not just the two of us we need to think about. There’s Gobi to consider.
We take it easy as we pass the pub, drop down beside Holyrood Palace, and see the clear blue sky give way to the grassy mountain that dominates Edinburgh’s skyline. Arthur’s Seat. I’ve run up there more times than I can remember, and I know it can be brutal. The wind can be so strong in your face that it pushes you back. The hail can bite into your skin like knives. On days like those, I crave the 120-degree heat of the desert.
But today there’s no wind or hail. There’s nothing brutal about the air as we climb, as if the mountain wants to show itself off in all its cloudless glory.
As soon as we hit the grass, Gobi is transformed. This dog that’s small enough for me to carry under one arm is turned into a raging lion as she pulls forward up the slope.
“Wow!” says Lucja. “Look at her energy!”
Before I can say anything, Gobi turns around, tongue lolling out, eyes bright, ears forward, chest puffed. It’s as if she understands exactly what Lucja’s said.
“You haven’t seen anything yet,” I say, pushing the pace up a bit in an attempt to loosen the strain on the leash. “She was just like this back in the mountains.”
We push farther up, closer to the summit. I’m thinking how, even though I named her after a desert, I first saw Gobi on the cold, rugged slopes of the Tian Shan. She’s a true climber, and with every step we take, she comes more and more alive. Soon her tail is wagging so fast it blurs, her whole body bouncing and pulsing with pure joy. When she looks back again, I swear she’s grinning. Come on! she says. Let’s go!
At the top, I soak in all the familiar sights. The whole of Edinburgh is spread out beneath us, and beyond it is the Forth Bridge, the hills of Lomond, and the West Highland Way, every one of whose ninety-six miles I have run. I can see North Berwick, too, a full marathon distance away. I love the run along the beach, even on the tough days when the wind is trying to batter me down and every mile feels like a battle all its own.
It’s been more than four months since I’ve been here. While it’s all familiar, there’s something different about it as well.
Gobi.
She decides it’s time to descend and drags me down the hill. Not down the path, but straight down. I leap over tufts of grass and rocks the size of suitcases, Lucja keeping pace beside me. Gobi navigates them all with skill. Lucja and I look at each other and laugh, enjoying the moment we have longed for, to be a family and finally able to run together.
Running isn’t usually this fun. In fact, for me, running is never fun. Rewarding and satisfying, maybe, but not laugh-out-loud fun. Not like it is now.
Gobi wants to keep running, so we let her lead. She takes us wherever she wants to go, sometimes back up the mountain, sometimes down. There’s no training plan and no pre-mapped route. There are no worries either. No concerns. It’s a carefree moment, and for that and so much more, I’m grateful.
After the last six months, I feel like I need it.
I’ve faced things I never thought I’d face, all because of this little blur of brown fur that’s pulling my arm out of its socket. I’ve faced fear like I’ve never known before. I’ve felt despair as well, the sort that turns the air around you stale and lifeless. I’ve faced death.
But that’s not the whole story. There’s so much more.
The truth is that this little dog has changed me in ways I think I’m only just beginning to understand. Maybe I’ll never fully understand it all.
Yet I do know this: finding Gobi was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life.
But being found by her—that was one of the best things.
I stepped through the airport doors and out into China. I paused and let the chaos take a good hard whack at my senses. A thousand revving engines in the car park ahead did battle with a thousand voices around me as people shouted at their phones.
The signs were written in both Chinese script and what looked to me like Arabic. I couldn’t read either language, so I joined the crush of bodies that I guessed were waiting for a taxi. I stood a foot taller than most people, but as far as they were concerned, I was invisible.
I was in Urumqi, a sprawling city in Xinjiang Province, way up in the top left corner of China. No city in the world is as far from an ocean as Urumqi, and as we’d flown in from Beijing, I watched the terrain shift from razor-sharp snow-capped mountains to vast stretches of empty desert. Somewhere down there a team of race organizers had plotted a 155-mile route that took in those freezing peaks, the incessant wind, and that desolate, lifeless scrubland known as the Gobi Desert. I was going to run across it, knocking out a little less than a marathon a day for four days, then almost two marathons on the fifth day, and an hour-long sprint for the final six-mile stage that would bring the race to a close.
These races are called “multi-stage ultras”, and it’s hard to think of a more brutal test of mental and physical toughness. People like me pay thousands of pounds for the privilege of putting ourselves through pure agony, shedding up to 10 per cent of our body weight in the process, but it’s worth it. We get to run in some of the remotest and most picturesque parts of the world, and we have the safety net of a dedicated support crew and highly trained medical crew on our side. Sometimes these challenges can be excruciating, but they’re also life changing, and reaching the finish line is one of life’s most rewarding experiences.
Sometimes things don’t go so well. Like the last time I tried to run six marathons in a week. I ended up in the middle of the pack, in agony. At the time it felt terminal, as if I’d never compete again. But I recovered just enough for one last shot. If I could run well in the Gobi race, maybe I’d yet have some more running in me. After all, in the three years since I’d taken up running seriously, I’d found out how good it felt to be on the podium. The thought of never competing again made me feel queasy inside.
If things went wrong, as they had for another competitor in the same race a few years back, I could end up dead.
According to the Internet, the drive from the airport to the hotel was supposed to take twenty or thirty minutes. But the closer we got to the hour mark, the more agitated the driver became. He had started out grouchy when he realized I was an English-speaking tourist and quoted me a price three times as much as I was expecting. It had got only worse from there.
By the time we pulled up outside a redbrick building, he was waving his arms and trying to shove me out of the cab. I looked out the window, then back at the low-resolution image I’d shown him before we started the journey. It was kind of similar if you squinted a bit, but it was obvious that he hadn’t brought me to a hotel.
“I think you need some glasses, mate!” I said, trying to keep it light and get him to see the funny side. It didn’t work.
Begrudgingly, he picked up his phone and yelled at someone on the other end. When we finally made it to my destination twenty minutes later, he was livid, shaking his fists and burning rubber as he sped away.
Not that I’d been bothered. As much as ultra-running batters your body, it also assaults your mind. You learn pretty quickly how to block out distractions and mildly annoying things like lost toenails or bleeding nipples. The stress coming from an enraged taxi driver was nothing I couldn’t ignore.
The next day was a different story.
I had to travel a few hundred miles out of the city by bullet train to get to the race headquarters in a large town called Hami. Right from the moment I arrived at the station in Urumqi, I knew I was in for a journey that would test my patience.
I’d never seen such security at a train station. There were military