by Dion Leonard
To save time, I tried to cut the course. I lost the markers for a while and started to panic. I was in a gully, feeling trapped. My heart was racing, and I feared, for the first time, that I might have made a terrible mistake.
I cleared a ridge and saw that I was back on track. In the distance, a mile off, I could see the checkpoint. It shimmered like a mirage, and no matter how fast I tried to run, it didn’t appear to get any closer.
Half a mile out, a race vehicle approached. I waved it down and told them about Tommy and where to find him.
“You’ve got to get there quickly,” I said. “He’s in real trouble. And I’m out of water myself. You haven’t got any water, have you?”
The little they had was enough to get me to the checkpoint, and as soon as I made it there, I sat down and ran through the Tommy story again. I took on as much water as I could and ran through my symptoms. But having run with too little water in me and too much pressure to raise the alarm, I’d already pushed myself too hard. I was feeling queasy and weak. At least I was aware of my symptoms. That meant I was thinking straight. I didn’t have heat exhaustion, yet.
I asked about Zeng and was surprised to hear that he was only twenty minutes ahead. Twenty minutes? That meant the overall result was in the balance. Zeng had cancelled out the lead I’d had on him at the start of the day, but I still had a chance.
I found it hard not to think about death as I ran. I wondered if we were near the place where the other runner had died of heatstroke back in 2010. And I thought about Tommy too. I felt sad to think that he might be in a coma even now. I hoped he wasn’t. I hoped I’d done enough. Suddenly, having been so angry about him gaining five minutes on us at the boulder section seemed silly.
Half a mile after leaving the checkpoint, my chest started to feel strange. It was as if it wasn’t pumping correctly, as though I had a band wrapped tight around my lungs. Whenever I took a drink of water, it felt like it was boiling. Gradually I slowed down. I was feeling ill. Soon I was shuffling along, my feet scuffing and stumbling like I was half-asleep.
I was terrified of just one physical symptom: heart palpitations. I’d had them two or three times before. My chest would feel like I was going to explode, the sweat would pour out of me, and I’d feel sick and faint. The doctors had linked it to me drinking too much coffee, and ever since then I’d cut out caffeine in the build-up to a race. But the memory of it still bothered me, and out there in the heat of the Gobi Desert, I could feel the symptoms all lining up. And if my heart did start to freak out again, I knew I couldn’t blame it on coffee this time. If I started having palpitations out here, it could only mean that something serious was happening.
I spotted a race vehicle parked up ahead of me. I knew it was there to offer emergency assistance, and I must have looked like a viable candidate as I staggered up. When I was close enough to hear the engine running, the volunteers jumped out.
“Are you okay? Do you want some water?”
“I need to sit in the car,” I said. “I don’t feel well.”
I didn’t know if it was in the rules or not, but I didn’t care. I needed to cool down immediately.
I yanked on the rear door and threw myself and my bag down onto the backseat. The AC was on full blast, and it was like stepping into a refrigerator. It was beautiful. I closed my eyes and let the cool air get to work.
When I opened them again, I had to blink and rub my eyes to check that I had read the dash properly. “Does that really say 132 degrees?” I said.
“Yeah,” said the guy behind the wheel. He and the other volunteer didn’t say anything else, but I could see him watching me closely in the rear-view mirror.
“Can I have the water?” I asked, pointing at a bottle that had a frozen cylinder of ice inside. I was convinced that it was the best drink I’d ever had in my entire life.
I pulled a gel from the pouch around my front. It was hard to get my hands to work properly, and some of the sticky substance ended up on my chin, chest, and the car seats. I figured I’d wait the ten minutes it usually takes for a gel to kick in, then be off. But as the time passed, I felt steadily worse.
My head was drifting, and I was finding it almost impossible to keep my eyes fixed on any one thing for more than a few seconds. The band around my chest wound tighter with each breath, and I could feel my lungs grow heavy within me.
“Come on,” I said to myself, long after the gel should have worked. I was trying to summon the energy to pick up my bag and move, trying to command myself to get out and keep going, but nothing happened.
The cold air wasn’t working as I hoped it would, but the thought of opening the door and stepping back out into that heat once more made me scared. Even if I could get my body to obey me and haul myself out of the car, could I even make it to the next checkpoint, let alone the finish?
It was at that point when my chest exploded. My heart started racing, and I was panting, desperate to pull in any air I could.
I glanced up and caught the driver looking back at me in the mirror. In his eyes I saw fear. Fear and panic.
It set off a second explosion within me. Only this time it wasn’t my heart that started racing; it was my mind. For the first time ever in my life, I was genuinely scared for my safety. For the first time ever, I wondered if I was about to die.
9
Come on! Now, Dion, now!
It was no use. No matter how tightly I closed my eyes or gritted my teeth, I couldn’t make myself move from the back of the car. All I could do was breathe in the cold air and hope that something would change.
Minutes slipped by. I tried another gel. I tried stretching to relieve the pressure in my chest. I tried to remember my race plan. Nothing worked.
I wondered what had happened to Tommy. I hoped the car had reached him in time and the volunteers had been able to get him the help he needed. My best guess was that his race was over.
I had been looking out of the car for a few minutes when it hit me that I’d not seen any other runners for a long, long time. I thought about the gap I needed to make up.
“How did Zeng look when he came past?”
“Not great. He was struggling a lot and just walking.”
That was all I needed to hear. I’d wasted fifteen minutes in the car, so I now needed to make up thirty-five. If he was still having a hard time, there was a chance I could do it. And if I did, I’d be in the overall lead.
I got out of the car with some trepidation but anxious to make up for the time I’d lost. I could feel the heat, and it took me a while to catch my breath and steady my feet. But eventually I was running again. Not fast, but steady.
That pace didn’t last very long. I had enough energy to run only a few hundred feet, but after that I was walking again. At least my heart had stopped its wild beating, and I was able to think more clearly. I managed to run the flags for the remaining miles, stumbling ahead, looking at nothing but the pink markers before me, and thinking about nothing other than placing one foot in front of the other.
Eventually I was confronted by a series of tall, wind-formed cliffs. I crested a sand dune that ran through the middle and saw the finish line up ahead.
Just like the day before, Gobi was waiting for me in the shade. She ran out to join me for the last two hundred feet, but as soon as we crossed the line, she ran, panting, back to the shade, where she collapsed in a heap.
“Any news on Tommy?” I asked one of the volunteers.
He smiled and arched his eyebrows. “It’s amazing,” he said. “They got him cooled down, and eventually he started walking again. Filippo’s with him, and they’re doing okay.”
I knew Filippo Rossi, a Swiss runner who was having a good day. I was delighted and relieved in equal measure to hear that he and Tommy were together.
The two other finishers—Brett and Zeng—had clearly been home for a while, and when I saw that the gap between Zeng and me was forty minutes, I knew he’d nailed it. We had the one stage left to run, an
d since it was only a handful of miles, I would never be able to make up that time in so short a distance.
When Tommy finally crossed the line with Filippo at his side, the whole camp was buzzing. Everyone knew what had happened by then, and Tommy’s remarkable recovery and resilience were given all the praise they deserved. Nobody seemed to know anything about me helping him in the first place, but I didn’t mind so much. What meant more was the hug Tommy gave me when he first saw me. He was in tears, and I was welling up. There was no need to say anything at all.
I waited in my tent as I had done every afternoon, drifting in and out of sleep with Gobi curled up at my side. I hoped none of the other runners still out on the course had come as close as Tommy had to being in serious trouble, and I wondered how Richard, Mike, Allen, and the Macau boys were. Despite the less-than-perfect start, I’d come to like the Macau boys. They genuinely cared for one another and had spent every evening giving one another massages. They were good guys, and, in a way, I was going to miss them.
It struck me that I could have won the race but only if I hadn’t stopped to help Tommy. That didn’t seem like a price worth paying, just to finish one place higher on the podium, even if it would have been my first overall multi-stage victory and a huge boost for my running future. Stopping to help Tommy had cost me, but I was glad with the way things worked out. Assuming that everything went okay on the final six-mile stage of the last day, my second-place podium position was secure. I wasn’t ready to celebrate, but I was happy enough. I had already proved to myself that my running career still had some life left in it.
Darkness had fallen by the time Richard, Mike, and Allen got back. They’d been out in the sun all day, and they were suffering for it. They looked like the walking dead, stumbling around the tent, their faces equal parts red with sunburn and pale with exhaustion. But it was over, and by the time the last one was back, the mood in the tent was different. Everyone relaxed more than usual, relieved to be so near the end of the race.
I woke up to the sound of the tent falling down. There was no sign of the Macau boys, and Mike was shouting at us to get up. I scooped up Gobi and crawled outside. A wind had struck up from nowhere, bringing the sand with it. It stung, but Gobi and I joined the others and lay on top of the tent to prevent it from flying off while Richard went in search of help.
The night was full of the sounds of two-way radios crackling, tents being flattened, and Chinese voices shouting back and forth. By the light of dozens of headlamps, I could see the volunteers running around the camp, desperately trying to put the tents back up.
The wind picked up and developed into a full-on sandstorm. It was impossible to see anything that was more than two or three hundred feet away, and we heard that the last runners out on the course had been held at checkpoints and were being driven back to camp.
After an hour of waiting for someone to come and help with the tent, I called Gobi to follow and went in search of a woman called Nurali. She had been introduced to us when we arrived at the first camp site. I’d been watching her shout orders and grow increasingly frustrated with her team as the winds raged.
“Can you get your guys to put up our tent, please?” I said to her.
“Yes, but we have many tents to put up first.”
“I know you do,” I said, “but we asked an hour ago, and still nothing’s happened.”
“Not my problem,” she shouted.
I knew she was under a lot of pressure, and I could sympathize with her doing battle with the elements, but this seemed a little dismissive to me. “No,” I said, “we’ve all paid thirty-seven hundred dollars to be here. It is your problem.”
She muttered something I couldn’t understand, turned, and walked off.
The wind picked up, and a sense of panic rose among the people running around. It was the kind of wind we get up in the highlands of Scotland, so maybe that’s why I wasn’t so worried. The sand didn’t bother me either. All I had to do was copy what Gobi did and curl up tight with my head away from the wind, and I found I was fine.
After midnight we heard that the sandstorm was about to get worse. Nobody was getting any sleep, and after fifty miles of exhausting running, we all needed to recover, so the organizers decided to abandon the camp for the night. We joined the other runners who were huddled against one of the many large rock formations and waited for the buses to come. The level of fear in the air seemed to increase as we stood there, and before long the dust and sand were in our mouths, ears, and eyes. But I knew it was just another uncomfortable set of feelings to get through. We’d all experienced far worse in the previous twenty-four hours, but the unknown is always more intimidating than the familiar.
As dawn broke, the bus took us to a low building at the entrance to a national park twenty minutes away. It was a strange little museum with displays of million-year-old fossils and dioramas that showed a wide and random collection of natural habitats. Of course, Gobi made herself at home, especially in the rainforest section that was full of fake trees and fake plants. I couldn’t help laughing when she relieved herself under one of them.
Within minutes we had trashed the whole place, turning it into a refugee camp for 101 sweaty, smelly runners—and one not-quite-house-trained dog. The museum staff didn’t mind, for the shop at the other end of the museum was selling drinks and snacks at a record rate.
The day was already scheduled as a rest day, given the gruelling nature of the previous long stage, and we spent the time sleeping, eating snacks, drinking sodas, and talking among ourselves.
I didn’t retreat into my sleeping bag or take off somewhere else. Instead, I stayed and talked with Richard, Mike, and Allen.
“What are you going to do about that little one?” said Mike in the afternoon, pointing at Gobi.
It was a good question, and one that I’d been asking myself during the long stage. I knew that the two days I’d run without Gobi had been hard and that somehow I’d got attached to her. I didn’t want to leave her to fend for herself out here.
There was more to it than that. Gobi had chosen me. I didn’t know why, but I knew it was true. She had a hundred other runners to choose from, and dozens of volunteers and staff, but from the very first time I saw her and she started nibbling at my gaiters, she had hardly ever chosen to leave my side.
Gobi was a tough little trouper too. She had run more than seventy miles over three legs of the race without eating a thing during the day, and I’m sure that given the chance, she would have clocked up a whole lot more. She obviously had been scared of water but had pushed ahead and trusted me to help her. She had given everything she had to keep up with me. How could I leave her behind when I finished the race?
For every reason I could find for wanting to help Gobi, there were equally strong arguments for walking away. I had no idea what kinds of diseases she was carrying, whether she belonged to anyone, or how I could even go about doing something to help. This was China, after all. I was pretty sure that not a lot of people would be queuing up if I asked for volunteers to help me find a home for a stray dog of unknown origin. If the stories were true, wasn’t there a chance she’d end up getting killed and eaten by someone?
So I didn’t do anything about finding her a forever home right there in China. I didn’t ask any of the many race crew members who had taken a shine to Gobi, and I didn’t even bring it up with my tent mates.
I didn’t ask because it wasn’t an option I wanted to consider.
I had a better plan.
“You know what, Mike? I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to find a way to bring her home with me.”
It was the first time I’d spoken those words out loud, but as soon as I said them, I knew it was the right thing to do. I had no idea if it was even possible, but I knew I had to try.
“That’s great,” said Mike. “I’ll chuck in a few quid to help out if you like.”
“Really?”
“Me too,” said Richard.
I was amazed an
d touched as well. As far as I could tell, all Gobi had done for my tent mates was growl when they came back in the tent at night, keep them awake by chasing sheep, and beg them for scraps of food anytime she caught them eating. But I was wrong. In the same way Gobi had inspired me, she’d inspired them a bit too.
“Any dog that tough,” said Richard, “deserves a happy ending.”
By the time we lined up on the start for the final day, the sandstorm had passed. As in all multi-stage ultras, the final day is nearly always a short run of between six and ten miles. And, like in every other multi-stage I’d been in before, the thought of being an hour or two away from the final finish line brought out the best in the runners. While they’d been hobbling around like the walking dead during the recovery day in the museum, they set off at the start of the last day as if it were a Saturday morning sprint down at the park.
I had Gobi by my side, and she seemed to know something special was going on. She didn’t chew my gaiters as we ran. Instead, she kept perfect pace with me, occasionally looking up at me with her big dark eyes.
The weather was cool with a slight drizzle as we ran, and I was happy that Gobi wouldn’t overheat. There were no checkpoints because the last stage was so short, so I stopped every couple of miles to give her some water from my hand. She never refused, and it amazed me how much she had learned to trust me in just a few days.
I’d spent a bit of time looking at the race positions while we were in the museum. As I’d suspected, I had no chance of catching Zeng, and Tommy’s near escape had cost him dearly. He’d been overtaken by Brett, the Kiwi who had stormed to victory on the long stage. I was still twenty minutes ahead of Brett, and if I kept ahead of Brett, my second-place finish would be secure.
I’d done just that all the way, but as I stopped at the halfway stage on the crest of a sandy hill to give Gobi a drink, I saw Brett approach me from behind. He stopped next to me. I must have given him a quizzical look, for he smiled and shrugged.