“Tommy cut corner,” said Zeng, who’d been with us and seen it all. “Not right.”
Again, she didn’t seem to care all that much. Soon we were back out of the checkpoint, trying to catch up with Tommy. He had almost a mile of tough terrain on us, but I had rage on my side. I pushed the pace up to a six-and-a-half-minute mile and worked hard to start reeling him in. Julian and the others stayed back a little, but I didn’t mind. I was on a mission.
The path was undulating, and there were only a few times when I could see Tommy clearly. At one point there was only a half mile between us when he turned around, saw me running hard towards him, turned back, and sprinted off as fast as he possibly could.
I couldn’t believe it.
There’s an etiquette to these races. If you realize you’ve gained an unfair advantage over other runners, you hang back, let them catch up, and allow the proper order to be restored. I’ve made this kind of error myself in another race. It’s easy to do in the battle for the lead, but it’s better to settle while on the race course rather than after the run is completed.
I pressed on after him, but after working so hard to try to narrow the gap, and having let myself get so angry, I soon felt tired. I heard footsteps behind me, and Julian overtook me. The heat started to rise, and the race moved onto a long, flat road that extended off for miles into the distance. I started to feel bored, then frustrated with myself.
Previous experience had taught me that feeling this way was toxic. But it had also taught me how to deal with it.
In my first-ever ultra-race—a full marathon with a six-mile loop added onto the end—I’d started to feel tired at around the twenty-mile mark. By the time I approached it, I was done. I wasn’t enjoying the running, and I was fed up with getting overtaken by men and women who were much older than me. I’d done it only to keep Lucja company, and even though I was about to complete the 26.2 miles in a respectable 3:30, I gave up inside. I stepped off the course, headed back to the car, and waited for Lucja to join me.
It took hours.
As I sat in the car and watched the rest of the field put in the hard work that I wasn’t prepared to put in myself, I started to feel like I’d let myself down.
The field had thinned, and the only people still running were the kind of people who looked as if this event was a once-in-a-lifetime achievement. Lucja was fitter, faster, and stronger than all of them, and I was beginning to wonder what had happened. Eventually I got out of the car and walked back along the last mile of the course, looking for her. I found her soon enough, running slowly alongside a guy who obviously had a pretty serious leg injury. Lucja had struggled with fatigue toward the end of the race, but she had toughed it out.
I watched her cross the finish line and felt myself start to choke up. The mental strength and compassion Lucja showed that day has stayed with me ever since. I try to emulate her often when I’m racing, and at my best I can dig deep and tough out all kinds of pain and discomfort. But there are days when the voices calling me to quit shout louder than the voices calling me to keep on going. Those are the toughest days of all.
As I watched Julian disappear into the distance and tried not to think about how far ahead Tommy had gotten, I knew I was missing Lucja. But a quick glance down at Gobi was enough to bring back my focus and take my mind off the thing with Tommy. She was still beside me, still skipping along. Just by being there, Gobi made me want to keep going.
The long, flat section ended and gave way to scrubland. I’d noticed during the start of the stage that if Gobi saw a stream or puddle, she would occasionally run off to the side of the course and take a drink. Since the boulder section we’d not seen any water at all, and I wondered whether I might need to give her some of my own water. I didn’t want to stop, but I was also starting to feel responsible for the dog’s welfare. She wasn’t a big dog, and her legs weren’t much longer than my hands. All that running must have been hard on her.
So, initially at least, I was relieved when I saw the streams up ahead. Gobi trotted off and had a drink out of one of them, but if she’d been able to see what I could see, she wouldn’t have been nearly so happy.
Beyond the stream I could see Julian, on the far side of a river that must have been at least 150 feet wide. I remembered that the organizers had spoken about it while I was shivering on the start line a few hours earlier. It was going to come up to my knees, but it was possible to walk across.
The sight of Julian spurred me on, and I didn’t hesitate to wade in, checking that my bag was strapped on tight and high on my back. It was colder than I imagined, but I welcomed the chance to cool down a bit.
It was soon clear that the water was definitely going to reach my knees, and possibly even higher. The current was fast as well, and combined with the slippery rocks underfoot, I felt unsteady. I could handle continuing the race with wet shoes, for they’d dry out soon enough. But if I slipped, fell, and got my bag wet, not only would it become heavy and uncomfortable, but most of my food for the rest of the week would be ruined. One wrong foot, one tiny fall, and my race could be all over.
I was so focused on getting myself across that I didn’t stop to think about Gobi. I guess I assumed that she’d find her own way across the river, just as she had with the culvert the day before.
This time, however, her barking and whining didn’t stop. With every step I took, it became more desperate.
I was a quarter way across the river when I finally did what I had never done before in a race. I turned around.
She was on the bank, running up and down, looking right at me. I knew Julian was ahead by a few minutes, but I wondered how long it would be before someone came up behind me. If I went back, would I lose a place as well as valuable minutes?
I ran back as best I could, tucked her under my left arm, and waded back out into the cold water. I’d not picked her up before, and she was so much lighter than I imagined she would be. Even so, it was so much harder crossing with her. Using only my right arm for balance, I edged forward.
I slipped more than once, one time going down hard on my left side, getting Gobi and—I guessed—the bottom edge of my bag wet. But Gobi didn’t complain, nor did she wriggle or try to escape. She stayed calm, letting me do my job and keep her safe.
I put her down when we reached a small island in the middle, and she trotted around as though the whole thing was a great adventure. Once I’d checked that my bag wasn’t seriously wet and made sure it was as high up my back as I could get it, I called for Gobi, who immediately ran back to me. I scooped her up and continued on as before.