Namibia Race 2022

It flew by, it was a week. A wonderful week in every way. I was telling my dad that it still didn't sink in what we were doing. What we were traveling through. What we were a part of. What we are a part of. After this experience, I consider myself part of the luckiest people on the planet. There is something very special about these people. EYE OF THE TIGER in each and every one of us. Everyone is there for different reasons and motives but definitely everyone is there to prove to themselves what they are capable of. Setting a challenge like that is difficult to say the least, but the execution is even more so. There is passion in the eyes and hearts of all of us. There is courage. There is a tremendous desire to give it our all. Because to do something like this, you can't even do it with 99% of your energy, of your mind, of your body. You need to be here and now. Maybe that's what happened to me. I went into a kind of trance to be metallized, without distractions that take away my energy. There are many rituals that must be carried out meticulously to be successful. From the moment you wake up, you prepare your mind for a difficult day, with sweat, suffering and dedication. You prepare your body; you put cream on it so you don't blister. You eat 450 kcal exactly. No more, no less (that's all there is). You start to hydrate yourself because you know it is vital. That it will be a very hot day (we reached 55 °C) and you will lose a lot of fluid, a lot of nutrients. And that if you don't stay hydrated, cooled down (as much as possible), then it will be very difficult to recover because your body will find it harder to listen to your mind, to go one step further, to move on to the next pink flag. It will be harder to recover for the next day. Because everything you have covered during that day, you will have to repeat the next day, and so on, one day later until completing 250 km in the fucking desert of Namibia.
Checkpoint by checkpoint. That was the strategy that my father told me. It turns the impossible into the possible. The inhuman into human. And the unthinkable into conquerable. Believe it or not, it turns katan aleja.
It happened to me that I was so focused on what I had to eat, drink, do during the race, that I didn't even realize how crazy it was and how much I was going through. We basically went through everything our eyes could see in the distance. We were going checkpoint by checkpoint until we heard the drums, which meant that we had arrived at the camp and that we were in for a tasty time of kicking our feet up and letting them rest, until the next day.
I started every day with my dad. And I finished almost all of them with him. It was a beautiful process that we closed day by day. Without either of us expecting it, the last kilometers would bring us together and we would arrive at the drums with a shared smile. And with a feeling difficult to explain. We made it. One more day (one more checkpoint). Together. WOW
It becomes a wonderful routine that you start to enjoy and you don't want it to end.
All of us who did the race, we are not only runners, because to be runners we could have stayed in the band, or in Reforma or Chapultepec, which is quite beautiful. All of us who were there are explorers, travelers, and runners. Landscape runners, adventure explorers and world travelers. Ordinary people, no more and no less strong. No more and no less normal. Simply citizens of the world, looking for answers, finding people just like them in many ways.
It's not about being faster than others, not about carrying more or less weight on your back. It's not about competition with others, but with yourself. Just like life.
You go to the race to give the best of yourself. To run every kilometer you can. To go as fast as YOU can. Because in doing so, you prove to yourself that you gave it your all. That you left it all out on the course. And you also realize, that you definitely could have prepared better. And that even when you gave your best, you're going to come back someday, and you're going to do even better. Because you can. Because human beings have the incredible capacity to improve themselves. To get better. To get stronger.
Not only in the physical sense, but mentally, spiritually, socially, culturally.
I tell myself that I am going to come back (because it becomes a part of you, of who you are) and when I do, I am going to be a better person, a better Yosef. Because otherwise, what's the point of all this, if we don't use it to realize what we are capable of. And that there are people who do not do it better than us (because we gave the best we could), but if this more worked, trained, accustomed.

It motivates us to be better. It shows that we are capable of more and more. During the race, I was able to talk, sing, philosophize and also be quiet with my dad. It was an experience that we shared from the deepest part of our being. I feel that we both gave ourselves to each other and let our being connect, naked. Talking, laughing, smiling, singing.
I thank God for giving me body, mind and license to go and come back well. With much to think about, but most of all, to do.
I am intrigued to understand the limit of the human mind. To understand that moment when one can no longer go on, or does that moment not exist? Is it only the moment when one CHOOSES not to go on?
Bh did not reach that point but it would be something interesting to live. I believe that it is in those circumstances that the human being realizes what he is made of, what makes him live and what makes him suffer.
I did not reach that point, but I still realized the enormous capacity of the human being. It is tremendous.
It has been a long way... and here we are and we will continue to advance. We will keep on giving it to be better every day.
Sayonara