12 minute read
Ultra Gobi
The Silk Road: the route of China‘s most famous pilgrimage – and now one of the planet’s most brutal ultramarathons. This is the 400km
During his seventh-century pilgrimage along the route that would become known as the Silk Road, Chinese Buddhist monk Xuanzang described the Gobi Desert as “nothing but barren sand and dry river beds; at night, stars shine like fires lit by devils… There is not enough water to nourish even a single blade of grass; one looks for birds in the sky and beasts on land, but finds none”.Xuanzang’s quest to obtain sacred Buddhist scriptures was adapted into one of China’s most famous novels,Journey to the West, better known outside the country in its abridged form, titled Monkey. Today, the terrain remains remarkably unchanged and the monk’s route draws a different kind of pilgrim: the ultrarunner.
Launched in 2015, the Ultra Gobi is a self-navigating, self-supporting race that follows Xuanzang’s trail along the northern edge of the Tibetan Plateau in western China. Once known as the Gansu Corridor, this was the only path for caravans passing between the sands of the Gobi proper to the north and the mountains of Tibet to the south. “The heat goes through you like a flame and the wind cuts your flesh like a knife,” wrote Xuanzang of this route. The Chinese name for the race translates as ‘Xuanzang’s Route: 800li of Flowing Sands’, and 800li (or Chinese miles) converts to 400km, making Ultra Gobi a ‘super-ultra’ marathon that exceeds the world’s most famous desert race – the Marathon des Sables – by 150km, with a soulcrushing 4,000m mountain-pass ascent to the midway checkpoint.
It took the legendary monk 17 years to complete his journey; Ultra Gobi contestants – of whom there are only 50 invited each year – have just 149 hours to finish the course. In 2017, British runner Daniel Lawson, then aged 43, did it in less than 71 hours. For the 2018 race, the organisers laid down a $10,000 (around £7,500) prize for anyone who could top that.
Fellow Brit James Poole was one of those who took up the challenge. Photographer James Carnegie joined Poole to document his race, and here they take us through their photo diary. It’s a study of attrition, of human determination, and of the toll that harsh conditions and exhaustion can take on the mind and body. “It wasn’t until I was editing the images that I noticed much of what James was going through,” says Carnegie. “The glazed eyes behind his sunglasses as we climbed out of the canyon and onto the 4,000mhigh plateau will always remind me of how far gone he was at that point.”
The Gobi Desert, September 2018. British runner James Poole, having passed the 4,000m-high summit that marks the highest point in the Ultra Gobi, descends into a valley devoid of colour or life, with nothing but a biting wind and a dusty trail to keep him company. Two days and more than 200km into the race, this is the halfway point. The approaching night and altitude will see numerous runners succumb to hypothermic conditions.
At the stroke of midnight on September 25, 2018, the 50 entrants set off into the vast desert expanse as the clock starts ticking towards the 149-hour completion deadline. This year, there’s an additional £7,500 prize for whoever manages to beat 70 hours and 52 minutes, the record-breaking time set by 2017 winner Daniel Lawson.
Poole at the start line. Festivities at the opening ceremony – a firework show, a few dozen dancers dressed in Mongolian attire, and a makeshift bar lined with cups of rice beer – belie the gruelling race to come.
Sunrise brings respite from the merciless cold and the loneliness of a night spent beneath a canopy of stars. Much of the route is raced at above 2,000m, at the edge of the Tibetan plateau.
In an attempt to stave off swelling, blisters, infection, trench foot and the loss of toenails, many competitors stashed fresh socks and medical supplies in drop boxes, which were delivered to checkpoints. “What the Gobi Desert lacks in endless dusty dunes, it makes up for with perpetually uneven rocks that threaten to macerate feet and eat through trail shoes," says Poole. "The luxury of a clean pair of socks and some adeptly applied tape can be the difference between just stepping out the door or climbing onto the bus to the finish.”
With an army of Chinese and international volunteers manning each of the checkpoints, runners are able to receive physio and medical treatment to sufficiently repair injury and any other wear to their bodies. However, staff are encouraged to turn runners around as quickly as possible – they have to continue on or succumb to the threat of DNF (Did Not Finish).
Mandatory survival equipment includes a sleeping bag, GPS, head torch and medical kit. Runners must carry sufficient hydration, nutrition and clothing between checkpoints to endure successive nights in sub-zero temperatures. “Each night I was wearing everything I had and until the sun rose I was still freezing,” says Poole.
“Forward progress was dictated by one’s ability to follow a thin line on a small digital display,” says Poole. “Flat batteries or a broken GPS handset would be disastrous.” As would severe sleep deprivation and the decline in cognition that comes with it. Britain’s Nathan Montague followed a broken arrow on his device for several hours, ending up lost. His error was costly: at one point, he was chasing second place; he finally crossed the line in sixth.
Checkpoints range from tents manned by a lone person huddled around a fire, to small villages in the middle of nowhere. Each runner has six drop boxes – meticulously packed and checked before race start – from which they can retrieve nutrition, luxuries and changes of clothing en route. The logistics of calculating what they'll need at each checkpoint is immense, especially with a minimum required daily calorie intake of 25,000kcal.
Carnegie: “More than 100km in and approaching dawn on day two. Three hours into running through dried river beds and canyons with James, I discovered how useless fingers become in this cold. Trying to capture the mood of utter isolation was challenging. James went from incoherence amid the cold dark of night to wildly hallucinating as the horizon turned to gold, claiming there’d been a dog running alongside me for hours and that the hills were full of apartments with people looking down on us. His mind was mush.”
Poole: “The lowest point occurred shortly after crossing the 4,000m peak at halfway. With little more than two hours’ sleep in two days, I’d seen gnomes, imps and goblins hiding in the scrub. Cliff-sides looked like trains with endless lines of carriages. Shadows in the dying sunlight resembled dogs’ jaws leaning in to nip at my ankles. With less than 3km to one of the lifesaving bases, I was confronted by a frozen lake lined with boats, pontoons and jetties. Listening out for any cracks in the ice, I climbed gingerly between the obstacles. More than an hour later, I staggered into the checkpoint, hypothermic and in serious difficulty. Seven hours on, I hobbled out of the tent. To my surprise, there was no lake. It had all been in my mind.”
A lone spectator stares at Ultra Gobi’s racetrack – a seemingly endless valley with the Tibetan Plateau in the distance.
Although the race draws entrants from across the world, the majority are Chinese, reflecting the country’s growing interest in running and endurance sports. (The eventual winner was China’s Liang Jing in 85 hours and 46 minutes.)
Poole: “The night-time temperatures brought debilitating cold and hypothermia for many, so runners would leave checkpoints with sleeping bags wrapped around their bodies. Ironically, wind – or feng – plays a notable part in Chinese medicine and is regarded as a ‘pernicious influence’ that can cause disease, but not hypothermia. So, while Western competitors battled the cold with every item they owned, it wasn’t uncommon for Chinese runners, under the guidance of doctors, to head out in little more than shorts and a T-shirt.”
Carnegie: “On the second night of sub-zero temperatures, James was close to hypothermia when he stumbled into the rest-point. Medical staff monitor the runners, and cola bottles filled with hot water were placed around him, but it soon became clear the Chinese definition of hypothermic is different to that of UK medics. Hypothermia is defined as a core body temperature below 35°C, with symptoms including uncontrollable shivering and mental confusion. Both were present.”
Carnegie: “I learnt to track James using his footprints in the sand. Locating him and the other runners was a mission in itself. With such vast distances and inaccessibility, I’d encounter him, at best, once a day. Our 4x4 guide was familiar with this part of the Gobi, seemingly able to remember routes across river beds and between the valleys that intersected the course. Whether there was actually anyone there was another matter – our satellite tracker often indicated runners had taken inexplicable detours over dunes and gone off-course.”
“To help me evaluate James’ mental cognition throughout the race, I’d sought the opinion of PhD researcher Chris Howe from Kingston University, who is heavily involved in investigating the physiological, nutritional and psychological responses to ultramarathon running. On his advice, I attempted to test James at checkpoints, using a series of relatively simple cognition tasks. After 200km, he no longer had the mental energy to face this, nor me the temerity to put him through it.”
Carnegie: “I have a voicemail from James saved on my phone. He was less than 500m from the finish, could hear the music blaring and see the lights projecting into the sky, but was aimlessly running around a quarry. It’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard.”
Poole: “The Ultra Gobi runners receive an unusual gift before the start: one half of a small statuette of a tiger – a ‘tiger tally’. The other half is awarded after the successful completion of the race. These tallies were used by military officers in ancient China as a representation of authority. A commander in a frontier region such as the Gobi might leave half of his tally behind in a fortress, then provide the matching half as ID when sending back orders. Leaving half of your tally behind is a pledge you’ll return.”
Carnegie: “After 93 hours and 25 minutes in the desert, James crosses the finish line in Dunhuang. The Ultra Gobi ends at a ‘centuries-old’ fort, which is actually a museum that was built recently to give tourists ‘the Silk Road experience’, complete with staff in warrior suits. It’s completely bizarre and I can’t imagine what it must have felt like emerging to this after four days in a desert.”
The photographer’s perspective: James Carnegie
“I struggled with a conflict of compassion over commitment during this assignment. I was here, several thousand miles from home, for the singular purpose of capturing James’ story. But when your good friend lurches in from the cold, dark desert, shivering uncontrollably and repeatedly muttering ‘I just need to sleep’ you’re torn between helping them into their sleeping bag and getting the shot. I kept telling myself that if I came away with just one good shot, it would all be worth it.
“I knew that I needed to see James outside the checkpoints, the safety of medics and the race staff; I needed to see him in the darkness and loneliness of the race. I heard his shuffled, slowing and stumbling footsteps alongside me, and also his incoherent, nonsensical speech and hallucinations as we traversed riverbed and gorge. I could see – and briefly share – the deep, deep cold he was victim to as he drew the hood tight around his face, clenching his numb and useless fingers into a ball in his gloves. This is where he was. This is where the story was. I would have liked to have experienced more of that. Without actually running this thing in its entirety, that wasn’t possible. I probably pushed as far as I could in my capacity as a photographer on this kind of remote adventure, but I’m left with utter respect for James and all the runners who saw this through.
“A face can tell a thousand words. I hope that in my images I captured some of what James was experiencing. The raw fatigue, the worn exterior and the rollercoaster of emotions were clear to see, but how does one capture that?”
Words James Poole and James Carnegie
Photography James Carnegie
