Namibian Viking

I left CP1 feeling strong. I had stayed there for 30- 40 minutes or so, and as I left I knew that I was entering the Messum riverbed and some of the hottest part of the race laid immediately ahead of me. I soon realised how far it was to the actual start of the riverbed and also how bad following the dirt track was: 1) because the cars ensured the sand was broken up so you kept walking in deep energy-sapping sand, 2) because the road meanders like a river so you end up walking a less then ideal line from point A to B.

I am speed walking at this point and I am feeling good. I pass two participants, I feel really sorry for Richard who already had twisted an ankle (ironically whilst turning his head to the side to speak to the race medic and say that everything was ok, and then missed the hole in the ground). Richard was limping and I could see the agony he was in. I left Richard to continue my race. I am a firm believer that unless you are moving in exactly the same speed, it is less then optimal to go together on a race like this. Richard then went on to go to within 5km from the finish line where he collapsed some 25 hours after starting the race. Knowing that people him is down in Afghanistan working for a better world makes me feel proud to even live in the UK! In my mind he is one of true heroes if this year’s race.

I pass the Blue Peter crew when they are filming us and as always they are a happy break in the monotone environment. I was passed a number of times by the race medics and it always pulled me up and gave me energy. However at some point during this leg of the race I realise how different this race is from last. I remember how CP2 is going to appear from around the corner and although I seem to think that it is around every corner I keep being disappointed. I still feel strong, but I feel that the ability to move forward in speed is not there today.

Eventually I get into CP2 and it is around 5pm… I have covered little more then a marathon, but it has taken me 8 hours! As I sit down I feel strong. I feel that I am doing well and people around me say I look better then many participants coming into the checkpoint. I had decided I would have a hot meal already at this stage in the race, I felt that last years strategy to only eat once at the 60km CP3 was not ideal.

However it is here that my race changes character. From having felt strong and capable, all my energy saps out of my body and I find myself nodding off in the chair. Many more of my fellow participants come into the checkpoint, most looking ok, but some of them are struggling, such as Alex. He is the nicest of persons, and such an athlete; but today is not his day. In the end he drops out of the race with serious kidney implications. Alex will, like me, be back next year. For me a draw is not good enough, and for Alex he wants to show that he can master the distance.

It takes all my power to get up from my chair (and a fair bit of ass-kicking from others) and I start my walk to CP3. I almost immediately have to put on my head torch. I cannot believe that I am 30min away from CP2 and at the same time last year I was having a meal at CP3. This thought stays with me and I worried that I will not make the race cut off time. I have another 80km to go, and less then 4 hours to do each leg, I will have to speed up. Eventually I get into a faster rhythm and I keep this for 2 hours or so, even passing some of the other participants. The glow sticks on the back of other participants jump up and down and play tricks with my eyes. Mark (the founder of Across the Divide, who runs the event) is putting out new glow sticks on the route. The pace of this years race is so significantly different then last years that the supply of glow sticks was planned to be used on later stages in the race. Meanwhile reports of more people dropping out comes in and I feel so sorry for the ones that are not able to complete the event.

Some 3 hours into this leg of the race something goes wrong. I stop noticing the surroundings, up until now I had kept count on the number of scorpions I had seen on the road in the shine from my head torch, but now it is all a blur. I start to feel weak, negative thoughts are entering my brain and the pain is stronger then at any time during the race. The pain doesn’t bother me so much, it is more my inability to walk straight line that worries me. I am struggling to lift my feet off the ground, let alone walk. Nick is passing me and he is running again! I am so impressed but I cannot even begin to try to summon the strength to keep up with him.

My condition is getting worse and I have such an urge to just lie down. I know how dangerous that is (not so much for snakes and scorpions, but more for the risk of hypothermia), but still my body tells me to lie down. I am feeling very nauseous and I struggle to comprehend how I should get to CP3, even though I know it is only 5-6km ahead. I don’t know how much time pass, but it feels as if my body is a pressure cooker and I am getting near boiling point.

What happens now is difficult to describe, both because I cannot really remember everything, but maybe more due to the fact that it is more of an outer body experience. On one had I am in pain and only want to lie down and on the other hand I am almost watching myself is this state. I can almost assess my own situation and the conclusion I draw is not good. Would this be the end of my race? But this is just the start of my series of race challenges, how could it be I struggle so much.

My negative thoughts are interrupted by the head lights of a car coming towards me in the distance. I remember feeling scared and lonely and wanting them to be with me. At night in the desert lights travel far and it is seems to take forever before the car reaches me. It is Amy, the head race medic who also was here last year, and Kobus, my Namibian friend and race guide. Immediately they see that I am in a bad state. Amy asks me to sit in the car, she helps me to take off my race pack and she prompts me to eat something and give me a dried fruit stick. At the first bit I projectile vomit. At the third vomit Kobus disappears and it is not until the next day that I get to know he also threw up, when I ask him why he simply says “that is what friends are for”! I think this is my first ever recorded sympathy vomit.

At the point where Amy and Kobus finds me, my body checks out. I am no longer responsible for staying alive. I can hardly sit up and I am falling asleep with Amy supporting me so I don’t fall out of the vehicle. When she says that “Joakim, I will have to pull you from the race” I cannot really comprehend; but at the same time I understand that it is over. At that moment in time I do not care, I just want to  to sleep.

I have a vague memory of the Blue Peter film crew turning up and interviewing me, but I have no idea if what I said made any sense or what they asked me. I don’t think it was any solutions to world famine or similar, since the clip was not in the final show. This is pretty much the last thing I remember from that evening. I have been told that I looked like a ghost when I was carried into the tent and when my body started to cramp and shake Amy put me on IV drip. People who manned CP3 said it resembled a war zone, as if in an episode of M.A.S.H.! People passing out, people staggered into camp on feet that cannot be described in words, snakes crawling through camp and even under some of mattresses the participants sat on!

At some point during the night I was moved to the finish line of the race. I remember waking up for a brief moment in Faan’s old army truck, just at the point when the IV drip was ripped out of my hand! We were lying on boxes mattresses and assorted bits of kit. Eventually I woke up at around 7am at the finish line, hearing the voices of Darren (winner by less then one minute!) and Tom. I went out and helped them to applaud all the participants who slowly but surely made it into camp.

What a race, the Namibian Ultra Marathon in 2009. Out of 23 participants only 12 made it to the finish line. All in all – A hell of a race.

So what did I learn, well that will be the focus of my next blog post. However did it deter me from future races? No way… Will it stop me from coming back to the Namibian Ultra Marathon? Hell no, less then a week after I came back to UK I signed up for next year’s race! Namibia, I’ll be back!