Run or Die (20 page)

After an energetic flurry of welcome from the porters who had stayed back at our camp, and after checking that we have all returned in a good state, I begin to get the equipment ready that I will need the day after tomorrow when I start my attempt on the record from the Umbwe Gate. There is very little to get ready, and in an hour I have my backpack filled with all the equipment I must take down with me, a canteen of water, and a couple of energy gels for Greg and Stephan to give me when I pass by Barranco. I will also give them a jacket and gloves in case the temperature drops on the final stage, since it was only about 5°F at the top this morning.

For Sònia and Thierry, who will wait for me at the top, I leave only another canteen and some cookies, since the descent from
there will soon return me to warmer temperatures where I’ll not need my outer layers.

The last backpack includes the kit I will wear and carry from the start: shorts, a short-sleeve T-shirt, an energy gel, sunglasses, socks, shoes, and my iPod. I also pack what I’ll need to spend the night at the entrance to the national park: a sleeping bag, a toiletry bag, a thick jacket, and long pants. I shut myself in my tent nice and early for my last rest above 13,000 feet and fall asleep immediately.

Since I prepared everything yesterday, we take advantage of the morning to rest and look at the views from the campsite: the floor of the Barranco valley, the vast plain, and life at the campsite. We watch the porters take down the tents and move off into the distance in single file along the rocky walls, then reappear in midmorning to quickly erect the tents before the tourists arrive.

After lunch, Simon and I retrace our steps along the path we’d traveled days ago in order to return to the entrance to the national park. Simon sets a slow, steady pace so that we can run down without tiring ourselves. I met him for the first time several months ago, at the Western States 100, where he had greatly impressed me. I was walking in Squaw Valley on the afternoon before the race and encountered him sitting at a table on the terrace. He was clearly very strong, with muscular arms and what I figured to be abdominal muscles made of steel. His hair was jet black and trimmed close to his head. He stood up to say hello, and I had to look up to look him in the eye, not only because I’m quite short, but because the man before me was over six and a half feet tall. Professional habit made me look closely at his legs, and I noticed that every muscle, vein, and sinew stood out under his skin. I felt as if I were in the
presence of a 100-meter sprinter, and it amazed me how someone with his physique could run long distances so well and how agile he was on difficult terrain.

His large eyes bulged out of a round, youthful face, and if he hadn’t been smiling, he’d have certainly scared me. However, Simon always smiled, always talked about cheerful subjects, and always had a joke or a dance ready to try out on us. It was a piece of good fortune when he agreed to be our guide on my record attempt, because he was able to show me all the paths and surprises, dangers and shortcuts the mountain held in store, as well as how to acclimate. He also let me share in his way of seeing the mountain, of drawing on the energy radiating from the trees and roots, rocks and wind. He knows Kilimanjaro is a very important source of income for his country and his people because it attracts large numbers of tourists who want to climb the African continent’s highest peak and provides a lot of work for the region’s porters, guides, and traders. However, it is also a source of life, through the water it supplies to its inhabitants to drink and through the trees that oxygenate the air they breathe, and he is aware that they are the most difficult gifts to preserve but the most important to sustain.

As I contemplate the landscape and listen to the stories he tells me about each place we run through, we reach the entrance to the national park and erect our tents for the night. As it is late, we immediately prepare bowls of cream of carrot soup and huge plates of pasta, which I have a hard time finishing. No doubt about it—Simon’s six-foot-five frame and my five-foot-six frame need quite different amounts. We slip into our sleeping bags with full stomachs, and I drift off to sleep wondering what tomorrow will bring.

We wake up at dawn and breakfast on pancakes washed down by cups of tea. We have set our camp a few feet from the Umbwe Gate, at an altitude of about 5,000 feet, surrounded by ancient trees
that rise like skyscrapers into the clouds. The earth is damp, and the low vegetation, comprising ferns and other kinds of bushes with large leaves, spreads densely over the mud. It is impossible to wander off the path.

At around 7 a.m. we go over to the Umbwe Gate, where part of the team and some park guards are waiting to film and time the run and be present as I attempt to break the record.

The sky looks clear behind a thin layer of clouds, and from Barranco the team confirms that there is a great sea of clouds beneath their feet but that the temperature is good, that it’s not very cold at the higher levels. This is great news, since aiming for a record in excellent conditions and dry terrain is easier than if it is raining and the surface is slippery; it’s dangerous to run at an altitude of 16,000 feet when you are sopping wet. My legs feel fresh and ready to start uphill.

Lotta begins the countdown, and after she says, “1,” I launch off at top speed with Simon, who will accompany me for the part of the course that will take me through the jungle and up to the ceiling of Africa. I feel good and take long, efficient strides, making sure I don’t slip on the mud and pushing hard so that I hardly need to lift up my legs. I feel my breathing, strides, and heartbeats synchronizing, and I run through the trees with ease. Simon begins to drop behind. I feel really good and decide I should make the most of every moment to reach 13,000 feet, since later on, even though I am well acclimated, I cannot be sure how my body will respond.

The trail narrows into a path that gradually climbs up through ancient trees, between roots and rocky boulders. The humidity is very high in this stretch. It reminds me of the Mount Kinabalu race in Malaysia, where the humidity is also heavy. Sweat streams down my face, but I feel too good to reduce my pace. I speed on, and in a little over an hour I’m at the first camp on the ascent, at Umbwe
Cave, at nearly 10,000 feet. From here on, there is a spectacular change in vegetation; we leave behind tall, leafy woods and start out on a ridge surrounded by 7-foot-high branches from which hang long yellow beards. It feels like running through a landscape from
The Lord of the Rings
, and I wouldn’t be completely surprised to see an elf jump out of these bushes.

When a gap opens up between two of the long beards, we glimpse the magnificent ravines under the ridge that go down to a plain full of healthy vegetation and lofty trees. I imagine that no one has ever set foot in these places that seem inaccessible to humans. And for one or two moments, on the occasional bend in the path, you can see the peak of Kilimanjaro very far off and very high up. When I look at it for the first time, it seems scary. I look at my watch and realize it will be impossible to climb that far in four hours. It’s too far and too high. But I am making good—very good—time, am well under the record, and my legs let me drive easily on up the steep slopes.

I return my focus to the miles just ahead of me and accelerate to Barranco. The bearded bushes start to give way to a more barren landscape that’s rocky and full of thick volcanic sand, where only a few lobelias and large ragwort manage to live. I’ve got my music on loud so as not to be too distracted by the landscape or the sounds of nature. It’s so fantastic all around me that it would be very easy to be bewitched by nature. So REM, Manel, Blondie, the Black Eyed Peas, and others help me cut myself off a bit from the attractions of nature and to concentrate only on my body and the trail unfolding immediately in front of me. That is why I turn past a tower of lava and don’t hear the shouts from Greg, who is waiting with a small camera to immortalize these scenes. He starts to accompany me, running behind me, but I keep accelerating,
absorbed in concentration, and I am soon alone again. I have not stopped to think about it, but I am now near 13,000 feet and have yet to note any shortage of oxygen; in fact, I’m running as if I were at 6,500 feet, which means all the acclimating we did the week before has paid off.

Pleased about this, I run at top speed along the rocky path that will bring me to the Barranco Camp plateau that has been my home for the last week. The imposing wall of the summit of Kilimanjaro looms above: 6,500 feet of vertical rock draped by a few remaining glaciers. I again conclude that it will be impossible to reach the top in just over three hours.

My route leads me off the most direct route, to the left, around those walls that can’t be crossed and on toward more gentle, northerly slopes. When I reach the camp, Stephan is waiting for me with a canteen of water that I down in one gulp. I set out 2 hours and 15 minutes ago and have drunk nothing since, although I have taken an energy gel every hour.

Without losing any more time, I start running along a path that heads across masses of scree toward Lava Tower, toward a camp that enjoys spectacular views over Mount Meru and where we spent one night while acclimatizing. I keep passing porters coming down from the camp, all of whom cheer and clap as I go by. Although there’s no telephone coverage here, it seems that word of mouth is still a very efficient tool of communication: They all know who I am and what I am attempting to do today.

I follow this path for a couple of miles, then take a right turn under a precipitous crest of black rock to reach Glacier Camp, at around 16,000 feet, avoiding Lava Tower and thus saving some 10 minutes. The landscape has now given up on vegetation. Here the path has been carved out among blocks of broken black rock and
brown stone that range from the size of dining room tables down to the finest dust. The dirt track slopes down, and my feet slide a few inches with each step I take, sinking between the rocks.

It becomes difficult to make headway, and I realize I am no longer running. My feet feel leaden.
It can’t be a shortage of oxygen
, I think.
A couple of days ago, I easily ran up this same slope. Why am I finding it so hard now?
However, I think little of it; I was thousands of feet lower only three hours ago, in the middle of a jungle where my muscles were able to take in all the oxygen they needed. I quickly down a couple of gels but find that I can’t accelerate. It can’t be a sudden attack of fatigue; I can’t have used up all my reserves of strength. I feel sure that my muscles can pump at top speed and are just waiting to thrust me forward. But I feel empty, void of energy. When I manage two or three minutes at a good rate, I have to stop and breathe deeply. My head, too, is navigating in unknown waters. It can’t concentrate on my body, on my pace, or on the surrounding landscape. It simply wants this feeling of emptiness to end. It wants to stop, stretch out, and rest.

But no, I can’t stop; time keeps moving on. I lift my head and run confidently, strongly, and with determination until I am forced to stop a few minutes later. I can’t fathom this situation. I have the strength yet can’t draw on it. It is trapped and waiting for an energy tap to be turned on that seems to have jammed.

Time goes by faster than ever, unlike the miles, which are going by more slowly than ever. However, I gradually climb up between two sloping walls of rock and come out onto the enormous crater of the volcano. Here I contemplate one of the most surreal landscapes I have ever seen. There is a great area of black lava sand that, after being exposed to the sun’s heat all day with nothing to provide shadow, is so hot that if you sink your hands into it, it is
like putting them into boiling water. Huge blocks of ice hang above this beachy landscape, like icebergs that have lost their way and are marooned on a remote island.

The cold wind that blows when I reach the crater rim rouses me, enabling me to break into a run across this desert before I reach the last wall on the climb. My legs feel light once again, and apparently oxygen is back, circulating around me. I make the most of it and stride across the long plateau, smiling, telling myself,
I’ve done it. I’ve gotten there.

However, when I reach the 650-foot wall between myself and Uhuru Peak, my legs immediately feel as though they weigh 200 pounds apiece. The energy tap is switched off again.

I search my iPod for a song to motivate me for this final stretch. I find one and start to feel its electrifying rhythm; the voice and lyrics raise my spirits, releasing me from the weight I’m carrying, and off I run.

I run up over fine sand, sinking down with every step. I still feel energetic, but as the melody moves on, my head wanders and my legs start to feel heavy once again. I try to keep on and not stop until the song ends, but fatigue triumphs over my will and I sit on a rock to rest and take a few deep breaths.

I wait for the song to end and then begin running again, though this time I adopt a long, slow pace until I reach the crest of the summit, where Olivier is waiting. I stretch out on the ground, put my head in my hands, and find myself dozing for a few moments. I wake up almost immediately.
What do you think you are doing?
I demand of myself.
Come on, get up! You’ve made it. You’ll be at the top in a minute, and the suffering stops there.

I rise and look at my watch: 5 hours and 20 minutes.
Very good!
I think. I break into a gentle canter. The terrain isn’t very steep
and allows me to recover my strength with each step, to get rid of the heaviness in my legs so that soon I can accelerate, take big strides, and quickly reach the top.

“I’ve done it! I’ve done it! Finally!” I say, thinking aloud. I know I will soon be able to execute my usual form on the descent and therefore should beat the record unless there is some unforeseen mishap. I have done the hardest part and now can simply enjoy the descent.

I stop at the top for a few seconds to recoup my strength, drinking from my water canteen and eating cookies. Sònia checks my pulse and the oxygen levels in my blood. Everything is in order. I gaze at the splendid views yet again, and when I feel I have recovered and my head is clear and alert, I get up and start on my long, nonstop descent. I bid farewell to the wind with a loud “Jambo!” and start running over the mass of fine earth that falls from the mountain peak. My legs feel light, my reflexes quick, and my feet go exactly where I want.
Today will be a great day
, I think.
Today will be a wonderful descent
. There’s no time to suffer now; there’s not even time to run. The time I have left is for flying.