Kalahari Augrabies Extreme Marathon

A Race For Survival & Team Work Becomes Vital

Jackie Windh / 29.10.2015

I’m writing this report on Day 5 – our rest day. The extreme heat has made everything that has happened over the past 48 hours a blur. Was it Day 3 or Day 4 that we started over that rocky stretch along the river? Actually, I think that was Day 2.  I remember yesterday more clearly – but the day before, I struggled so much with the heat that it’s now hard to recall the route. It truly has become about survival.

Fortunately I have the photos I took along the way to jog my memory.

So Day 3, we started with staggered times again. Dave and I were in the earliest group, at 6:30 am. We had camped at a beautiful spot along the Orange River the previous night. The cliffs on the opposite bank were Namibia. This would be one of our steepest uphills, rising 300 m to CP2 at 14 km. I know it doesn’t sound like much elevation gain at all, but in this searing heat, your body temperature rises with the slightest exertion. The Kalahari is more humid than most other deserts – I am told that 40 degrees here is equivalent to more like 46 or 47 in the Sahara. (The hottest MEASURED temperature on Day 1 was 52 degrees in the shade – so out on the course, in the full sun, we’re talking equivalent of something like 60!)

Today was slightly cooler – temperatures approaching 40. Still plenty hot enough. As we climbed, we went through some very interesting terrain, strange-looking hillocks of granite boulders. As we arrived at the top, a broad wind-swept plateau – and now in the full sun with absolutely no place to seek shade, some of the faster runners who had started later began to pass us.

I was very hot as we approached CP2 – I knew I was on the border of being dangerously hot. My brain felt hot, and it seemed like I was looking at everything cross-eyed. I knew to recognize the warning signs, and to take a good long stop at the checkpoint to cool down completely before setting out again. Dave and I took it easy from there, stopping frequently in the shade (as were many of the other racers –as I said, this was essential to survive the stage at all).

Estienne had said we would have a short course option on this stage, allowed to stop at the final CP at 31 km rather than continue the full 40. I was seriously considering this from the start – better to be safe and stop voluntarily, and being allowed to continue the next day, than being pulled against your will and being pulled from the course for good.

I was again dangerously hot at CP4, and just could not cool down, even sitting in a chair in the shade and pouring water on myself in the breeze. Dave was encouraging me to go on, but I knew I could not head back out into the sun when I was already this hot. I was fine for him to go on without me, and for me to take the short course option. And I felt 100% good about that decision.

The volunteers told me it would be some time for a ride to come to get me – no worries, I had expected that. They encouraged me to try going on my own, as did other racers passing through, but I just did not have it in me. I sprayed myself and poured water over my head. Even thought my wet clothing was cold from the breeze, my core temperature was burning hot.

After an hour, three guys from Pretoria, who had been travelling together ach day, came in. As they drank and refueled, my temperature finally started dropping. As they prepared to leave again, one of them turned to me. “You come with us. We’ll take you.”

If he had offered five minute earlier, when I was still so hot, I would have said no. But it was the first moment I could even consider it. Tears welled up in my eyes – I didn’t even know these guys, didn’t even know their names yet. “Really?”

“We all came here together,” he said. “No one gets left behind.” And so I travelled with Ellis, Johan and Winston to the finish. Now that I was cool, I could keep up a decent pace, and they were taking it easy, stopping under the trees to cool down often anyway.

And doesn’t that make you feel good about this ultra running and adventure racing community? Thanks to those three guys, I was still in the race. However – tomorrow’s route would be twice as long, covering another 40 km in that sun, for a total of 80 km. It seemed quite unimaginable, but I was still in, and I was going to try.

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