I never thought I would hear myself saying this: Patagonia trumps Antarctica!
What an epic, spectacular, awesome and inspiring experience the South American stage of the Global Odyssey 100 was.
Nature finally let me pass, allowed safe passage and I completed the African stage of my Global Odyssey 100k challenge. It was my day. I rocked it.
2018 has been the epitomised the odyssey. It has been a year of challenges both physical and mental; and there have been successes and failures. It would not be an odyssey if it was easy, and it would not be an odyssey if I didn’t learn along the way.
A friend recently declared in public that she ‘loved running; but was not very good at it’. This made me think. Define a good runner. What makes a good runner? Is it really just the domain of the elites, the club runners, the front of the pack runners, the podium placing runners?
Recently watching a documentary about an Everest ascent that did not go to plan I was struck by the cost of hubris. The climber’s desire and determination to be the first to summit in that season, and significantly, to be last off the summit that day despite rapidly deteriorating weather conditions was an act of sheer hubris and lack of respect for nature that almost cost him his life.
I knew there was a reason why I don’t normally line up events for January and February and why my mileage goes down over the winter. It’s the I just want to rest on my summer laurels, kick back, reduce the mileage and lie about in the warmth and get fat factor. This bear just wants to coorie in and hibernate.
I must be honest and say that this blog entry is tinged with disappointment and frustration at my second failure to complete the African stage of the Global Odyssey, but I am entirely comfortable with my decision to abandon forty-five kilometres into the 100k Ultra Mirage el Djerid event.
An epic run with a Mongolian mud spa treatment thrown in for free.
Where do I start? This stage of the Global Odyssey 100 was the perfect example of what the Global Odyssey is about: remote, extreme, challenging, wild, beautiful and awe inspiring. One hundred kilometres over foothills, through gorges, over desert plains in rain and sunshine with temperatures ranging from fifteen to thirty-one degrees, from dawn to night.
Roadtrip! After knocking a few ideas and plans back and forth we decided that the Global Odyssey 100 Gobi expedition should start with an eight-hundred-kilometre, two day road trip from Ulaanbaatar to the capital of the Gobi Dalanzhadgad, with an overnight stop at Mandalgovi – middle Gobi. Time to sit back, relax and get into the zone. What can I say: it was epic.
