250km Later: Pack Less. Tape More. Bring Chocolate

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It turns out training actually works. Who knew?

A few months ago, I wrote that my goal for the Namib Race wasn’t simply to finish. I’d done that before. I wanted to be stronger, enjoy the experience more and, ideally, arrive at camp each afternoon with enough life left in me to enjoy the people around me.

Well, I finished.

Was I stronger? Definitely.

Did I enjoy it more? Mostly.

Did I arrive at camp each day full of energy and ready to socialise? Absolutely not.

The Namib Race was brutal. The heat, the sand, the dunes, the long stretches - it was rough! But compared to my previous races, I could feel the difference training had made. I recovered better between stages, my legs kept going, and somehow my body became stronger as the week progressed. That doesn’t mean I trained perfectly. Far from it. I missed most of my final peak training after getting sick, never did the big back-to-back sessions I had planned, and received my brand-new backpack about ten minutes before getting on the bus to Camp 1.

Now that I’ve had a little time to think about the week, there are quite a few things I’d do differently - and a few things that worked surprisingly well.

Keep your backpack and shoes on

I used to have a habit of taking my shoes and backpack off at checkpoints. This time I didn't. Unless there’s a blister or hotspot that actually needs attention, refill your water, take a quick seat if you need to, grab what you need and get moving. Sitting down makes it remarkably easy to stay sitting down.

The exception for me was the 50km checkpoint during the Long March. I deliberately spent about 30-40 minutes there, put my feet up, ate mashed potatoes, changed into my night gear and mentally treated the remaining 27km as a second race.

That worked.

Pretaping is your friend

I tape every single toe, every single morning. It might sound excessive, but my feet held up remarkably well. I use paper-tape for my toes, and sometimes KT tape for my big toe, ball of my foot, and heels. Where I got lazy was my heels. They were doing perfectly before the Long March, so I decided they didn’t need tape. Around kilometre 60, a blister started forming. I could manage it, but it was completely avoidable.

If you know somewhere is prone to rubbing, don’t wait until it hurts.

Also learn how to do a runner’s heel lock with your shoelaces. It helps stop your heel moving around inside your shoe. This is the first time I did it, and it made a noticeable difference. 

And ladies: skip the gel polish on your toenails before the race. By all means, get the pedicure, but aim for smooth feet ,not pretty toenails. You want your feet and your nails soft. Calluses might make us think our feet are tough, but blisters can form underneath them too.

Train with warm water

Cold water in the desert is possibly one of life’s greatest luxuries. Unfortunately, you won’t have it. If you’re training for a hot race, don’t become dependent on ice-cold drinks. By the time your electrolyte drink has been sitting in a bottle in 40-degree heat for a few hours, it becomes significantly less appealing.

I eventually preferred plain water and salt tablets, with roughly one electrolyte drink a day. Toward the end I became so sick of warm water that I’d sometimes rinse my mouth with it and spit it out because I couldn’t face swallowing another mouthful. That warm Coke I received on course arrived at exactly the right moment, somehow I could still get that down! Find what works for you before race week.

Test your bottles too

I used Atacama 750ml soft flasks and generally really liked them. At one stage I struggled to suck water through one of them, but ( continuing the theme of this race) I’d received them the day before, so hadn’t exactly tested them properly either.I’ve never raced with hard bottles, but that’s something I’ll experiment with during my next training block.

Bring food you’ll still want on Day 5

You can create the most beautiful nutrition spreadsheet in the world. By Day 5, there’s a good chance you’ll hate half of it. I learn something new on every race - this time I tried mashed potatoes with a Bouillon cube - Loooved it! Especially at checkpoint 5 during the Long March. I loved having a Snickers for breakfast on Stage 1. I wished I’d packed more fruity Mentos, and I would absolutely bring hot chocolate next time.

I also deliberately saved a few luxuries for the Long March (Stroopwafels, M&Ms and gummy bears). Having something you actually look forward to eating makes a difference. 

Next time I’ll also bring more variety for breakfast. Too much oatmeal hasn’t worked for me in previous races, so I switched to noodles and mashed potatoes, which were great. But I’d add at least two sweeter breakfasts, such as rice pudding or berry oats, to break things up. 

Night One can have a few luxuries

Remember that you don't need to carry your night one dinner or your stage 1 breakfast. I took a couple of small comforts specifically for the first night, including hand-warming sachets and some extra chocolate for breakfast. I brought a coke to add to dinner as well. 

Pack. Repack. Then pack again.

Considering I received my backpack minutes before leaving for camp, I had a pretty good idea of where everything needed to go. Knowing where your things are saves an enormous amount of unnecessary searching. 

Every evening, I’d prepare my side pockets with the snacks and electrolytes I wanted for the following stage. I didn’t divide all my food into individual daily bags. Instead, I had my freeze-dried meals together, breakfasts together and snacks together. I like variety and wanted to decide each day what I actually felt like eating.

I’d also put a few tissues straight into one of the required blue toilet bags so that if I needed it during the stage, everything was ready.

For the Long March, think ahead. Know exactly where your headtorch is. Attach your red flashing light to your backpack beforehand. Have your jacket somewhere you can reach quickly when the temperature drops.

Don't completely pack your backpack the night before. Inevitably you’ll remember something the following morning and end up digging through it again. My bag was unpacked every night, but everything stayed organised inside large Ziplock bags on a pile in the tent. Remember: you’re sharing a tent. Try not to spread your entire life across everybody else’s sleeping space. 

Your pack is probably too heavy

Mine started at around 9.5kg without water (my heaviest race pack so far. I usually come in closer to 8kg.)That was mostly a result of poor preparation before this race.Do everything you reasonably can to reduce the weight. Yes, cut the toothbrush in half. Leave the hairbrush. Reconsider the pillow. Look at every item and ask whether you really need to carry it for 250km.  A few hundred grams doesn’t sound like much while you’re standing in your bedroom.

It does after 40km.

The toilets ...ah the toilets

The toilet situation is always a topic on these races, and yes, they can become pretty gross. My solution was ridiculous but effective: On every race I would take Transact patches that I would stick on sore muscles after a stage. They smell super minty and I would stick them under my nose, and cover my mouth and nose with a buff before heading to the bathroom. My gag reflex is terrible, so desperate times called for desperate measures. Some people didn't mind at all. Just know that bathrooms are usually going to smell like bathrooms being used by a camp full of ultrarunners who have eaten gels for a week. You’ve been warned.

Sleep deprivation is real

Don’t assume exhaustion means you’ll sleep beautifully. You will probably sleep far fewer hours than you expect.There will be snoring. People moving around on inflatable mattresses. Zips opening. Someone needing the bathroom at a ridiculous hour. Your own aching body refusing to find a comfortable position. Bring earplugs.

Before bed, I gave my feet a good rub and tried to elevate them on my backpack while sleeping to help with swelling. I also kept my headtorch, hand sanitiser and tissues right beside me. If you need a 1am bathroom trip, you don’t want to be scrambling around in the dark and waking your tent mates.

Oh yes, also keep your lip balm close by (I often woke up with super dry lips and needed to put some on before attemping further sleep). 

Have dry clothes waiting after the Long March

Put your Long March evening clothes or sleeping clothes inside your dry bag. Have something genuinely warm and dry waiting for you when you reach camp. We froze after the Long March because our clothes were damp ( from the night mist and partly from spending the day throwing water over our heads and backs.) Being exhausted and shivering in wet clothes is not the recovery strategy I’d recommend.

Sun protection is still something I need to solve

For someone born in Namibia, I’m remarkably bad at dealing with the sun. I always race in an open-top cap because closed caps feel too hot for me. I usually tuck my Buff into whichever side of the cap the sun is hitting to create some extra shade. It works... sort of. Next race, I want proper removable flaps that protect the sides of my face and ideally attach beneath the chin. I’m a heavy sweater, so even though I reapply sunscreen at checkpoints, keeping it on my skin is a challenge.

I also get terrible heat rash. It started at my feet during Namib and eventually worked its way up my legs. I still haven’t solved that problem properly. Maybe long pants are worth testing next time. Note sure. 

And chafing cream is your friend. Apply it generously wherever you know you’re prone to friction (including your bum and, for women - between the boobies). 

I brought a bug net, and didn't regret it

This one surprised me. I packed a bug net and actually used it briefly during the Long March. As the sun went down and my headtorch came on, insects started flying straight toward the light (and into my eyes.) The net solved it immediately. I didn’t need it for very long during Namib, but I would have loved one during parts of the Gobi March. It weighs almost nothing, so it’s staying on my list.

Camp life is surprisingly busy

You finish running and think you’re going to collapse into your tent. Unfortunately, there are things to do. Having a little routine helped me: arrive, feet up, eat something, rest, then eat dinner, then read cybertent messages, then write blog, then sort bag, then brush teeth and final bathroom break before bed.  I even turned standing in the bathroom queue into stretching time ( I should spend more time stretching after a stage).

The tiny comforts become enormous

Five centimetres of water in a bucket becomes a foot spa. An orange becomes a feast. Warm Coke can resurrect you. 

That’s one of my favourite things about these races. Everything gets stripped back. The things that normally feel insignificant suddenly become incredibly valuable. One of my comforts is flossing, when I floss I feel fresh, so bring that tiny thing that gives you a little comfort in the desert. 

Do at least one proper race-condition training session

If you can, have at least one training day where you’re on similar terrain with your loaded pack for around six hours. It’s not necessarily about proving that you can cover a certain distance. It’s about finding problems. Where does your pack rub after five hours? Where do hotspots develop? Which toes blister? Does your sunscreen survive? Can you still stomach your food? Is something bouncing around and driving you insane? Even getting a blister during training isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It gives you the opportunity to learn how to treat it before race week.

There’s a fair amount of luck involved too

You can prepare for months, follow the perfect training plan and test every piece of gear -  and still get sick on the flight over or sprain an ankle getting off the bus. Arriving at the start line healthy is an achievement in itself. I learnt that lesson rather well before Namib after food poisoning and a viral infection wiped out much of my final peak training.

Prepare for everything you can, but accept that there will always be things completely outside your control. 

Your backpack might tear. A shoelace might break.There might be ticks on the route. A jackal might steal your shoe and give it a little chew. You can’t write a training plan for every ridiculous thing that can happen over a week in the desert.

What you can practise is not letting every little problem become a crisis. Fix what you can, laugh about what you can’t and treat the unexpected as part of the adventure.

One final, completely non-race-related tip

Bring a few small gifts from your home country.

Over the course of the week, there will probably be one or two people who make a real difference to your race. It might be a doctor who fixes your feet, the photographes who make you smile (thanks Thiago and Andre) a volunteer who looks after you at your lowest point, or a tent mate who somehow keeps you laughing when everything hurts. 

At some point, you’ll probably wish you had something small to give them to say thank you. Having a little gift to give them at the banquet dinner is always special :) .

Running in my home country

Finally, I would like to permanently retire the idea that being Namibian means I enjoy running through sand. I don’t. The Namib Desert humbled me just as much as anyone else.

But it also gave me an opportunity to see my own country through everybody else’s eyes. Watching competitors stop and stare at landscapes I’ve seen countless times reminded me how extraordinary this place actually is. There were sections of Namibia I’d never experienced myself (even though I volunteered for this race twice) and running through them made me appreciate home differently.

Looking back...

I finished in around 51 hours, 67th overall and 14th woman. I’m proud of that - particularly after arriving at the start line feeling horribly underprepared. 
But what I'll remember : 

The people. The volunteers. The drums. The conversations in the tents. Talking nicely to my feet. Singing Country Road approximately 50 times. Dreaming about milkshakes. Being handed cold water when I desperately needed it. And watching a desert I know so well completely destroy me while simultaneously reminding me how lucky I am to call it home.

Before this race, I wrote that I wanted to stop constantly chasing the finish line and enjoy the journey a little more.

I’m still very much a finish-line person. But I think I’m getting better.

Next stop: Atacama (I think) -  ask me later.   

Ange over and out.