Libyan Challenge 2007
This year I took part, for the
second time, in the Libyan Challenge. This is a non-stop 200k race in south
Libya which requires you to traverse the sands using a GPS and a back-up
compass; to wind your way around the mountains and valleys of the beautiful
Akakus Mountains.
The race has 10 checkpoints in it and each of these
is about 20k apart. The terrain is very hard and the temperatures went up to 55
degrees in the sun; I wore black it's my favourite colour.
The Akakus
are some of the most beautiful mountains and desert in the Sahara and each
range seems to have been specifically carved out of the rock by a sculpturer.
Arches and bridges abound and the remains and cave paintings of the original
inhabitants show them hunting game about 3,000 years ago. This means that the
area resembled the Serengeti Plain in Kenya. Ghat was itself a Roman town and
therefore must have been supported by other towns every 20k from there to the
coast - a trip of 15 hours in the car. Most of these are now buried beneath the
desert sands much of which will have occurred in the last 2,000 years. This
brought global warming into focus for the first time in my life.
The Race
We left for the start on the Monday morning
knowing that we had 4 days to complete the race. The coaches got stuck in the
sand and we completed the last 5k in a truck with a Touraeg who bartered with
us for the women, especially the young ones.
Unfortunately for him they
spoke French and after listening dutifully to us saying that "Yes they can
cook" and "Yes they can bear many children and 5 camels was not enough" "Look
at their teeth" they then added terms of their own like trips to Paris and
Chanel, which made them somehow less attractive to our host.
In a
non-stop race that lasts for 2-3 days you are constantly on the move. We
started each day at about 7 am and walked and jogged, where possible, through
to 3 am the following morning, when we arrived at another checkpoint. Some
runners dropped in the desert at night too tired to complete the stage they
were on …
The gun went and we set off across an arid plain and up
2,000 feet to the summit of a mountain range before descending into the arid
region of the northern Akakus. The heat kept on rising as did our heart beats
and our chests strained to breathe. I took this slowly thinking that I had
entered a race too far and that I might have to retire at checkpoint 1 whilst a
voice in my head said that I had seen all this before and that no decision
would be made until the evening as it would all settle down. It did.
I
got to checkpoint 1 to find many runners who I thought to be many kilometres
ahead lying on the ground. This is always true of non-stops you are forever
finding runners catching you up you thought were 10k behind and catching
runners you thought were 10k in front of finished. It is never over until it's
over.
At checkpoint 2 more runners were lying on the ground being sick
with heat stroke and unable to drink or eat. The sun and the desert had won.
People started to drop out. My running partner was slowing due to blisters and
I was determined to make better progress this year. I left Liz ( Liz
Evangelista) at the checkpoint with our friends Andy Tsoi and Laurent Locke who
had completed the race last year and pushed on with a female team called the
"Sandcats" to checkpoint 3, 32k away. It was 8 pm and better to do this in the
cool of the night. Having arrived at 3am I slept for 3 hours and awoke to find
my companions gone. I worried about Liz and the others and held back for an
hour and then left with Keith who was new to the sport. We moved into the South
Akakus and the dunes and sand carpeted the ground majestically, sweeping up to
the jagged rock outcrops that stretched to the clear azure sky. The sand
sparkled in the sunlight. It was the most beautiful and dramatic place I had
ever been to. We came to a stretch of dunes and halfway across we did a 360
degree turn looking at the landscape we could see 5 miles in any direction; not
a soul or creature moved. We were really alone; then Keith ran out of water. We
continued for 3 hours sharing mine until we both ran out and we slowly made our
way to checkpoint 4. Keith got heat stroke.
We carried on to 5 though
the night. I awoke the following morning at checkpoint 5 and felt a warm thing
behind me. "A snake!" I tensed and rapidly returned from the Land of Nod to
utter stress in 0.8 of a second. I was convinced it was a sand viper and that I
had to get this completely right or I was dead. I jumped up and spun to find
one of the girls cuddling me for warmth.
My bum was on fire due to
constant movement. I needed to finish. I decided to complete the last 100k in
one go.
The Sandcats, myself and Keith all left together at breakfast.
I knew this part of the course from last year and we took off at a good pace;
we got to checkpoint 6 and after a short break we ascended the mountain and
crossed it in bright sunshine. Last year we had undertook this in pitch dark
with no moon at 2 am and this had been the most nerve racking part of the race.
It was very different in daytime, the sunlight not permitting the mind to play
it usual nightly tricks and hallucinations.
We traversed the plateau at
the top without incident and looked across the lunar landscape to the skyline.
We clambered down the steep cliff - this was really dangerous last year - and
reached checkpoint 7. A brief stopover and we were off all convinced that we
were on course to finish that day. Kilometres out a sandstorm came over the
course and the GPSs stopped working. We continued, walking two by two to check
the route and we took a reading on a compass and followed it. Fortunately it
was correct and we made checkpoint 8 at midnight to find 15 runners sleeping
waiting for the day and the storm to blow over. The organisers advised us to
stop but Sandy and I had experienced 10 sandstorms between us and felt we were
OK to continue. We did the last part of the race through 9 and to the finish
were across dunes going almost due south.
We continued for 6 hours
stopping to cut up Keith's shoes which he had purchased too small. His feet
were "exploding". We slit the backs of £90 Salomon specials and
immediately he sighed with relief. We finished in good spirits and due to our
constant movement in the sand storm we finished 46th out of 74.