come my way only if I kept pulling away from Dan.
Never once did I look back. Somehow I knew it wouldn’t help. If I saw him close, I’d probably panic, and if he was too far back already, I might end up slowing down. I knew that the race was going to be won or lost in my head. If I kept focus and pushed on, I’d avoid distraction.
Dan was right about it being a hot day. I’d never experienced heat like it at that time of year in Manchester before, and all through the morning the noise of the crowd was broken up by the sound of ambulance sirens as they raced to help exhausted runners.
For me, though, the heat wasn’t a threat. It was like a welcome friend. It reminded me of my childhood in Australia. I’d spend hours on summer days playing cricket or riding my bike in temperatures pushing up to 110 and 120 degrees. It wasn’t anywhere near that hot during the race, but all the same I found myself getting stronger as the heat increased and the miles passed by.
At least I did until mile eleven. That’s when I started to feel myself slowing down. My legs were numb and weak, as if someone had stripped half the muscles from them. But I kept running, pushing hard and reminding myself what was at stake: my pride.
I crossed the line in 1:34, a respectable time for a first-ever half marathon, and nine minutes faster than Dan’s previous personal best. Was it going to be enough? He’d set off pretty fast, and his training had put him in line to beat it. All I could do was crouch at the finish, feel my lungs begin to recover, and watch the clock tick by and hope not to see him.
It was Lucja who crossed a little more than five minutes after me. We high-fived each other and smiled as we waited the best part of another ten minutes for Dan to finally come home.
“What happened?” he said once he had recovered a little. “You just sped off. You must have done more training than you let on.”
I smiled and gave him a pat on the back. “You need to get off Twitter, mate.”
The start line at the race was much like any other start line at any other race around the world; everyone doing their own thing to cope with the nerves. I was at the side, second or third row back from the front, trying to distract myself by looking at the others around me. Tommy Chen was there, looking focused and pretty damn good. He had his camera crew to the side and plenty of fans among the pack. “Good luck, Tommy,” someone called out. “Hope you smash it!”
“Yeah, thanks,” he said, shifting his feet back and forth. I watched as the smile fell quickly from his face. He was just as nervous as the rest of us. Maybe more so. I knew he was one of the up-and-coming stars of multi-stage ultras, but he’d come in second in the first of the five races the organizers hosted that year. The pressure was on him to deliver.
To keep myself busy for another minute or so, I did one more final check of my kit, making sure the straps were tight enough across my chest, the food I needed during the stage was in the correct pockets, and my bright yellow gaiters were covering my shoes properly. I knew we’d be running up a sand dune pretty soon in the day, and the last thing I wanted was to spend the four or five hours that followed with pieces of grit irritating my feet, which could possibly lead to blisters and other foot issues.
The start horn sounded, and what little noise there was from the small crowd disappeared from my world. The race began on a wide stretch of grass, and as we got under way, the usual crush of people was surging down the middle. You get all sorts wanting to take the lead on that first day, and I don’t mind so much. That’s the beauty of these races—even though world-class athletes are lining up alongside happy amateurs, there is no sense of hierarchy or rank. If you want to run at the front and can keep up the pace, then be my guest.
I had guessed that the start would be a little bit tricky, with the runners bunching up as they usually did, so I’d put myself far out wide of everyone else. I didn’t want to be tripped off the line, and if I went off fast enough, I could get ahead of the slower runners before the course narrowed and dropped down into a rocky canyon.
My plan worked as I soon fell in closely behind Tommy after the first 100 meters. It hadn’t been raining in the night, but the rocks were slippery from the morning dew. I struggled to keep my footing and felt a bit uneasy and took it steady, just like Tommy. I guess we both knew that if we put a foot down wrong and twisted an ankle, we’d have no choice but to put up with a whole lot of pain for another 150 miles or, worse yet, a Did Not Finish.
I heard someone move up behind me and watched as a Romanian guy flew right past me. He was skipping over the rocks as if they were mini trampolines. Once Tommy knew he was behind him, both of them pulled away from me a little. Keep it steady, I told myself. No need to worry. I had put together a detailed stage-by-stage race plan with my coach before I’d left Scotland. We’d looked back at my other races and noticed that I’d been making the same mistake a lot of the time.
I tended to start slowly and then make up ground as the week went on, particularly on the long day, which had become one of my strengths, when the stage typically covered fifty miles or more. The truth is I’m just not a morning person, and the first morning always seems to hit me hard. I’ve often found myself twenty minutes down on the race leaders at the end of day one, which makes it close to impossible to make back up.
Even in training runs I struggle to get going, and for the first mile or two, I always question whether I want to keep going. I spend those first few minutes feeling like I’d rather be doing anything other than running. But if I push through it, I’m usually fine, and during the last half of a run, I’ll be flying.
I trusted that as long as I kept Tommy and this Romanian guy in my sights, I’d be all right. If I was close at the end of stage one, keeping pace but not overcooking, I’d be putting myself in the best possible position for the rest of the week.
Halfway through the day, when the Romanian started to tire and fell back so far behind us that I could no longer hear him, I looked up and saw a sand dune towering up ahead. It was steep and wide, easily three hundred feet high. I’d seen dunes like it in Morocco, but this one seemed different somehow. The sand on the side looked harder and more compact, but the path I had to run up was soft and offered almost no resistance at all.
There’s a key to running up a sand dune, and I learned it the hard way back when I first competed in the Marathon des Sables. I didn’t know that you have to keep your stride as short as you possibly can, ensuring a quick cadence to avoid the sand breaking underneath your feet and slowing you down. I didn’t know that sometimes the longer path is easier than the shorter one. As a result, I tanked and came in so late at the end of the first day that I was seriously considering dropping out altogether.
Tommy attacked the dune ahead of me, but after just a couple of strides it was obvious that sand in the Gobi Desert was not like the Saharan stuff. It must have rained in the area overnight, and the sand was darker, clumpier. It gave way with the slightest pressure, falling away like weak clay, and at times I had to use my hands to gain a little extra grip. We weren’t running up it; we were scrambling.
Once we were finally at the top, I could see the dune more clearly. The only option was to run along the narrow peak that stretched ahead for almost a mile. On both sides, the dune fell away, and if anyone put a foot wrong, he’d end up falling all the way down to the bottom. It would take ages to clamber back up, wasting precious time and precious energy.
Tommy was loving it. “Look at this view!” he shouted. “Isn’t it magnificent?”
I said nothing back. I’m scared of heights and was terrified that I’d fall. I moved ahead as cautiously as I could. More than once my foot slipped, and I threw my arms out in a desperate attempt to regain my balance. At that point I didn’t particularly care how much ground Tommy made on me. All I could do was stare at where my feet were heading and hope that the sand held.
As much as I hated being on top of the dune, when it came time to run down it, I was in heaven. I put a bit of power into my legs and sprinted down as fast as I could. By the time I hit bottom, I overtook Tommy. I felt his surprise and heard him keeping close behind me.
We ran side by side for a