ADVENTURE RACING
Adventure Races in the Desert Greg Tamblyn
For most of us a multi-day Orienteering event is tough enough. How would you like to compete in a 250 kilometre race in some of the most remote areas in the world?
The format of these desert races Each year there are four races - the Atacama Desert in northern Chile (see report in AO-December, 2006, p32), the Gobi Desert in western China, the Sahara Desert in Egypt and one in Antarctica (yes, it’s classed as a desert). Each race is a 7-day stage event covering a total distance of 250km. Days One to Four are between 30 and 45km. each day, then days 5 - 6 include a night stage up to 90km long. The organisers supply water, plenty of it, excellent medical support and a place in a tent each night. As a competitor I have to carry my sleeping bag, clothing and all food and emergency gear for the whole race. My pack starts out at 9.8kg without water; of this 4.5kg is food and electrolytes. On each race there are 80 to 150 competitors from perhaps 20 different countries. Like Orienteering, a trip like this is a great way to make friends.
Greg has done three of the four races. They have all been very different. In July 2006 I completed my first race in the Atacama Desert in Chile, the driest in the world with a huge area of horrible salt flats that we had to cross time and time again. But it also has amazing views of the Andes. This was the race I enjoyed the most. In July 2007 my second race was in the Gobi Desert based near Kashgar in western China. We passed through a number of mountain gorges and river valleys, and then eventually crossed a huge sandy plateau. Every few hours you would come around a corner and find local people farming and herding animals. Then in November 2007, four months after the Gobi, my third race was in the Sahara Desert north-west of Cairo in Egypt. The Sahara was the classic sandy desert that you see in the movies - as far as you could see there was no vegetation, just sand all day every day. The race was based in an area named the White Desert about six hours drive by bus northwest of Cairo. It is a huge area with lots of bright white rocky outcrops rearing out of the sandy desert. There were even a few surprises - on our route we came across a small cave with a mummy inside; and later we came to a classic oasis with three palm trees and a small pool of water. 36 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER MARCH 2008
The last day was probably the most memorable. It started in the desert, then eventually the course took us through a gap in a wire fence and we finished our 250 km. with a run around the base of the Pyramids, the only one of The Seven Wonders of the World which still exists, on the outskirts of Cairo, a monster city. Unfortunately I got very ill on Day Two and for a number of days I could not keep any solid food down. I eventually completed about 150km but was forced to DNF.
Specific training and preparation I keep practising everything during training. Every training session is a physical test, as well as a test of the most comfortable gear setup for me and a test to determine the right nutrition. The food I chose for the Sahara race was different to the Gobi. My training program starts about 10 months before the race and has continued to be a mixture of long runs of about 25–35km., and Orienteering, all carrying a 10kg pack.
How do I get through five to six days? The races are definitely physically hard, but the mental challenge is much harder. You go through a number of mental highs and lows. Some people rely on their MP3 players, some sing out loud, others just go into an internal shell and slog it out all day. Whatever you do, your mind always has to keep telling your body to go and go and go and then to get up and do it all again the next day. For most competitors Day One is the hardest, probably because packs are fully loaded and it takes a while to get used to the terrain. After that you start eating your food, the pack weight goes down and you seem to get faster each day.
What’s next? Over the next couple of years my goal is to complete the Sahara race and then I can qualify to start in the Antarctica race. That would be cool. If you want to follow any of the races in 2008 on the web, go to www.4deserts.com
