a valley to CP5. A trick with this sort of huge descent is preserving the legs from jarring which can be more taxing on the body than going uphill. A Polish guy Marcus was doing his very best to shadow us so with about 500m or so to go Ted picked up the pace to try and demoralise him. It felt great to crank up the pace.

CP5 – CP6 is bit of a blur but I do remember more climbing, wild horses, sheep, goats, seeing a marmot (??), cattle and pine forests. And more bloody hail!!!! I couldn’t believe it … in a desert and all this foul weather!!! CP6 was the low point before climbing for a second time. CP6-CP7 was, whilst stunningly beautiful, absolutely horrendous, in terms of climbing,  descending, climbing again and again. The resultant elevation gain by CP7 was 700m above CP6. We’d come around a corner and it would just continue up and up. Ted was running pretty low at this point (and was emotionally in a low point) and told me to go ahead because I was tracking fairly well …. We’d started the day and it was important to finish together.

Funny thing was we’d both spoken about how we are here for the experience and not the ‘competition’ but because we have both far outperformed our expectations we wanted to see how well we could go …. This was a constant point of conversation throughout the day. By my figuring we were in 11^th & 12^th position and could see Canadian Paul (ex pro ice hockey player) about 1km ahead. Paul later told me that he could tell it was me and for about 10km tried to keep enough distance between us that we couldn’t get him!

The last ascent into CP7 caused everyone to take pause and gasp for air. I had been telling Ted about my High5 2:1 Extreme with caffeine drink mix and that we’d save it up for the final 5km. I climbed ahead to the CP, greeting the volunteers with a little rap dancing move; and was totally & unexpectedly greeted by perhaps one of the most beautiful views imaginable …. Before me stretched the green hills, lake and snow-capped mountains mentioned above … if I say it took my breath away it doesn’t do it justice … it was perfection.

I quickly mixed the drink so it was ready for him and insisted he knock back half of it and I had the other half. Within 5-minutes Ted was back and singing again … Hotel California, Kookaburra Sits In The Old Gum Tree and he even had a crack at Waltzing Matilda!!! The great thing was that he didn’t notice that he was running quickly. We were approaching a farm gate so I shot ahead opened it for him and then it was game on … I could still see Paul ahead so unleashed the hounds and gave chase covering the last 2km’s in just a little over 9-min. The bugger beat me into 10^th place with me coming in 11^th in just over 10hrs 30min and Ted in 12^th a couple of minutes later.

Speaking with others today the general consensus is that the 68km course was actually 72km so not really sure. Great day all round really.

Thanks again for all your warm messages of support and belief …. I cannot say enough how important each and everyone has been.

Love to All

Bretty

Howdy,

Over the last few days I have forgotten to mention the security that has been surrounding us so I’ll start with that. Our camps have been “watched” by various security from Police, SWAT teams, army and what seems to be private contractors dressed in the most current 1970’s fashion. I think it is because we are so close to the border with Kazakhstan (sorry spelling isn’t so great when the brain is low on sugars!). Out on the course there is security about every 500m taking photos of us and army guys writing down our bib numbers. They are all quite friendly but it keeps a constant reminder of just where we actually are and that they play by different rules around here!!

Today’s Stage was increased from the planned 40.8km to 48.8km to try and claw back some of the lost km’s from yesterday. It seems we’ll finish the course at 246km instead of the planned 250km!!! (I know right … I can hear your thinking … it’s not really having a go is it, just 246km !) The decision to cut short yesterday was sensible given it was -3degrees before wind-chill being factored in.

When the disgusting weather cleared we were greeted with the most beautiful panorama of snow-capped peaks and rolling green hills, herds of sheep, a few cattle and calves etc. Had a nice warm sleep inside the yurt (again, spelling?).

So, back to today’s race …. The first thing we had to do was run 8km to the starting line. For whatever reason my motor was just not firing and I walked, jogged more than run. At the CP (real starting point!) I mixed some High5 4:1 carb:protein and started downing that and slowly started to feel my legs loosen up and could finally start to run. Sorry, but I need to tell you a little neurology and how it was playing out in my head early on:

Our Basal Ganglia (deep inside our brain) decide when to initiate, how much and when to stop our motor output (ie. Actions); An example of the BG spontaneously firing is something like Tourette’s Syndrome. Our brain’s cortex acts to inhibit the BG so it’s very much like a foot on the brake of an automatic car … take the brake of the BG fire. You will relate to this when sometimes you have a thought or a song playing on loop in your head and you can’t get it out of your mind. Well, we currently have a beautiful 19yo Belgian living with us and she has introduced us to some of her favourite music. One song in particular is called ‘Formidable’ (in French in sounds something like “Formi-dubblah”). For the first hour or two this morning I could not get this loop out of my head formi-dubblah, formi-dubblah …. Blah, blah, blah … it drove me absolutely bonkers!! Bloody Belgians!!

Anyways, back to the run, right. Coming out of CP2 we had a monster of a climb that had every person stopping, hands on hips, looking up and taking deep breaths and shaking their heads. And then once we had it covered we dropped sharply an then did it all again but the 2nd climb made the first look like child’s play. It was on this second climb that a Swedish guy (think I have mentioned Frederick – Ted – before because on Day 1 he smoked right past me) and I teamed up and he gave me a gem of advice … don’t climb straight up but to zig-zag … it made a world of difference to both real and perceived exertion.

Well Ted and I worked together for about 25+km’s and found that we hit a natural easy rhythm which made the day so much easier. Have some awesome photos of the mountain range to our right and the rolling green hills that we were climbing and descending, climbing and descending. To try and put you in the picture a little the hills were probably 100m or so high and we crossed quite a few of them! Also took the time to stop and have photos taken with some of the local people; even getting a photo with two young army guys.

We powered into the final CP with just 10km to go and filled my left bottle (always a mix, right always just water) with High5 2:1 with caffeine. As a non-coffee drinker I have found the 2:1 gives me a much needed kick for the final leg. It worked it’s magic and we ran the 10k’s feeling strong and crossed the line in equal 10th place. I’ve never had a 10th place finish so it’s kinda cool go have it under the belt. Most importantly, felt like could keep truckin’ so hopefully that bodes well for tomorrow’s 65km stage ….. let me just say now, out very loud, that I don’t think that today’s effort will be replicated but I’m going into it with positive thoughts J

Think I had better go, put the legs up and get some more food in.

I’ve just read your emails etc and cannot express how much they each mean to me.

Love to All

Bretto

Howdy,

Interesting day today … the race organisers just seem to keep turning up the dial “difficulty’!

Whereas the first two stages read:

Day 1 Moderate, Moderate, Difficult then Easy … with the 3^rd place getter having to withdraw with knee injury and race leader twisting his knee

Day 2 Moderate, Easy, Easy then Easy … the 2^nd place getter on both Days 1 & 2 had to withdraw afterwards with knee trouble. Damage for the day was 5 withdrawals (or as the French would say, Les Abandons!!). The “easy” sections had incredibly frustrating rocks across green plains, what they term “Gobi Terrain”. As best I can find out only Chema was able to run them!!!! There were lots of twisted ankles.

Day 3 Difficult, Moderate, Very Difficult then Easy … today I think there may have been another 4-5 withdrawals. We were running parallel to a magnificent mountain range to our right. There was fresh snow on the top half, from last night. We had a pretty strong wind with freezing cold rain coming off the snow and then just to up the anti on the Gobi experience we were blasted with hail!!!!

I think that I wrote a couple of days ago (when Stage 1 was increased from 42km to 49+km) that the course may change, on a daily basis, as weather conditions dictated. Well, today as the conditions deteriorated so rapidly the Stage was cut to just 25km instead of the planned 40+km because the fresh snow made the 3^rd section too dangerous. The top-20 runners could have probably powered through but the slower runners and many walkers would have risked hypothermia. When sitting in Ballarat and thinking of the race and its history it was easy to underestimate the conditions but I can now tell you with 100% certainty the cold & hail is bloody miserable!!!!

The cool thing was we were told at CP 2 that we had just 3km to go so flicked the switch and raced the last 3km across an open plain with fairly safe foot placement …. Robbie & Hayden will be glad to know the Thursday morning sessions came in handy … I’ve been telling them that ‘at no time in Gobi’ would I need any speed work but today it came in very handy with the chance to open the legs and hit full flight!!! Felt good to stride out and hit some pace!

On reaching the finish we were ushered inside a Mongol Yurt (hut thingo if you do a Google search) where we could change into warm, dry clothes, wrap ourselves in blankets and slowly get feeling back in fingers & toes!

Everyone from tent 10 (Togel – which means Camel) is now in and thawing out. Tonight we will be sharing our Yurt with the tent 9 folks … Spaniards, Swedes and a Frenchman.

One Spaniard busted his knee yesterday so will now no-longer qualify for the 4 races and the Grand Slam … he was part of a team. Jesu’s team-mates will continue on without him.

It’s a timely reminder of what the BIG goal is … not to finish just one or two races but to complete the whole series and to enter the books as a member of the 4-Deserts Gland Slam Club which currently has just 28 members.

My knee pain from yesterday kicked in again within about 500m this morning but thankfully didn’t hold me back as I was feeling pretty strong and running in what I think was about 11^th place into CP1. I’m not sure now if it was the smart thing to do or not but I stopped and put on gloves and my rain poncho but in doing so lost about 6 places … so annoying trying to put on gloves when your hands are already wet!! I had 2 volunteers helping me get the gloves on. After what seemed like an eternity (probably only 5 or so  minutes) could get back onto the track and had to give chase to try and get back a few spots. Not sure how I did but think crossed the line in 16^th or 17^th place??? If that’s the case I must be sitting around 18^th overall??

It feels good to know that we’ve done about 115km and apart from the knee my feet are in the best knick they’ve ever been in by Day 3. My poor old shoes are a different matter though – the rocks are literally rubbing the fabric away and holes have appeared on the tops of the toe section on both shoes. I just hope that they hold up for the next 3 stages!!!

Tomorrow’s Stage 4 is (at this point) 40.8km and reads: Moderate, Difficult, Moderate then Easy. Fingers crossed the weather will be kind to us and we can do the full distance.

Best I go get some hot food in my stomach and try and stretch this knee & hip.

Thanks for the messages from overnight …. Absolutely love them … Please keep them coming!!!

Love to all

Bretty J

 

Howdy,

Well I would never have guessed the organisers could make a relatively flat 37km take 5 1/2hrs but somehow they outdid themselves …. To put today into perspective consider that yesterday I did ~50km in a little over 6.5hrs and today just 37k in an hour less!!! By ‘relatively flat’ there was heaps of climbing but nothing to the scale of yesterday or what lies ahead in the coming days!!So we finished at a higher altitude than we begun.

I have spoken to race leader, Chema the Spanish marathon Olympian, and he told me that he was almost able to run the whole thing, but then speaking with Sam from the UK who is in 2nd place even he had to walk some of the rocky sections.

Folks are starting to look a little worse for wear with one tent mate having gastro (we’re all worried about hygiene!!),the overall 3rd place runner withdrawing after twisting his knee today also. As expected blisters are starting to make their mark but not for this little black duck thankfully.

My battle today came in the form of left knee pain (ITB) which pulled me up after just 3km and had to hobble for a while, light run, and more hobbling. I had tried lying on rolled up clothing between 4am and 6am trying to get some relief into the butt muscles and the outer thigh. As other runners know, with ITB troubles running uphill is easier and downhill is like a burning knife-like pain in the side of the knee. Thankfully, as mentioned above we climbed mostly!!

At CP1 I discovered that I was in about 28th position and figured if I just followed that hobble-run approach for as long as possible others may start to fatigue and I’d just wait and see what unfolded. About 2hrs in the knee loosened up and could, kind of, find something that resembled a rhythm to my stride. Once I was moving a little more freely the plan became to chip away and knock off one person at a time and occasionally when I got lucky 2 people.

At CP2 an angel gave me two Tylenol (like Panadol) and within 20min I was pretty much pain free for about an hour. And it was after the ‘drugs’ kicked in I was able to kick it up a gear and systematically rein in a bunch of people. Yesterday Rob (tent-mate who I also did Jordan with finishing Stage 3 & 4 together, with me taking honours on the long day) beat me by 2 places and today I narrowed the margin to just 1 place ….. he’s building a strong base so not expecting to maintain the difference this week!!

It’s just starting to rain lightly so had better go and get my gear onside he tent!! It’d really cold here today so very glad I opted to pack my down jacket. This place is nothing like what you normally associate with a “desert”.

Thanks for the messages so far, please keep them coming!!

Love to All

Bretty

Howdy,

Well, that’s Stage 1 under the belt!! Forgot to mention the vital stat yesterday …. My “Pack Weight” came in at 9.4kg fully loaded … the elusive 8.?kg yet again has been unattainable!!! Hmmm …. Next time …..

49-50km in beautiful weather, sunny, slight breeze with some absolutely spectacular scenery … funny thing was that for about 10+km I could have sworn that I was just running around Cambelltown/Clunes!!! Early on we ran across this amazing pink granite that went for several km’s with various sizes of crushed granititic pebbles-up to-rocks.

At one point I heard what I thought were thundering hooves and hurriedly looked around in case I was about to be overtaken by a stampede, but it was a beautiful deer coming down the rocks and straight across in front of me no more than 15m’s in front …. Gotta love it!!

The first hour I struggled to get my foot placement happening. I lost count of how many times I rolled my ankles or jammed them. It was as if the week of tapering and staying off trails caused me to lose my proprioception. About 3hrs in it occurred to me that I was landing with clean precision…. Felt good to be back!!

It got me thinking that if I can lose sharp foot placement and that sense of where my body is in a week what about all my patients who sit for work, sit for dinner and sit watching TV …. How on earth can their bodies know what needs to happen when????? Then that lead me to thinking about how we are 3-dimensional bodies living in a “flat-earth” – flat floors, flat roads, flat paths, flat screens, flat smart-phones, flat tablets ... flat everything!!! We need to get back to being 3-dimensional bodies moving and behaving in a 3-dimensional world!!!!

Starting to get a hint as to why this race is called the Gobi March because so many sections were very steep up or slippery and steep descents!

Sienna, the lollies you packed in the ziplocks are still fresh and soft thanks!! I’m about to head back to my tent and get into the crushed chips you did for me next J. I carried a bottle of orange Fanta today so I can have a nice treat tonight; have had half and moved onto an electrolyte drink to try and spread out the joy!!

Body Report: only 1 blister on right big toe (in a totally new location!). Had some knee tightness (ITB syndrome) which I haven’t had for probably 3-4yrs but sitting right now everything feels pretty good – just stiffness in calves which could probably be expected!!

In all, happy with today and looking forward to what tomorrow brings!!

Thanks for the messages so far … please keep them coming

Love to All
Bretty

Have arrived at Camp 1 and have begun self-sufficiency. I’ve just finished my first Expeditions meal “Vegetable Tikka” … didn’t taste too flash but it was 800-all-important-calories. Apparently in 4-5 days time the thought of this brand will turn my stomach. Previously I’ve used Strive Foods from Tasmania, which are really nice meals, but in this race series they provide warm water rather than boiling water. In Jordan the water wasn’t hot enough to rehydrate my meals --- now that was disgusting!!!!

Our “home” tonight is a worker’s hut near a quarry as fierce winds and a thunder storm are predicted. The organisers told us with great pleasure, that they huts were dry, but our’s has a wet floor!!! Found a few cardboard boxes and will lie on those for insulation and (hopefully) keep dry. The wind was blowing pretty strongly whilst I was trying to eat my dinner and kept blowing my food off my spork!!!!The course has been altered a bit so tomorrow’s Stage 1 has increased from 42.0km to approximately 49km. The long day has been reduced from 75km to just 65km but seemingly they’ve upped the anti on difficulty. It seems the course may be adapted on a daily basis in response to the weather conditions etc.

It’s light until almost 11pm so the good news is that it gives plenty of light for dinner, tending to blisters, dressing the sore bits etc. The down side is I have to listen to dumb Kiwi jokes!!!!Righto better jump off and give someone a chance on here.

Will write after tomorrow’s hit out!

Love to all

Bretty J