by Dion Leonard
I pressed on after him, but after working so hard to try to narrow the gap, and having let myself get so angry, I soon felt tired. I heard footsteps behind me, and Julian overtook me. The heat started to rise, and the race moved onto a long, flat road that extended off for miles into the distance. I started to feel bored, then frustrated with myself.
Previous experience had taught me that feeling this way was toxic. But it had also taught me how to deal with it.
In my first-ever ultra-race—a full marathon with a six-mile loop added onto the end—I’d started to feel tired at around the twenty-mile mark. By the time I approached it, I was done. I wasn’t enjoying the running, and I was fed up with getting overtaken by men and women who were much older than me. I’d done it only to keep Lucja company, and even though I was about to complete the 26.2 miles in a respectable 3:30, I gave up inside. I stepped off the course, headed back to the car, and waited for Lucja to join me.
It took hours.
As I sat in the car and watched the rest of the field put in the hard work that I wasn’t prepared to put in myself, I started to feel like I’d let myself down.
The field had thinned, and the only people still running were the kind of people who looked as if this event was a once-in-a-lifetime achievement. Lucja was fitter, faster, and stronger than all of them, and I was beginning to wonder what had happened. Eventually I got out of the car and walked back along the last mile of the course, looking for her. I found her soon enough, running slowly alongside a guy who obviously had a pretty serious leg injury. Lucja had struggled with fatigue toward the end of the race, but she had toughed it out.
I watched her cross the finish line and felt myself start to choke up. The mental strength and compassion Lucja showed that day has stayed with me ever since. I try to emulate her often when I’m racing, and at my best I can dig deep and tough out all kinds of pain and discomfort. But there are days when the voices calling me to quit shout louder than the voices calling me to keep on going. Those are the toughest days of all.
As I watched Julian disappear into the distance and tried not to think about how far ahead Tommy had gotten, I knew I was missing Lucja. But a quick glance down at Gobi was enough to bring back my focus and take my mind off the thing with Tommy. She was still beside me, still skipping along. Just by being there, Gobi made me want to keep going.
The long, flat section ended and gave way to scrubland. I’d noticed during the start of the stage that if Gobi saw a stream or puddle, she would occasionally run off to the side of the course and take a drink. Since the boulder section we’d not seen any water at all, and I wondered whether I might need to give her some of my own water. I didn’t want to stop, but I was also starting to feel responsible for the dog’s welfare. She wasn’t a big dog, and her legs weren’t much longer than my hands. All that running must have been hard on her.
So, initially at least, I was relieved when I saw the streams up ahead. Gobi trotted off and had a drink out of one of them, but if she’d been able to see what I could see, she wouldn’t have been nearly so happy.
Beyond the stream I could see Julian, on the far side of a river that must have been at least 150 feet wide. I remembered that the organizers had spoken about it while I was shivering on the start line a few hours earlier. It was going to come up to my knees, but it was possible to walk across.
The sight of Julian spurred me on, and I didn’t hesitate to wade in, checking that my bag was strapped on tight and high on my back. It was colder than I imagined, but I welcomed the chance to cool down a bit.
It was soon clear that the water was definitely going to reach my knees, and possibly even higher. The current was fast as well, and combined with the slippery rocks underfoot, I felt unsteady. I could handle continuing the race with wet shoes, for they’d dry out soon enough. But if I slipped, fell, and got my bag wet, not only would it become heavy and uncomfortable, but most of my food for the rest of the week would be ruined. One wrong foot, one tiny fall, and my race could be all over.
I was so focused on getting myself across that I didn’t stop to think about Gobi. I guess I assumed that she’d find her own way across the river, just as she had with the culvert the day before.
This time, however, her barking and whining didn’t stop. With every step I took, it became more desperate.
I was a quarter way across the river when I finally did what I had never done before in a race. I turned around.
She was on the bank, running up and down, looking right at me. I knew Julian was ahead by a few minutes, but I wondered how long it would be before someone came up behind me. If I went back, would I lose a place as well as valuable minutes?
I ran back as best I could, tucked her under my left arm, and waded back out into the cold water. I’d not picked her up before, and she was so much lighter than I imagined she would be. Even so, it was so much harder crossing with her. Using only my right arm for balance, I edged forward.
I slipped more than once, one time going down hard on my left side, getting Gobi and—I guessed—the bottom edge of my bag wet. But Gobi didn’t complain, nor did she wriggle or try to escape. She stayed calm, letting me do my job and keep her safe.
I put her down when we reached a small island in the middle, and she trotted around as though the whole thing was a great adventure. Once I’d checked that my bag wasn’t seriously wet and made sure it was as high up my back as I could get it, I called for Gobi, who immediately ran back to me. I scooped her up and continued on as before.
She scrambled up the bank on the other side a lot quicker than I did, and by the time I was clear of the mud and the undergrowth, Gobi had shaken herself off and was staring at me, obviously ready to get back to the race.
The dirt road ahead soon led us to another man-made culvert, though this one was altogether bigger than the previous one Gobi had jumped across. I didn’t stop at all this time, just picked her up and lifted her over.
There was a moment when I had her in front of me, her face level with mine, that I swore she gave me a look of genuine love and gratitude.
“You’re ready, aren’t you, girl?” I said, unable to stop smiling as I put her back down and watched her start to jump about. “Let’s go, then.”
It was only when I looked up that I saw an old guy on a donkey. He was watching us both, his face completely expressionless.
What must I look like? I wondered.
7
Race organizers like to tease runners, and the final stretch of the day went on for miles. My GPS watch told me that we were close to finishing, but I couldn’t catch a glimpse of the camp anywhere. All I could see was the path disappearing off into the distance, rising and falling over a series of ridges.
I was a couple of miles out, and by my calculations, I’d lost so much time when my pace had dropped earlier and then when I helped Gobi across the river, that Tommy and possibly even Julian would have finished. So I was surprised when I crested one of the ridges and saw both of them a mile up ahead. Neither of them appeared to be going at a decent pace. Instead, it looked to me like they were walking. I wondered whether, maybe, Tommy was holding back deliberately to allow others to catch up and make amends for what had happened earlier. Or maybe he was just struggling in the heat and was unable to go any faster.
Either way, I thought I might just have a shot at narrowing the gap between us, but I wanted to do it without letting them know. I didn’t want them to realize I was chasing them down and pick up their own pace. I had only so much more energy to give for the day. As the road went down into another dip, hiding me from view, I sprinted as fast as I possibly could. When I reached the top and could be seen again, I slowed right down. Gobi thought it was all great fun and pushed me hard on the sprints.
I didn’t see Tommy or Julian for the first couple of ridges, but when I crested the third, the gap between us had been halved. They were definitely walking, and I ran the next two dips even faster.
I knew I was getting closer with
each sprint, and when I came up for the fifth time, my lungs burning, I was barely two hundred feet behind them. They were just about to disappear from view for the final dip down, and I could see that the finish line was just ahead.
I had time for one last sprint before I switched tactics and started to run with a bit of stealth. The last thing I wanted to do was alert them to the fact that I was chasing them, so I went from running as fast as I could to running as quietly as possible.
By keeping up on my toes, and taking care to avoid any loose stones, two hundred feet soon turned into one hundred. Then eighty. Then sixty. I was amazed that neither of them heard me or looked back.
When the gap between us was thirty feet, and the line was another hundred feet beyond them, I decided I was close enough and kicked into the fastest sprint I could manage. I got a few paces closer before Julian turned and saw me, but even though Tommy started running, I had gained too much ground for either of them to make up.
I crossed the line first, with Gobi close on my heels in second. The sound of the finishing drum couldn’t drown out the shouts and cheers from the small crowd of organizers and volunteers.
I knew that the few seconds I’d put on Tommy would make no difference at all when it came to the end of the seven-day race, but it felt like a good way to respond to what had happened. I wanted him to know that even though I respected him and all he’d achieved as a runner, I wasn’t going to sit back and let him have everything his own way. If he was going to win, he’d have to do battle with me out on the course fair and square.
“That was amazing,” said one of the race organizers. “You’re having a super race.”
“Oh, thanks,” I said. But I didn’t want to have my ego stroked. I wanted to see how she was going to deal with the Tommy situation. “Can I come and have a chat with you later today about Tommy Chen cutting the course before checkpoint one? I’m not in the right frame of mind now, but you need to know what happened earlier.”
A lot of the anger had gone, but I knew I still had to be careful about what I said. After all, Tommy was the star of the show.
I ended up giving my version of events and waiting in the tent with Gobi curled up at my side while the investigation continued. The woman asking the questions also spoke with the other runners, the checkpoint staff, and Tommy. I’d said that I thought a fifteen-minute adjustment was fair, but in the end Tommy had just five minutes added onto his day’s time.
I was a bit disappointed and maybe a bit worried about how Tommy would take it. I went in search of him and found him in his tent. He was in tears.
“Do you have a minute to talk, Tommy?”
“I didn’t see the markers,” he said as soon as we got outside. I thought that was unlikely. Those little pink squares were hard to miss, and any seasoned runner who spends time at the front of the pack quickly learns how important it is to continually scan the route ahead and keep on course. Besides, he was behind me at the time, and my bright yellow shirt was hard to miss.
“Okay,” I said. “I don’t want any hard feelings about today. It’s all done with now. Let’s not hold any grudges, shall we?”
He looked at me, his face set firm and his tears long gone. “I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t spot the markers.”
I left it at that. There was nothing else to say.
Back in my tent I got a bit of encouragement from Richard and Mike for finishing first, but it was the incident with Tommy that they wanted to talk about. I wasn’t so interested in discussing it and wanted to put the whole thing behind me.
“I take my hat off to you, Dion,” said Richard. “You did something nice there.”
“How come?”
“Us runners farther back really appreciate your taking a stand on this. We’ve all got to stick to the same rules. Plus, you’ve done the right thing talking to Tommy and burying the hatchet.”
“Yeah, well, we’ll see what Tommy’s capable of tomorrow,” I said. “Maybe I’ve just stirred up a whole hornets’ nest of trouble for myself.”
I didn’t get much sleep again that night. It was hot in the tent, and I had too much white noise playing out in my head. At one point Richard left to go to the bathroom, and when he came back, Gobi growled at him. I liked the feeling that she was looking out for me.
The next day was a desert session over rocky, hard-packed ground under a cruel sun. We’d already agreed the night before that it would be too much for Gobi, so she’d travel to the next camp in a volunteer’s car. I was up early, out of my tent way before my usual fifteen-minute mark, trying to find out who was going to take her and making sure that person was going to keep her cool and hydrated throughout the day.
When it came time to say goodbye, I felt a tiny shiver of worry about her. She’d attached herself so clearly to me, but would she be okay with a bunch of strangers for the day? Would I see her again, or would she set off on another adventure?
The day’s race was a hard run right from the start, partly because of the change in terrain. Where the previous day had served up a mix of undulating paths, rivers, and boulders to keep runners alert, the fourth day was a series of endless flats between checkpoints that hid beneath the horizon, miles and miles apart.
Underfoot there were the same old rocks that had snagged plenty of runners’ feet already, but instead of scrubland or dusty trails, we were now running across the compressed shingle that made up the black portion of the Gobi Desert.
I spent the whole day running into a headwind, watching out for rocks, and trying not to get frustrated by the constant sound of eating and drinking that was coming from over my shoulder.
It was Tommy.
Almost from the start of the day, he had positioned himself behind me. Not ten feet behind me or a few feet to the side. Right behind me, his feet falling in perfect sync with mine. With his body tucked in where the wind resistance was at its weakest, he was slipstreaming, just like a road cyclist or a migratory bird. Only, with Tommy, it was obvious he had no intention of ever giving me a break and taking the lead for a while.
As he ran behind me, leaving me to navigate the route and suck up the vicious headwind, he got himself fuelled.
Nuts. Gels. Water.
He spent the whole day eating and drinking and saying absolutely nothing to me. Even when Zeng overtook us both, Tommy didn’t move. He was my shadow, and there was nothing I could do about it.
I started to wonder about Tommy’s motives. What was he up to? Did he plan on stalling me? Was he planning to break away and leave me in his dust? I knew he would want to erase yesterday’s loss and be all about winning the stage, so why was he staying behind me? Then I started to think about Gobi. I missed her biting at my gaiters to get me to speed up.
For most of the day, though, I coped well enough and refused to let Tommy’s presence get me down. In fact, it gave me the extra incentive I needed to ignore the headwind, put up with the boredom, and grind out a steady, solid pace.
At least, that’s how I felt until we approached the final checkpoint. I knew it was just over four miles from the finish, but with the sun now at its highest in the sky and the temperature feeling like it was in the low hundreds, I started to feel dizzy.
When I was finally in the shade of the checkpoint, I took a moment to enjoy the lack of heat and steady myself. Tommy, on the other hand, didn’t even pause. He nodded and exchanged a couple of words with one of the team and carried straight on. I don’t think he even broke stride.
I decided to take my time, filling up both my water bottles so that I had the full fifty ounces. When I finally moved out, Tommy was six hundred feet ahead of me. He looked strong and in perfect control. It was clear he was on a mission, and I soon realized there was no way I was going to catch him.
Julian and Zeng caught me soon after and didn’t waste any time behind me. They went off in a pair, hunting Tommy down, while I felt as though my wheels had just come off.
I couldn’t get going. No matter how hard I tried, no mat
ter how much I told myself not to slow down, I could feel my legs turn to concrete.
This wasn’t like the day before, when the boredom and fatigue had been equal factors. This was purely physical. I’d spent three hours running in full heat into a scorching headwind. I simply didn’t have much strength left.
I’d been here before.
It was back in 2013. Even though I’d got my weight down from 240 pounds to the mid-170s, I still had the taste for good food and good wine. So when it came to choosing my first-ever marathon to complete, I picked one that took place in France, in the heart of wine country. Each mile marker had a refreshment station that offered either local wine or local delicacies. And because it was all about the good vibes and not about the time, all the runners had to dress up as animals.
I went as a pig.
Some people skipped a few of the stations, but not me. By the time I reached the halfway point, I’d put away vast quantities of meat, cheese, and oysters as well as a half-dozen glasses of wine. I had a little bit of pain from where my skin was chafing at about the three-quarter mark, then developed some leg and lower back pain just after the twenty-mile point.
The sun was getting fierce, and even though Lucja was dancing about like a prizefighter at the end of a first-round knockout, I slowed down. I felt nauseated; I was finding it hard to concentrate or see straight, and the sharp, stabbing pain in my back had me seriously worried.
Lucja got me to the end that day, though I barely remember the final mile. She helped me back to the hotel, got me drinking plenty of water, and told me that it would all be okay as I shivered beneath the blankets on the bed.
We were only a few months away from our first 155-mile multi-stage ultra—an event that would see us cross parts of the inhospitable, unforgiving Kalahari Desert in South Africa. Lucja’s training had been going well, and we both knew she’d be fine. But me? Who was I kidding?
“I can’t do it, Lucja. I’m just not like you.”
“Just sleep on it, Dion. We’ll worry about it tomorrow.”