Somewhere around 5:15am, my tentmate Grant2 rousts me from an uneven slumber. For the past 2 weeks, I've been sleeping on a Thermarest in addition to the 2-inch foam mattress pads that the trekking company has provided. While these accoutrements have provided a much more restful environment than usual while camping, they fail to triumph over the jagged rocky, icy and even-where-it's-kind-of-flat-it's-really-sloping landscape that is Everest base camp. I grunt to acknowledge Grant's wake-up call. Usually I would be pretty surly if someone were to wake me at such an hour, but breakfast will be served at 5:30am, and when you expect the race ahead to take 6 hours3, all opportunities for caloric intake are greeted warmly. After rustling through my pack and disarray of possessions cluttering the floor of the tent, I emerge for breakfast. Though the sun rose at 4:30am, base camp had yet to bask in the warmth of its light. Despite the base camp's lofty location of 5364m elevation, it sits as the stage of an ampitheater, 6500m+ peaks seated around 240 degrees of its circumference. It had snowed lightly last night and the temperature now was probably in the upper 30's4. Unlike the breakfasts we had to this point on the trek, in which we were seated at tables inside the dining tent while our Sherpa staff waited upon us, this morning is a serve-yourself setup. What looks the same is the menu -- tea, porridge, some kind of toast or pancake and eggs having undergone one of several various forms of preparation. I have long grown sick of the porridge, and am content to squelch the burn of my gastric juices with 2 pieces of toast and two cups of hot black tea. No matter how many layers of clothes we wear, it is not enough to keep us warm. Many of us huddle beneath the canopy of the last remaining communal tent, hoping the collective body heat can produce the warmth that the clothing cannot.
Most of us have traveled the bumpy road of acclimatization to get here, having suffered headaches, lightheadedness, high resting heart rates, irregular respiration, diarrhea or dehydration. As recently as yesterday morning, my resting pulse was 100 beats/minute, but when I take it today, it is back to 70. My larger concern is the cough I have had since we ascended above the treeline near Dingboche5. It took a distinctive turn for the worse since leaving Gorak Shep6, and I'm coughing up sputum the color of Irish Spring soap. I mentioned this to the doctor yesterday, but it was dismissed by association with my high resting heart rate as anxiety7. At any rate, I don't feel particularly weak, and as far as I can tell from my chats with the other runners, everyone else is feeling reasonably strong as well.
Towards 6:15am, I retreat back to my tent to go through my stretching routine and listen to a couple of tunes -- the battery on my iPod would afford no more. Listening to music is the surrogate for a warm-up jog this morning, as the terrain about base camp is not particularly amenable to running, and economizing energy would seem to be of the utmost importance. By 6:30am, I emerge from the tent for the final time, raring to go from the explosive riffs of Fear Factory's Shock and Lamb of God's Black Label. I join the cluster of both foreigners and natives alike near the dining tent, which is within meters of the marathon's start line. All of us are awaiting the roll call, which allegedly is supposed to proceed through the names of all 130 competitors, although I would never hear mine voiced. Around 6:45am, cheers greet the sun as it peeks out from the towering ridges above us and caresses us with temperatures that soar into the upper 40's. I begin the process of peeling off the sundry layers of clothing I am currently wearing, until I am left with my REI hat and sunglasses ensemble, a white Patagonia silkweight capilene T-shirt, generic gray running shorts, a pair of gloves compliments of the 2004 Eastern States 20-miler, a pair of black Nike ankle-high socks and a pair of Inov-8 280 mountain racing shoes in black/chartreuse. Because the aid stations sprinkled along the course are rather sparse and minimalist8, I had invested in a Camelbak-like entity from EMS, in which I carried 2-liters of citrus-flavored Cytomax9, a 7-ounce bag of Planter's chocolate trail mix, one Ritter Sport Biscuit chocolate bar, one Ritter Sport Cappuccino chocolate bar, one Mars bar and one caramel Twix bar. The former 3 items had been purchased prior to traveling to Nepal, as I was not certain to be able to find familiar, training-proven foods10 in Kathmandu or elsewhere. The latter 2 items were purchased in Gorak Shep after I had recalculated possible caloric expenditure during the race. One large laminated race number 049 is pinned to the front of my T-shirt, another to the back of the Camelbak. It's 6:57am or so, and some official looking person is blabbing on about something or other.
I look from left to right across the starting line, seeing many faces eager to get on with the race, the culmination of an amazing 12-day acclimatization trek for the foreigners and months of training for both foreigners and locals alike. Those same faces express nervousness though, as the course offers only 1/2-2/3 of the oxygen found in most of our homes, terrain that mountain goats would have trouble with, and the closest thing to a literal, rather than figurative, wall at the 20-mile mark. Last minute handshakes, pats on the back and well-wishes are exchanged to release the tension. The seconds tick and tick and tick and tick and at last the starter releases us from our prison behind the starting line, and the race is on.
A surge of adrenaline always follows the firing of a starter's pistol or the blowing of his whistle. Often this results in runners going out an entirely too fast a pace. With bare ice peeping out in spots in the glacial moraine as we depart base camp, that surge of adrenaline is instead channeled towards staying upright. As I begin navigation through the obstacle course, via my peripheral vision to the left, I see Antoine11 bound out ahead, and about 50m into the race is the last I will see of him -- not that he will have receded off into the horizon already, but rather that my focus is so intent on traversing the treacherous terrain that I will not be aware of any soul more than 2m away. After the adrenaline wears off, not much more than 100m into the race, my gait becomes a fast walk in favor of a slow jog. The little bit of running I had done at Dingboche on the trek up taught me that flats or the slightest uphill camber left the legs in hypoxic shock after 200m. More than just a flash of exhaustion, the sensation also resembled the pins and needles feeling derived from cutting off circulation to an extremity. This race would be tough enough without that feeling, so my strategy until we had descended below 4000m was to only run on the downhills. After 400m more of choppy walking and slow jogging, I hear the familiar voice of Alan12 behind me, suggesting that maybe we try to run together through the early stages of the race. As he passes by me on a brief widening in the craggy trail, I reply that I'll see how it goes. Though I would very much enjoy the company during the race, I reckon that in a 6-hour race, you can't afford to be running anybody else's race but your own -- if someone else happens to be your speed and have the same strengths as you, great, but if not, you've got to let them go. This is exactly what I must do with Alan after shadowing him for another quarter mile. The winner of last year's marathon and course record holder, Deepak Rai, had visited our camp in Namche Bazaar and advised that one must take the first third of the race particularly easy. I was entirely of the mind to heed that advice, although the talus that comprised the mini-ridge upon which we were now running and the 5300m+ elevation made it impossible for any effort expenditure to be truly easy.
Even though I am but a mile into the race, the field is already spread out considerably. The leaders are no longer in sight, and there are dozens of meters of space between successive runners. I pass a couple of Nepalese who clearly must have had the adrenaline get the best of them at the start. Any ego I may develop is promptly deflated by the entry of a sharp stone into my shoe. I deliberate briefly whether to eat the time to stop and shake it out or not, and my decision is made by the next time I encounter a decent-looking sitting boulder aside the trail. Maybe if this was the last mile of the race I could run straight through without the risk of blister development, but with 25 miles to go, I could be suffering for a long time. In the 30 seconds it takes for me to untie, shake and retie, one of the runners I just passed gets me back, but I return the favor very shortly. By now, I've completely lost contact with Alan, who is already up and over the next mound in the trail. I continue my pattern of shuffling the brief downhills and walking the uphills, and at last come upon the pond and the beach-like oasis that marks the presence of Gorak Shep at its far side. One has the option of running through the pond's shallow water or darting among the crags to its right. Knowing that wet feet have led to odious blisters in the past, I choose the more difficult crags. The lodges of Gorak Shep are now clearly in view as I touch the sand on the base camp side of the beach. The beach can't be more than 400m long, but I perceive myself moving so slowly that I feel that I must be crossing the Sahara13. Step by step I slog my way through the sand. Even though this is one of the few truly flat sections of the course, running still seems like a superhuman effort. Finally I arrive at the first water station located in central Gorak Shep. I check my watch to discover I have barely broken 50 minutes for the first 5k.
The good news is that there's only 38km left to go. The bad news is that the terrain coming out of Gorak Shep towards Lobuche is a lot like the terrain between base camp and Gorak Shep. A steep uphill greets me right away out of the aid station and I'm sucking wind so hard that I have no prayer of drinking any water for awhile. The ups and downs of the course here resemble tidal waves of rock, the uphills taking the gas out of you such that when you hit the down slope, you can't attack. All you can do is just let gravity drag you along. Nobody passes me, and I pass nobody. During one of my walking spells, I divert my attention long enough to notice that the water bottles issued by the aid station are custom-labeled with the THEM14 logo. I eventually drain the remainder of my bottle and nearly shout with glee when I notice a landmark point on the course -- the end of running on the moraine! There's a sharp downhill (about 100m elevation drop) that I scramble down exhilarated. My momentum catapults me for the better part of 50m on the ensuing flat and much more footing-friendly valley floor before my legs tire and I regress to speedwalking again. Now calling this a valley floor is a charitable description -- really it is just that the moraine is now off to the left and foothills of a mountain range are off to the right. The ground has a series of nature-made culverts running not quite parallel to each other, crossing and recrossing in whatever way the monsoons saw fit to forge them. Their proximity is sufficiently close that I am dancing in and out of them as I trace the race route. When I look up, I find I am slowly gaining on a Nepalese runner ahead of me, number 068. He's playing the same game as I am, fluctuating between a slogging jog and a walk, but our cycles are out of phase and have different durations. I eat away at his lead by the time we arrive at the turnoff for the Pyramid15. But just as I am about to strike past him, it is intestinal distress which strikes me, so I make a beeline for the nearest sheltering boulder where I can drop trou and go about my covert operations. I pop back up quickly and am once again breathing down his neck as we enter Deboche.
We'camped at Deboche 5 days earlier and I recall it roughly marked the 10km mark in the race. I look at my watch and see1:26, having sped up to the near breakneck speed of 37 minutes for the previous 5km. There are a handful of hikers/climbers standing near the water station, and as I trudge by, they utter a cry of surprise, "He's white! Go white guy!" The cheer gave me more of a laugh than an adrenaline boost, but it was appreciated nonetheless. I lose #068 when I stop to walk after taking my water and he does not. The race route sweeps an arc through Deboche and exits through something more like a true valley floor. There are a smattering of exposed rocks imprisoned in the ground, but in contrast to the earlier sections of the course, very few of them are loose here. #068 and I wage our battle of cat and mouse once again after I have ingested the contents of my water bottle. 2km past Deboche, I finally gain the upper hand, but in my delirious excitement, I begin to wander down a trail on the wrong side of the valley, a fact I learn when I see #068 out of my left peripheral vision heading toward the monuments16 I recall from the trek up. As much as I can, I cut an off-trail tangent to rejoin my now-nemesis. Finding the trail again, I am 30m back, steadily walking the uphill before the first sizable precipitous descent to Thugla. I catch him once more just as we put the last monument behind us, and when we hit the downhill, I surge forth, knowing this is my strength. Most people, when careening downhill, at the brink of being out of control, have been born with some set of synapses that fire panicked "Slow Down!" messages to the legs. I am not one of those people and as such, I've become reasonably skilled at high velocity land descents. I open up my stride, minimizing the decelerating contact with the ground. My eyes continually dart to and fro across the trail, now an amorphous array of boulders poking up from below ground. The images they take in are rapidly processed by the brain, which computes where I should next place my foot. There are general rules, like always trying to keep your feet on the highest local point in the field of your stride, but mostly it's just experience. I rumble down the mountain to Thugla and I think I may have gapped #068 for good when I hit water station #3. My watch reads 1:51, but I don't know the distance associated with the split.
I keep my momentum going another 100m down to the river crossing, which would require a little rock-hopping and traversal of the most dilapidated bridge on the course. Two hops in, one foot slips off the rock, then the other follows suit for balance. So much for keeping the shoes dry. And I realize the descent has deposited a small beach worth of pebbles in my shoes. The first good sitting rock after making my way to the other side, I untie and shake out both of my shoes. In the midst of my grooming, #068 goes running by once again. I lace back up and start walking as there's more than 1km of continuous uphill here. Though the grade is not too hideous, running is still out of the question at this point. The route here cuts along a steep slope ~300m above the valley of Pheriche. On the other side of the valley tower 6000m peaks. The trail is mostly well-packed dust with occasional natural culverts slicing through it, the footing good enough that the racer can actually raise their head from their feet and absorb the impressive enormity of the surroundings. With the brain getting a respite from the continual bombardment of foot-eye coordination activity, I turn my attention to calorie intake. I've eaten nothing thus far, and though I'm not hungry, I know that will lead to bad news later if I don't take corrective action now. I whip the Mars bar out of my Camelbak, open it and take a bite. What becomes immediately apparent is that chewing makes the already difficult task of respiration almost impossible. I discover that the best way to deal with this is to bite of a chunk of the bar and merely let it melt in my mouth, a slow process, but effective. The trail climbs to the top of the slope and onto a near-plateau around 4650m elevation, and now with the open space to my left, and a clearer view of what lays ahead as the valley turns to the right 2 miles ahead, I feel like I'm in the run of my dreams. I kick up a little jog again, and see that #068 has put one minute's worth of distance between us, so much so that he's passed another runner. I pass the same runner moments later, and from looking at her gait when I go by, I don't think she'll be passing me back. The trail varies from flat to slightly downhill, yet I still don't have enough oxygen to consistently run. I revel in the scenery, but keep #068 firmly in my sight. I reel him in little by little, having closed the gap to 20 seconds by the time we reach the Buddhist prayer monument above Dingboche. What follows is a snappy ~150m descent into the village itself, and just as we come off the hard descent to pull a 150 degree right-hand turn onto the main thoroughfare17, I have become his shadow. The track is maybe 1.5m wide here, and a cascade runs down the center, sometimes broadening to nearly the track's full width. Miraculously my feet have dried from my altercation with the previous river crossing, but I am not enthused about the idea of moistening them again, and neither is #068, so we frequently skip from the left to the right bank and back again, to whichever side has more real estate. Dingboche is the largest settlement until the 37km mark of the marathon, and several of the villagers are out in their yards shouting18 as we go by. I just finish the last of the Mars bar and am right with #068 when we hit the water station at the far side of town, 2:34 into the race.
Coming out of the aid station, I choose to walk once again until I've drained my ration of water while #068 chooses to continue running. One of these times I'll get him for good. Based on the rate of the Mars bar consumption just witnessed, I decide I should get right on top of eating the next candy bar pronto. I pick out and unwrap the Twix for this segment in the course, continuing to hold it in my right hand even after I begin to run again, the route following a mostly gentle downhill interspersed with a few ups, with the footing of a quality similar to that found on the Skyline Trail in metro-Boston's Blue Hills Reservation -- tolerable, but not without peril. I cut into #068's lead again, and BLAM! I catch a toe on a rock and am sent splattering to the ground. When I get back to my feet, I sense no prodigious levels of pain and figure that I've not inflicted any irreparable damage upon myself. After several seconds of running, I sense liquid on my leg. A quarter-sized skid wound has opened on my left palm and is weeping drops of blood onto the leg below. The leg now sports a few brilliant red gashes of its own. The scrapes on the right leg maintain a near symmetry with the left. My eyes wander over to my right palm, which has emerged unscathed, but the Twix bar is now missing and my pinky is sickeningly bent the wrong way, with a curvature approximately that of the lip of a pint glass. I've had broken bones before, but none as visually disconcerting as this. My mind starts to run in circles trying to figure out what this means for the race. I know that some of the water stations also have some form of medical aid, and I hope that the next at Pangboche would be such a station. I reckoned on taking at least one nasty spill during the course of a 6-hour race, but I hadn't reckoned on breaking a bone. I press onward, not attacking the downhills with the zeal I had previously, my acute focus on foot placement diluted by residual broken-bone paranoia, no longer thinking about the fact that I should be eating, yet still able to realize I was running in the midst of brilliant scenery in brilliant weather, and that believe it or not, I was nearly toe-to-heel with #068 again. I make my move around him on the approach to what I believe is Pangboche (but was actually Shomare). Something in my nature wants to taunt him, to let him know that he is about to be losing to a guy who broke his finger moments ago, but instead, I just open up a gap on him. Through Shomare I keep looking around for where I suspect the water station must be, but I descend to the far side of town having spied none. Less than a kilometer out of town I realize that it was not Pangboche I have just left in the dust, but that it is still maybe 4km ahead of me. This is probably the flattest stretch of the race, dropping only 80m over that distance with no appreciable up or down. I begin wondering whether I really need to get my finger splinted up. Wouldn't it be just as effective to do so after the race? After all, it would cost valuable time to stop and get it splinted along the course. But minutes later, after slipping by some late-season trekkers and their porters, I get my answer. BAM! I go down again, but I have the presence of mind to avoid bracing myself at all with the right arm, resulting in a strange contortion where I hit the ground first on my left side and tear up my forearm. Bollocks19. At least no one saw me fall. I sigh and run down the rest of the way to Pangboche, passing another Nepalese runner before getting stopped by the first yak train of the day. Not too costly a delay though, as the driver waves me by when we reach a slightly wider point in the trail, not 50m after I had run up their back.
A minute later I see the familiar face of one of the doctors assigned to our trekking group at the water station. I reach for a bottle of water with my left hand and stick my right out and ask, "Can you fix this?" Horrified looks appear on the faces of those in sight of my mangled pinky. The doc gently pushes it back into place and starts to wrap it heavily in gauze. I finish my water and ask for another. I don't know where they come from, but a small crowd forms around the aid station. This must be the first time the doc has been pressed into action. Off to my left, there are two guys who roll their video cameras during the procedure. After the finger is taken care of, the doctor moves to my other hand, which he washes in iodine. The minutes continue to tick by. I can feel the rigor mortis begin pooling in my legs and oddly enough in my shoulders. They've got to finish quick. Wads of cotton and a band-aid are applied to my left palm and I'm out of the pit stop. Somehow #068 has not passed me back. The other Nepalese I had passed by the yaks is walking very slowly and I retake him easily. Mercifully, the yak train had turned off the trail, and I was home free once again. The next stretch of trail consists of a somewhat sharper descent, including a number of stairs as it clings to the right side of an ever-more precipitously steep cliff. I manage to navigate this section without tripping, though I do need to stop and tie shoes a couple of times. On the approach to the bridge taking the trail over the chasm to the valley's left, I see the Tengboche monastery off in the distance. It's good news that I've gotten this far, but it's bad news that the monastery is situated 200m above where I stand now. Reaching the left side of the valley, I find myself under the cover of trees for the first time today at an elevation of 3600-3700m. The trail begins a gradual uphill march. There's actually enough oxygen here that I can eke out a few steps worth of running at a time now on the uphill. The forest here is unlike any I've seen live before, but consists of what I imagine as Japanese-looking trees. Normally I prefer the coolness of the shade they provide, but the breeze plays with the light and shadow imaged on canvas of the trail, making it difficult to pick out where a malicious rock may be lying in wait to trip me. The trail flattens out approaching Deboche, and I am able to run more than walk. I pass one Nepalese runner, than a few minutes later another, and continue to locomote well until hitting the ascent to Tengboche. The foreigners, myself included, had remarked that the race really began around here. Just because you survived the first 30k didn't mean you could survive the last 13k. This was the beginning of the end, a stinging climb gaining 200m of elevation in perhaps a kilometer. My pace dwindles to a crawl. The heart rate skyrockets and the breathing gets 10 decibels louder. The trail wiggles left and right every so often, always revealing more elevation to gain at every turn. Even though I'm walking, I pick off 3 more Nepalese road kill20. Finally, I come around a turn and see the trail open into a clearing. I know this is Tengboche. I come to the water station just as I catch another Nepalese. My watch reads 3:59.
Approximately 200m of moderate uphill separates me from the other side of the clearing. After the recent ascent, the uphill feels pancake flat. I concentrate on sucking my water down quickly because at that other side begins a punishing 610m elevation drop in the course of maybe 3km. I toss my empty water bottle aside and start running as soon as I cross beneath the arch marking the boundary of Tengboche. I leave the Nepalese from the water station in the dust, and pass another one a minute later. The first kilometer of the descent is at a not-totally-insane grade and can hug the valley wall without the need for switchbacks. Yet again I catch my toe on a rock and my head pitches toward my heels, but I am able to open my leg far out front on the next stride to catch my balance. Nonetheless, the adrenaline rush jumpstarts my heart rate, and I have to stop and walk for several strides to calm down. From here, I begin to catch a rhythm, passing another female Nepalese. The descent grows steeper and steeper, the serpentines tighter and tighter. I smoke by another pair of Nepalese. My feet are compressing in the toebox of my shoes. Another Nepalese ahead of me is using the Sherpa shortcuts21. I'm feeling a little ballsy right now, so I peel off after him on the next shortcut. I gain on him, but gag because there's too much dust flying my way, and the track isn't wide enough to pass. At the next shortcut, I gun it on the switchback while he takes the shortcut, and at the next juncture he edges back on to the trail just after I've gone by. My inner taunting bastard wants to say something like, "White men can't jump, but we can fly," but I restrain myself. Unfortunately, there's not much left to fly down, and after one more road kill I'm at the race's low point, the 3200m bridge of Phunki Tenga.
The way from Phunki Tenga is the mirror image of the terrain I've just descended. Up, up and more up. Approximately 700m of climbing is ahead, all after having run 21 miles of a marathon, and all above 11000 feet of elevation. No worries, I can do this. This is where the strength developed by copious numbers of Tour de Stades22 would come into play. There's nothing gradual about the start of the climb. An incredible amount of engineering has gone into the trails to clear a marginally walkable path between the villages. The stone-cut steps employed throughout the region reach their highest density here. While the terraces themselves may not be the smooth level cement of the stadium seats, the rate of change of elevation feels about the same. I methodically move one foot up, then the other. My respiration would drown out a jet engine if there were one nearby. Every time the trail snakes a turn to the left or right, I pray that around the bend the slope will become just a little gentler. Instead I am met with the uncaring, unwavering mettle of the mountain, which will not relent its assault on my legs. But hark, at one turn my wish is granted, and there is a water stop in 2-house village. Moreover, they even have some kind of juice, which I gladly take. This also jolts me back to the realization that I have not had anything to eat since the bite of Twix before the broken finger. I unzip the pocket of my Camelbak and take out the Biscuit Ritter Sport bar, chomp off a big bite and stick the remainder in my left shorts pocket. I continue on and around the next bend, it's back to the wicked uphill grade. I feel like someone has pressed the "slow motion" button on my life right now, but somehow I could be going slower, because I pass another Nepalese here. There are both positive and negative thoughts waging war in my mind. Every step is bringing me closer to the finish line, yet adjective-noun phrases like, "impossible brutality", "gratuitous torture", and "extraneous excoriation" cannot be exorcised from my thoughts. I find that my legs are no longer strong enough on their own to tackle the climb, and the muscles of my lower back are called into duty as well. The trail begins to level, though I still don't recognize how far along I am. The wind kicks up and my cap is sent sailing backwards off my head. It skips a couple of more times along the ground, but I am able to dash back, albeit without the suaveness of Indiana Jones, and rescue it from plummeting to a sure death. More corners are turned, and finally I recognize my whereabouts when a major trail junction comes into view. Though the track is not particularly hazardous, my focus is let up on account of my excitement and I go tumbling down. I get up immediately and see that my gauze, cotton and band-aid are all besotted with trail grit. 3 spectators up ahead have witnessed my fall. "Pretty funny, eh?" I say as I walk by.
I recall the trail junction being about the halfway mark of this ascent, and though still fiercely difficult, the second half is a slight reprieve overall from the first. I encounter another Nepalese runner on the steps towards Khumjung. This guy is more talkative than the others, and tells me that I am the third foreigner. I wonder how he can know this, but as I manage to utter a couple of questions back his way, it sounds like he went out really hard and folded, because he knows all about who Antoine is. He also tells me that he thinks a Nepalese runner won the race. I look at my watch, and the hour indicator just rolls over from 4 to 5. The winner has probably been in for about an hour already, but I don't see how he can know his identity with certainty, although suggesting a Nepalese has won the race isn't exactly going out on a limb. I drift ahead out of conversational range, and become conscious of the fact that the blue sky that has greeted us for most of the race has been replaced by gray clouds. I reach the end of the stairs and reach into my pocket for a celebratory bite of chocolate. I haven't managed to eat since the aid station. I have to get some calories in me, so I come to a full stop and sit on a boulder to catch my breath well enough to down the rest of the chocolate bar. I trudge along the trail, following the red arrows and T.H.E.M. markings on the stones on the ground or along the walls. The route begins to diverge from the show-me-the-course side trek we had taken from Namche Bazaar one rest day. Will there be any more surprises in store for me? There's more up than what I had remembered for one thing, and when I finally reach a local high point, after nearly an hour of continual ascent, I try to run and my legs are in absolute shambles. Still, I must force them to move. I regress to walking now not because there is insufficient oxygen, but because my legs can't sustain a running gait. I try again, and again, and lo and behold, some life is coming back. I've hardly touched my Cytomax yet today, but I suck it aggressively now through the Camelbak tube. I begin to get into a decent rhythm on the downhill, and confidence builds once again. Through Khumjung and Khunde the course is a veritable maze, and not every single intersection is unambiguously marked, so when I see no marking, but I see a local outside within earshot, I point in a direction and ask, "Marathon?"
At one point in the maze, around the 39km mark, I come upon a sight which thoroughly perplexes me. I see Alan and a Nepalese runner walking towards me on the course. I ask Al if I'm going the wrong way, to which he replies, no, just follow the arrows. I shrug my shoulders and do as I'm told, but I am unable to reconcile what Al is doing there. He seemed too calm to have been lost. Did he have an incredible race and was back up here for some reason to encourage other runners? If that were the case, I would have expected a little more enthusiasm. I get to an intersection with no marking, but there are two soldiers and one woman working in her yard. I ask, "Marathon?" and the two soldiers point in one direction, the woman in the other. My momentum carries me in the direction the soldiers indicate, but I turn back and look, uncertain. The woman and the soldiers exchange words, and the soldiers wave me on. A couple of turns later and now I see the chatty Nepalese runner coming towards me as I had come towards Alan. Mystery solved, and evidently I trail Alan by about 6 minutes. If only I hadn't gotten my finger splinted.
The route now follows a nice wide track with good footing and a slightly downhill pitch. My legs are rickety, but my stride is respectable and I can sustain a run without walking breaks. I sport a broad smile on my face as I get to the Hillary school. I'm passing through at lunchtime as all of the kids are out in their school uniforms at recess. All of a sudden I have a huge fanbase, with chants of "hay-ay-ay-ay-ay..." coming from both sides in the rhythm of my stride. 4 girls walking along the route begin to run along with me. 3 of them drop off, but one stays with me all the way to the edge of the school grounds. Together, we've passed another Nepalese runner. At the far side of the school is more step-laden uphill. I tell her that she can keep running if she wants, but that I need to slow down here. She smiles and turns back towards the school. After passing another Nepalese, I hear two trekkers, one who tells me it is 10 minutes to the finish, the other tells me (with an intonation indicating his partner is a liar) maybe a bit more than that. I look at my watch and it says elapsed time is 5:43. There is another Nepalese in sight now up ahead and I focus on catching him. This is the last climb in the race, and it is evil. No longer do my legs and back have the strength alone to propel me up the steps, so I enlist my arms to push down on my knees to help straighten them. I notice the stones are speckled with raindrops before I am aware of any of them having hit my body. By the Syangboche prayer monument, I am on the heels of #095. From there it is all downhill. I walk to the left23of the monument, not needing to be cursed any more than necessary. On its far side, I begin to run, as does #095. For some unknown reason, there are two children there as well, and they begin to run with us. When my right calf spasms, I must slow, and I am left alone. The descent is too steep to walk comfortably, so I run like my right leg is made of wood, with no toe-off whatsoever. A sequence of it grabbing and letting go plays out over the next two minutes, and not 2 more minutes hence, the same scenario plays out with the left calf. I'm not really certain I'm on "the" trail, as it seems like there's more or less a grid of trails between shrubbery on the mountainside, and as long as I switchback directions once in awhile, I'm OK. Whenever #095 is in my sight, I use him as a navigation beacon.
I arrive at the next-to-last prayer monument on the course, and there are perhaps 1200m to go. The trail is more well-defined again and I pry open my stride on the downhill more acutely. Just a couple of switchbacks below I can see Alan. My left quad seizes up and lets go, and I reopen the stride. I close in on and authoritatively pass #095. After zigzagging along a fence, there is an 800 painted on a rock that I assume means there is but a 1/2 mile remaining. Suddenly I hear the thundering of at least 2 pairs of feet behind me. It sounds like I'm going to have quite a finish with someone, but why didn't I hear them approach? I question whether these are marathon racers behind me and sneak a look back to find two soldiers there, one of whom is carrying a Coca-Cola24 banner. I can't imagine that everyone gets this treatment, but I will have my own personal soldier for the rest of the race -- the other runs up ahead of me and tucks in behind Alan. Alan. I want so bad to catch up to him. It's one of the stranger feelings I've ever had though -- I'm not driven to beat him, as somehow it would seem more poetic to finish the race tied. I want to call out to him, "Hey, Alan, wait up for me!" But that seems silly, and if I'm going to catch him, I've got to run like hell, but I've run out of downhill and all of my leg muscles are spasming together. I sense that Alan has seen me by now as he breaks into a run before the last turn, a hard right around another prayer monument, a sight I see only tens of seconds after him. I sprint the last 100m as best I can and cross the finish in 6:06:47, promptly greeted by Antoine, Alan and a race official who adorns me with a T.H.E.M track suit and a 1-liter bottle of rehydration powder-enriched water. I'm aware it's raining. I'm aware that I look like complete shit -- bruises on the forearm, an iodine yellow-tinged open wound on my left palm, a pair of dirt-tinged bloody knees, caked crimson drip marks on the left knee and a rapidly unraveling piece of dusty gauze barely clinging to my right pinky. I'm smiling from ear-to-ear though, knowing that I may have lost a few battles, but I have won the war against the hardest marathon in the world.
Links
Tenzing-Hillary Everest Marathon Homepage
Kathmandu
Times Article
Peter Hinze's
Daily Online Report for Focus (in German, includes pictures)
Alan Heaton's Everest Starish Promise
Nick Gibbins and Phil Stapleton's Extreme Feat
Endnotes
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A shameless ripoff from the title of the book I was reading during the trek, The Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. One of the distinguishing features of the book is its extensive use of endnotesa -- the main body of the text somewhere around 980 pages, the endnotes encompassing approximately 100 pages on their own. The remainder of this article is composed in the spirit of The Infinite Jest.
(a) Yes, there really are cases where an individual endnote entry itself has endnotes. back -
Grant Fairbairn, a jolly 26-year old chap hailing from England, but who had spent the last 3 years teaching English in Japan. His stint in Japan was recently completed, and before starting a "real" career back home, he wanted to take some time to trek about Nepal, and had already completed the Annapurna circuit before I had met him in Kathmandu. A veteran of 5 marathons, he had entered the Everest race really simply because it fit well into his schedule, and he'd always been intrigued by the world's highest mountain. back
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An initial goal was to become the fastest white guy of all time to complete the Everest Marathon. Based on perusing the results of previous years, this meant bettering a time of 5:34. However, upon arrival in Namche Bazaar on the trek up, I learned that the previous years' course was 39km (3.2km short of the offiical marathon distance), and that the course had been re-routed this year to 43km (the extra 800m just to be on the safe side.) The way in which the additional distance was added was most egregious -- though a little was gained via routing the course up through Dingboche rather than in the valley of Pheriche, the most noticeable was the additional 400m climb to Khumjung/Khunde inserted beyond mile 21. This revelation forced me to reevaluate my time goal and set it to 6 hours. back
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All temperatures will be quoted in degrees Fahrenheit. back
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A fairly large village situated at 4310m elevation, where we had camped for 2 nights on the trek towards base camp. back
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The last village on the trek to base camp, situated at 5180m elevation. back
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The cough worsened and weakened me substantially the day following the race. Ultimately I was diagnosed with a chest infection and was prescribed the antibiotic amoxycillin to slay the illness. Nearly 3 weeks after the race, the cough still had not yet been completely exorcised. It's still unclear to me how anxiety could manifest itself as coughing, but even had I been diagnosed before the race, undoubtedly the fatigue induced by the amoxycillin would have annulled any benefit I might have incurred by lessening the number of coughing fits. back
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Aid stations were supposed to exist approximately every 5km along the course, featuring water....period. Though I wound up far enough up in the field that all aid stations were still equipped as I came through, some runners not far behind me mentioned that all water had been distributed already as they came through. back
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A beverage advertised to promote alertness during bouts of extended exercise, recommended to me by friend Conrad Ziesler, based on his positive experiences on long bike rides. On the last long run prior to the race, I had tried it out without issue and pronounced it race-worthy. back
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The trail mix having been my primary caloric source during long runs in training, the Ritter Sport bars having been the staple snack of my treks in Greenland in the summer of 2006. back
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Antoine Bonfils, a French photographer for Le Point magazine, who had joined our trek in Namche Bazaar. Antoine brought by far the speediest resume to the table of any of the foreigners, including a 1:51 800m, 3:47 1500m, 1:06 half-marathon and had competed in the World Cross Country Championships earlier in the year. When he arrived at Namche Bazaar however, he was just a photographer, not yet a race competitor. One of the dramas of the remainder of the trip was "Will he or won't he?" regarding his decision to enter the race. He frequently expressed dismay at the horribly rocky nature of the course and amazement at the ease by which the Nepalese were able to scream down the steep downhills. Ultimately, his decision to run was proclaimed the day before the race at base camp, so the mystery of what a really fit foreigner could do in the Everest marathon (though his first marathon) would be solved. back
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Alan Heaton, a 25-year old world traveling volunteer from England who had volunteered at a Nepalese orphanage previously and was running the race on the invitation of a friend (who later wussed out) to raise sufficient funds to sponsor 5 orphans at a newly constructed orphanage in Chitwan for a year. Though this was Alan's first marathon, he and I (only having 2 marathons to my credit, and none since 2000) had been ordained the race favorites out of the foreigners, perhaps based on our ability to both climb hills and manouver about the rocks reasonably well. One of the latecomers to our group, Richard Pennink had the fastest marathon (2:40) to his credit of all of us, but he was feeling subpar on race day.. back
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There is a multi-day stage race, the Marathon du Sable, which does in fact cross the Sahara. At least one of the foreigners in our group had competed this race in a previous year. back
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THEM = Tenzing-Hillary Everest Marathon. back
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The Italians have a meteorological research station shaped as a glass pyramid ~500m off the race route near the foot of a glacier. back
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10-20 memorials have been erected to honor just a small number of the many who have perished in their attempts to conquer Everest. Most notably included among them is Scott Fischer of Into Thin Air fame. back
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In the context of the Himalayan settlements, what I refer to as the main thoroughfare refers to the route most highly trafficked by trekkers, porters and yaks. The route through Dingboche looks more like a Main St. than others due to the presence of 4-foot tall stone walls on both sides. back
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Since I had neglected to prepare sufficiently for the trek by learning Nepali, while it is reasonable to assume I was being cheered, it is also possible that I was being jeered. back
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An English curse word that had entered my vocabulary primarily by osmosis from the vernacular of Mark Tointona and Nick Gibbinsb.
(a) Owner of a small IT firm in the UK, who at age 40, watching the London marathon, had recalled that running a marathon was on his life list to do before the age of 40, so he'd really better get on with it. Over the next two years, he would run a marathon on every continent, plus the hottest, coldest, highest and lowest (Everest serving the dual purpose of being the highest and being in Asia). Mark's exploits would raise money for the hospital where he had several surgeries in his youth to address a clubbed foot. During the race, as everyday, he wears a size-7 shoe on one foot, a size-11 on the other.
(b) An ear/nose/throat doc from the UK, also the source of much spirited card-playing on the trek up, who had already run the North Pole and Dead Sea marathons earlier in the year, and would be running the Marathon du Sable in 2008, also raising funds for a good cause. back -
Terminology derived from Oregon's Hood-to-Coast Relay. This is a 12-person 36-stage relay stretching from Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood to the Pacific coast and the town of Seaside, a total of 196 miles. Due to the length and varying ability of teams involved, start times are staggered over a period of nearly 12 hours, with the faster teams starting later. As such, the faster teams continually pass by the slower team's runners. The race route almost entirely being conducted on the roads, these overtakes became known as road kills, and it was common for runners to keep track of the number of road kills they'd had during their leg, and compare them with other runners on their team. back
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On many of the switchback-styled trails, there were also less-engineered, but still well-defined trails which while not necessarily tracing the gradient of the slope, were a more directly route from top-to-bottom. We had observed many of the Nepalese porters and guides using these as we were trekking up, and named them the Sherpa shortcuts. back
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One of my staple workouts in preparation for the race was conducted at the Harvard University football stadium. The workout consisted of running up the 30 rows of seats, which are not independent chairs, but more like giant cement steps about 2 feet high and 2+ feet recessed, turning around at the top, coming down the normal-sized steps in the aisles, then jogging over to the next section and repeating. I had begun initially with 20 sections, and ultimately worked up to a full stadium's worth, or 38 sections. Lorin Obler, a fellow member of the running club, named one of these workouts a Tour de Stade. back
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Buddhist culture advises that prayer monuments be circumscribed in a clockwise direction. Those who don't are cursed. back
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Coca-Cola is a major sponsor of T.H.E.M. back
