Kalahari Augrabies Extreme Marathon
Kalahari Ultramarathon Goes AR: Expect the Unexpected!
Jackie Windh / 01.11.2015
Following the cancellation of yesterday’s 81k stage mid-race due to the extreme heat, there was a general sensation of disappointment among many racers. One disillusioned competitor went after the Kalahari Augrabies Extreme Marathon, taping over the word “Extreme.”
But things were no easier for organizers. Temperatures were set to stay at record-setting levels (turns out that on Tuesday, the hottest recorded temperature in the entire world was here, and we have just found out that another record was also set here for the hottest sustained temperature for the month of October anytime, anywhere). We were on a rest day, after what was to be the day/night full moon run, and tomorrow was supposed to be a 47 km run. But organizers knew that if they set out as planned, they would be forced to cancel and pull us from the course mid-race again with this forecast. They were scrambling for options.
Late morning, the camp manager rocked up to ask what we all thought of a 4am start. He was met with unanimous approval. But at 3pm he was back to tell us we were on for an evening start instead. Organizers were still working on a route, and we would start no earlier than 8pm, but we would have to be out of camp to get paddled across the river by 6pm. We would get our moonlit run after all! But we had only three hours for pre-race nourishment and packing up.
The route would be 33 km. We paddled across the river to wait at the start line. I started to eat a huge freeze-dried bag of chicken and rice, only to find out that the start time was moved up to 7pm. Not good timing with my meal - but it meant that we could conceivably be in bed not long after midnight. That was some incentive to move quickly! I wolfed down my food, tightened my waist-belt around my bulging belly, and we were off.
We were in staggered starting groups again, and Dave and I were in the slowest group as usual. However, temperatures were down, and now, finally, we could run! And we did! The first (and probably only) time in my life leading a pack of racers! We felt great. We ran nearly all of the first 4 km, on a dirt road, until we turned up a gully of very soft sand.
We managed to maintain our lead for 10 km, all the way CP1. By then it was dark - and we had witnessed five moonrises as we travelled up and down the rocky hills. But at the CP we were stopped by Estienne, the RD. A broken-down quad meant that they had not got through a new part of the route, nor had put up all of the reflective markers (since the route was originally marked for daylight). They would hold us here until they were ready to resume, keeping track of our arrival times.
It was actually really fun watching the line of lights as 50-plus other racers streamed in. Nathan Montague, who has led every stage, was so focussed as he hurtled in that volunteers could hardly hold him down to tell him the stage was on hold.
Nearly an hour later, we set off again - staggered in groups of five every five minutes. We had one faster racer, from a later start, in our group, so he quickly took off ahead. Once again, Dave and I were alone in the dark with no one in sight in front. We were on meandering vehicle tracks crossing a stony plain, and the bright moon meant that we did not need our headlamps other than to locate the reflective markers.
Eventually a headlamp beam appeared behind us, and a lone racer passed us. A short time later two more passed, and then we were alone, following a fence line, for some time. Suddenly there was a voice behind me, and I startled. It was Nathan, shouting a cheery greeting as he sprinted past and soon vanished.
We hit CP2 feeling great - 20 km or more of our 33 km loop completed, most of it uphill, so we knew that there was some good downhill ahead. We were still moving quickly, mixing it up between a very brisk powerwalk and jogging, and still very few people had passed us. We were on track to finish around midnight - quite a motivation to keep the pace up.
And then the adventure part of the night started.
Hiking up a gentle uphill, a quad came barreling down at us. It was Estienne. “Don’t be alarmed if you see runners coming the other way!” he shouted. “It’s an out-and back!”
I was instantly alarmed. There was no out-and-back planned on this route. We were three quarters of the way around our 33 km loop. Any out-and-back at this point could only mean added kilometres. But how much? Where would the finish line be?
Moments later, Nathan came barreling down the hill - calling out cheerfully as usual. I later found out that he had run too fast for the organizers! They had released us from CP1 before they had the course fully marked, and after a few organizational issues on route, Nathan caught up with Estienne on the quad, still setting out markers. “You must stay behind me,” Estienne told him. “I haven’t marked it yet.” But somehow, the road that Estienne was trying to figure out in the dark looped back to itself.
“I’m sorry, Nathan,” he said. “We’ve messed up the route.” (His actual wording may have been a bit more on the expletive side). Estienne’s only option at this point was to cancel the race, or turn this loop into an out-and-back, making for a nearly 50k route. “You’ve got to run back where you came from.”
Nathan was one of the very few who got this information. The rest of us were just told to keep following the markers. Going up... seeing racers coming back down... not knowing how far the turnaround was, or why we were doing it, or how far we had to go.
Apparently one confused racer going up called out to Nicola, who was coming down “Where are you coming from?” Nicola called back “Italy!”
Crew were set up to give us water and point us where to go at turnoffs - but none of them could answer our question “How far?” The only answer we ever got was: “We don’t know. Just go that way” and they pointed us along.
Needless to say, it was a long night. It made a huge difference to race nutrition. I would have taken a caffeine gel before starting if I had known I was doing a 50k. I would not have moved to my sugary foods at 26k. I would have packed more of my snack foods, and my extra spare batteries, near the top of the pack. But all we could do at that point was keep going and make the best of it. Just get there.
My running legs were gone by now, but I’m a great hiker Dave and I were still able to keep up an extremely brisk pace. We only stopped twice the whole night (other than the forced stop). The sandy river bed we had walked up at the start seemed to go on endlessly on the way back down...very hard on tired feet. We saw nearly no one on the way back down, knowing that there were still many people behind us. So we were doing relatively well, compared to the group. We saw little wildlife either - two geckos and a toad! - but later learned that other racers had seen a zebra and some giraffes.
Finally we were back on the road. Four km left. We didn’t run it this time - but our walking pace was still really fast. (I may not be a fast runner... but at least I am the same speed at the end of a race as at the beginning). There were two headlamps in sight behind us, but they never caught us. And finally we were back at the river... ferried across... and in bed by 5am, so we could get a two hour sleep before the temperature was too hot for any more sleeping.
Next morning, the tape covering the word “Extreme” had been removed.
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