Thanks Cipro!!! You, sir, are a kickass antibiotic. After non-stop nausea and daily double digit pit squats since day 1, day 6 I woke for the first time feeling not completely squalid. Kind of funny that we ran 220km in the meantime. Jill & Beat, I now have some clue how rat's-ass-low you guys must have felt running off food poisoning in Nepal. Blechh.

Matty & I had seesawing fortunes over the past couple of days, with yesterday's 73km run incorporating the full spectrum from runnable to nearly hurling for both of us. The previous day - Day 4 - began with a near ultimate scenic highlight of the entire trek when we dropped our packs to run up to Heaven's Gate, Shipton's Arch. At close to 3,000 metres altitude, this stunning natural archway frames a breathtaking desert mountainscape. Reaching it provided us the first real adrenal hit of the week too - a welcome and elusive rush.

The running after this was restricted by our states of health but the terrain was also the most satisfying and welcome of the week.

The quote from Sam, one of the key race directors at RTP, to best describe it was "if you fall, you will get hurt".

Picture running along the teeth of a saw, only they're not metal, they're jagged slopes of lightly sprouted dirt and rock, with ridgelines one to two feet wide plunging into sheer slopes that even goat tracks baulk at. Roughly 10 kilometres of this led us ever deeper into an astounding landscape ringed on one front by towering rocky dirt faces of brown, red, and ochre, while a new horizon dominated by snowcapped giants grew ever broader.

It was an amazing day, to be sure. Even if it ended with us running along a freeway construction zone, drowned in the diesel and dust of heavy earthmovers as we trundled along to a makeshift carpark where the shuttlebus pulled away just as we arrived, leaving us to wait an hour next to stacked cement beams and bulldozers.

Gobi, land of contrast.

Ah, the long day - Day 5. I felt shattered by the start. I could explain but my bowels have featured fully enough on this site already. Funnily enough, perfect blood sugars all week on course and off. Diabetes has played second fiddle to other things starting with di-, and all things considered there are certainly worse chronic health conditions to deal with.

The course was quite easy after some early pitches and rolls, the literally slippery slopes. Terrain ranged from sandy and flat to rocky, and flat. Matt started feeling 8 out of 10, Jess an ever-constant 10, while i was hovering around a 3. Playing 'slowest guy out front' it soon turned out I wasn't actually slowest guy. It was great though to catch up with our friend Hiro early in the day as we had hardly run together at all the entire week. He had a real spring in his step and went on to come 11th on the day's course. Soon enough, cameraman James hijacked me and then Jess as she came running through to build more shots for his documentary of our week.

He's been a welcome friend on course since Day 1 - bringing updates on other runners and race news, ideas varying between great and ridiculous about footage he's wanting us to help him get, or suggestions which we frequently decline less than politely without him ever seeming to get too flustered.

New on-course games that passed the time were Significant Moments In History, where a moment had to be guessed at without having been directly referred to or the country of origin being named. E.g. 'a wall falls down, everyone has a party' for the fall of the Berlin Wall, or '2 feet to the left would have got his wife, everyone would have been much happier' for the assassination of John Lennon. Jess didn't get that one, and a South African friend answered with 'JFK' - the first bonus points of the day for creative upgrades.

The next game, 'All of It', later expanded to 'All of It/Them/Those' got a bit too complicated to explain, and not a single answer was politically correct enough to be included as an example.

The other highlight of the day, other than sweeping all-encompassing mountainous desert immersion of course, was Matt's ultra-toughness. It's easy to forget he's only really found himself thrown headlong into endurance running this year. Yesterday, as the day wore on, he knew it would all come down to his performance. In weather conditions that ranged from thunderous sandstorm to cool and mild, he plugged away until the job was done. Running when he could and walking as steadily as he could manage when he had to, he got the team home in just over 12 hours. We started the day expecting to come in under torch power so it was a far less painful result than expected when we strolled across the Finish line as the last direct sunlight of the day dropped behind a faroff summit.

Hot recovery formula, long-awaited vegie lasagne, restless legs, and a deep sleep untainted by anticipation of a visit to the blog tent.

Today was brilliant . A stunningly fast run in remote and super-scenic wilderness, untouched by modern construction, diarrhea, the same police vehicle that has been following the racers for the last 3 days or Matt’s newly exploding fever. Oh no, wait – that’s all wrong.

Today was an evil war of attrition that begin with a 6 am pit-side chat, with Matt softly stating that he didn’t know if he could do it today. While I no longer expect to die, Jess gets Kitty and the car if I do. Meanwhile, Matt’s digestive dramas are now accompanied by fever while mine has receded. If Matt hadn’t been the slowest member of the team today, I’d have probably taken the wooden spoon. But there was really no time focus today, other than to get into camp in one piece (or 5 pieces) before the final cutoff at 5pm (later moved to 5:30).

Matty’s focus became the question of ‘how far?’, not to the end but to the next checkpoint. Team came to the fore again and everybody did what they could to help him get through, but I think he knew and accepted that his own resolve would determine his own outcome. Jess murmured to me that there is so much resting on his shoulders right now and she’s totally right. Thinking in terms of a relatively inexperienced and young runner thrown in at the deep end, he has enough on his plate already. Add to that the question of the team’s grand slam, the promotion of the Born To Run Foundation, and his father Greg’s overall vision and the way that the next 12 months fits into that, and he’s carrying far more than a 10 kilo pack and a stomach flu.

In lighter news, we hate hiking. Seriously, planning to cover 40km as slowly as possible and draw out as much suffering and fatigue as possible from passing trucks, desert dust, the heat of the day, and a heavy backpack is no way to spend your time. There are certainly some things to dislike about running fully laden but it beats walking all to hell. As much as we all have a newfound respect for the brave and determined citizens of the back of the running pack, we are even more incredulous that anybody would travel at 4km/h on foot by choice.

We totally support Japanese Spiderman’s choice to do so, however, because he is an underground wrestler carrying 19kg of food and running the entire 250km in a Spiderman outfit and wrestling mask. Do all those things at altitude in the Gobi Desert and you can do whatever you like.

when daily marathons become hard to stomach (or give you the sh*ts)

Well, what to say? It's the end of Day 2 in Gobi. We have already experienced massive highs and potentially worsening lows. Team Born to Run is bruised and depleted, and we have 2 40km and a 75km day to go in oppressive heat and dust.

Highlights have been a moving welcome from Kyrg and Uighur villagers who lined our entry to Camp 1 in all manner of clothing, from traditional pointed white felt hats, fancy sequined head dress, and shiny 1980s suits reminiscent of stockbrokers. It was emotional in that we hardly deserved such a show of warmth, just for turning up to run. And because this is a country where not everything is as it seems, and there is always a question in the back of my mind, 'did they choose to be here?'. Military and police looking on seemed to also enjoy the show, which ranged from mimed karaoke and Bollywood to traditional folk accordion.

This was followed by a game called 'Urr ah tatch o-lak'. That spelling is entirely phonetic and loosely translates as 'grab the goat'. Players on horseback charge into and around each other, wrestling a decapitated goat's carcass from each other at high speeds, with the goal of making a break and throwing it down in a small ring of stones on the field of play. Gambling on each score upped the stakes.

But to the running, yesterday - Day 1 - started with a personal catastrophe. Some kind of stomach bug had begun to ravage my guts and in the 2 hours before we toed the starting line I'd already found myself squatting over the toilet pit 3 times. Above, clear skies. But below, liquid thunder. Teammate Matt seemed to be experiencing a similar thing but with more nausea and less of the Squirt McGurts. Either way, by the final 10km we were both sapped, reduced to an alternating shuffle/walk even on flat road. As hard as this is for us, it's no fun for the team either. Ron seems happy enough to cruise and chat about Garmins and the weight of things, while Greg is clearly benefiting from his training load since Atacama and happy not to be the one running at his limits. But Jess is in the quiet hell of watching runners that she normally wouldn't even see in a race until they finished well after her take off over the horizon. The teams component of Racing The Planet is small, but cruel.

Things took a stellar turn for the better as we reached the Uighur village where we'd be staying for the night. A little boy on a collapsible bicycle met us on the dirt road outside of town. 'A-salam-u-lakem,' I waved. 'A-lakem-u-salam' he smiled back, also waving.

I was trawling along behind the team, maybe 20 or 30 metres back. Next thing I know, this sweet-faced kid on a bike with big Suzuki stickers is virtually pacing me. As if this wasn't enough of a boost for flagging spirits, dogged by widespread abdominal pain and a white hot ball of pain and nausea centred on my stomach, he then started to sing as he rode along, local songs in perfect pitch without the slightest self-consciousness. He even hinted at taking one of the course markers, perhaps to help shake off our competitors. Laughing I motioned not to.

As we rolled and shuffled into town, we were joined first by one, then three then finally over a dozen kids all running along with us. Jess laughed and encouraged and cheered them in shortened Chinese as they ran amongst us, but it seems that this cultural pocket is yet to be pierced by the overwhelming weight that grows beyond its dirt walls. Uighur still seems to be their one and only language, and that is a beautiful thing.

The following 10 visits to squat over the traditional pit, further dehydrating with each one, were overseen by the very talkative cows in the adjoining stables.

Matt's nausea became an issue for him last night too as he attempted and failed to fully eat, but more significantly his patellar tendon has flared up again. Just 3 weeks after his first solo trail 100km at The North Face 100 in the Blue Mountains his body is paying the price for brave inexperience. Ron, Jess and I, while we all had mixed fortunes at the race itself, have enough long run conditioning built up to bounce back from running 100km within a few weeks, more or less. Matt will too, soon enough. But, apparently, not yet.

Today was rough - really rough. Yesterday we knocked over 32km in just over 4 hours. Today 40km took 6 1/2, and it hurt. Last night, all I managed to eat was a cup-a-soup and some Sustagen, followed by about 2 or 3 litres of hydralite, and 4 barely tolerated spoonfuls of rice. Breakfast was a scoop of peanut butter, some porridge, and half a chunky muesli bar, maybe 500 calories in total. Just 5km into today, I felt like I'd already run 30km, at effort. Alternating hot and cold chills, snot, nausea, disastrous guts. Time spent lying awake last night considering the consequences of failure. This is it, the hard stuff. This is why doing the Grand Slam means something. Miss one race and it's all over. Sahara in October, Antarctic in November. But without bearing up now, none of that happens.

It seems we had a really easy ride in Atacama, but it's the potential for things to go south hard and the opportunity to turn those around - however slowly - that is certainly a distinctive characteristic of ultra running. We aren't aspirational marathoners or determined hikers. We're here for the challenge of the long day. That gives me and Matt 2 days to get it together, with the help of team and friends, so that our lasting memory of Gobi won't just be warm friendly green-eyed villagers and a race we could only stagger through.