Running Hot

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Failure is simply a result you did not want and a valuable learning experience

In June 2006, not long after I’d completed the Isar Run, black toenails and all, I went to Bangkok with the jewellery business for three weeks. The trip went well and I was feeling pretty buoyant on my way home to Austria, unaware of the bombshell that was waiting for me. Gerhard and I had been planning a long holiday in New Zealand once we’d completed the Niger race. When I got off the plane, he told me he wasn’t coming. He said, ‘You go. I’m staying here.’

I couldn’t work it out. Why would he not want to come back to New Zealand with me? What was going on? He couldn’t explain why he wouldn’t come. I was really upset as I’d spent the last few years living in Austria. I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t come and spend even a few weeks with me at home.

While I’d been in Bangkok there’d been a huge change in Gerhard. He’d been crewing for another ultra-athlete while I was away and he spent heaps of time with that crew and something obviously changed. A few weeks later we were both supposed to go and crew for another athlete on a race through France and again, Gerhard told me he didn’t want me to go. I wondered whether it was because I’d just been in Bangkok for three weeks and I hadn’t been working. I decided I could use the time to make sure things were still ticking over at the shop so off he went on his own.

I knew that he was under a lot of pressure at work and I thought that when that was resolved our relationship would improve. But his work issues were compounded by the fact that I had expanded my business to include a wholesaling arm.

When he came back from France, nothing I could do was right. Gerhard was really uncommunicative and didn’t seem to want to be around me. A couple of weeks later, I was at my wit’s end over my declining relationship with Gerhard, when my cousin, Kim, and her partner, Neville, came to stay with us for a couple of months. I was stoked to have Kim with me — we are more like sisters than cousins. It was also really cool to have some of my New Zealand family here and I was really excited about showing them Austria.

They’d only been at the house for a couple of days when Gerhard came to me and said, ‘I think we need to have a break. Things aren’t working out so I think we need to go our separate ways for a while.’ It completely blew me out of the water. I had no idea that he was even contemplating splitting up with me; I just thought we were having a bit of a rough patch and we’d work things out. We had both been under a lot of pressure at work and this had a knock-on effect on our relationship but I didn’t really think that things had got this bad.

I was lucky to have Kim there to help pick up the pieces. She was my rock during that time. With just a week to go before we were due to leave for Niger and a 333-kilometre desert run, I was gutted. We’d been training for the Niger run for a year and a half and this was not ideal finish to our preparation.

I kept trying to talk to Gerhard before we left for Niger but didn’t get anywhere. In the end, we agreed that we’d put off dealing with everything until we got back from the race. I had no choice but to go to Niger with Gerhard. I knew that I couldn’t do the race on my own and all our preparation for the race had been on the basis that we’d do it together, but Gerhard had changed his mind. I was going to have to run the race on my own trying to ignore the fact that my life was falling apart. It was hell.

We flew down to Agadez in a plane full of aid workers as they seemed to be the only people who ever went to Niger. After spending several hours going through all the Customs processes, we were picked up by race organisers. I thought that the large entrance fee we’d paid to run the race might have stretched to a hotel bed, but apparently not. They took us to a restaurant that was little more than a tumbledown hut. We all had dinner there and then we ended up sleeping on some open ground outside the ‘restaurant’. The next day we piled into a jeep and drove for two days into the desert to reach the start line. Here I was stuck in a jeep for hours on end, heading for one of the world’s hardest races, with a man I completely adored who had just told me he didn’t want to be with me. I can’t imagine a more miserable scenario.

The start for the race was at a spot called the ‘Tree of Tenere’. Only it wasn’t a tree. It was a metal post where the locals said there used to be a tree — the only one in this part of the Sahara. The locals said it had been run over by a truck. I’d be surprised as there wasn’t any vegetation for miles around. We spent a night at the Tree of Tenere getting organised for the run. I thought the race was going to be organised like the Marathon des Sables had been. I know there were only nineteen runners but the organisation was terrible. The guy that organised the race had got so many things wrong I barely know where to start.

The organiser had assured us that there’d be safe food supplies brought in from France for the runners and their crews for the days leading up to the race. There wasn’t. Other runners had obviously heard about how chaotic these races can be and they had brought their own freeze-dried food. Stupidly, I hadn’t. I only had the food that I’d need for the race and I couldn’t risk digging into those supplies before I really needed them.

The night before the race, I had the choice of not eating anything or eating a goat stew that some locals had made. Gerhard never really ate before races so he had vitamin drinks. But there was no way I could face starting a 333-kilometre race across the Tenere desert on an empty stomach so goat stew it was. And boy did I come to regret that decision.

The next morning, I woke up at about six o’clock. It was still quite cool and it took me a moment to work out where I was. Then it dawned on me. I was in the middle of the Tenere desert and there was no way out but to run. ‘Oh shit,’ I thought. ‘Whose stupid idea was this?’ The Tenere desert is a mean bit of the Sahara that stretches through north eastern Niger into western Chad. Temperatures during the day reach into the forties and at night it plunges into the low single digits.

Despite the fact I’d been training for this for a couple of years, I was feeling in less than tip-top condition. To be honest, I felt scared. I got out of my sleeping bag and did a double-check of my gear. So we knew where to go, we had a set of handwritten co-ordinates and a GPS. Carrying the GPS meant that I had to take heaps of batteries along with the rest of my gear.

By seven o’clock the butterflies in my stomach were going hard out. I tried to convince myself it was the fear and not something a lot lot worse. Lining up at the start line, I said goodbye to Gerhard as he’d decided to try for a placing and I was just focused on completing the race. There are two races within one, the Trans 222 and the Trans 333. Both are non-stop races and there were fourteen checkpoints along the way. To make managing the race a bit easier, the organisers had set time limits for runners. We had 36 hours to run the first 111 kilometres and 108 hours to complete the whole 333 kilometres. I was determined to finish the 333-kilometre race.

At 7.30 am, the nineteen of us lined up at the start. There were 17 men and 2 women. The gun fired and we were underway. Gerhard goes out fast and I watch my husband disappear off into the distance. I was going to have to get used to not having him around so I might as well start here.

There was a howling wind blowing sand straight in our faces and the terrain was flat deep sand. It’s hard going dragging each foot out of the sand to put it down in front of the other. We’d been told to expect 110 kilometres of that before we would be moving into rocky terrain. I decided that I’d better get used to it fast — having to drag myself through sand for a third of the race.

The whole time we were in the desert it was really windy and we needed to follow GPS co-ordinates to stay on course. Even though my backpack for this race was lighter than it had been for any of my past desert races, it felt heavy right from the start. I was carrying everything I needed for the next few days running — I had some food, some water, a sleeping bag, a first aid kit and some spare clothes. I knew we’d be given water at the checkpoints but the organisation was so bad that there wasn’t even enough water at some of the checkpoints.

Only an hour into the race, the butterflies in my stomach were still there only they’d turned into something much less benign. My guts were in uproar and I know that it was far too early in the race to be dealing with dysentery. Still, I took some solace in the fact that I wasn’t the only one dropping to the side with alarming regularity. After the race, I found out that four other runners and two of the support crew who had all shared the goat curry I’d eaten the night before had come down with food poisoning. We had all had to tough it out throughout the race. Now, that’s one elite group of athletes I could live without being part of!

After so much training, effort and cost, to have a race affected so badly by something as simple as a dodgy meal was heartbreaking. At that moment, I could have happily strangled the race organiser but I also knew that I was as much to blame for not having taken the precaution of bringing my own food even though we’d been told that the food would all come from France. Soon enough, I realised that I’d just have to work regular toilet stops into my race plan and that I’d need to ration my water intake slightly differently to make up for the fluids that I was losing. I just tried to keep on running — I had to face hundreds of kilometres of desert with a terrible bout of food poisoning and a divorce hanging over my head. Great! Shot, Lisa. I really knew how to make life hard for myself.

While most people would climb into bed and pull the duvet over their head and hide from the world, I had no choice but to continue running. There was no way out but to keep running forward. Quitting and going back with the crew would mean failure, and there was no way that I was going to let that happen. I knew that if I gave up in the middle of the Niger Desert, I’d probably never recover.

The other female runner was an English woman called Eleanor. Pretty soon we fell into step together and it was nice to have company out there in the middle of nowhere. Eleanor was not one of the unfortunate few who’d bonded over the goat stew so she was in a much better condition than me. I was so very grateful for her positive attitude and her encouragement while we were out on the course. While I was with her, I was pretty much running blind. She held my hand and I just followed her. I kept collapsing and Eleanor kept picking me up and urging me to carry on.

Throughout the first day, my stomach was cramping badly and the intensity of the cramps grew with every passing kilometre. I tried my best to ignore the pain and just keep running and it worked while the sun was out, but as soon as night fell I realised just how much trouble I was in. The dysentery had become extreme and I felt like I was spending more time shitting than I was running. I made it past checkpoint two and got some more water but checkpoint three felt like a long, long way away.

Apart from other runners and race officials, the only other people I saw out in the desert were men who were transporting salt across the desert in big trucks. We’d been told that it was only safe to sleep at checkpoints because if you slept out in the desert there was the possibility of being run over by one of those trucks. Whenever I came across a truck, the men would stop and stare at me. They couldn’t work out what the hell I was doing out in the desert. They’d ask where I was going and I’d tell them I was running to Agadez. They couldn’t believe it. ‘All the way to Agadez, running? But you’ll die. You’ll die! We’ll take you.’ I assured them all I was OK and that I’d make it to Agadez. They’d drive off into the desert shaking their heads at the crazy western woman.

Before I made it to the third checkpoint, I completely hit the wall. My blood sugars had bottomed out — please excuse the pun — and I was horrendously dehydrated. Even though I’d been drinking plenty of water, no sooner had I put it in than it would come straight back out again. I was in a real state. The one positive thing was that the camaraderie between the runners in this race was brilliant. Eleanor did her best to keep me moving forward. I kept collapsing and she kept picking me up and putting me back on my feet. With two kilometres to go to the third checkpoint, I collapsed again. At this point, two other runners came past and they both lifted me out of the sand and practically carried me to the checkpoint. By the time I got there, I had collapsed four times that night.

At each checkpoint along the way, and there were fourteen of them across the 333 kilometres, the medical team would wait for the runners to come in. The doctor took one look at me and handed me some tablets to take to try and stop the dysentery. I gulped them down willing to try anything that might get me out of this predicament. The doctor also recommended that I rest for an hour or two. I lay down and tried to sleep for a while but the stomach cramps kept me awake.

Half an hour after we’d arrived at the checkpoint, Eleanor decided she was ready to keep moving. I was terrified of being out in the desert at night on my own so I dragged myself out of the medic’s tent and went with her. I’ll never know where I found the strength to keep running that night but when the next day dawned, I had 95 kilometres of sand behind me. When I made it to the fourth checkpoint, someone told me that Gerhard was up with the race leaders and that he was looking really strong. I was happy for him and it gave me a bit of lift. Despite everything, it helped me to carry on.

By the time the sun was high in the sky, the temperature was soaring. At midday, it was 45°C and we were still making our way through deep sand. When would this bloody sand end? With the sun burning down and the relentless wind hurling sand into my face, I felt dreadful. The medication I’d been given for the dysentery had worked for a while but before long the dreaded symptoms returned and I was still suffering the effects of the dehydration it had caused. My body was struggling to retain the water it needed and food was pretty much out of the question. The equation became quite simple — no fuel equals no energy. I knew that my body would be burning fat and muscle instead of nutrients but I had to keep going. Of all the races I’d ever done, this was definitely the hardest. I knew it would be hard but I hadn’t counted on the break-up of my marriage the week before and the onset of food poisoning on day one.

News filtered through to me that three of the other runners who ate the stew had pulled out of the race. I felt terrible for them but most of all I felt scared that I’d be next. The whole time I was calculating in my head, am I going to make it in time? How many kilometres will I have to do before I can rest again? I knew I was still within the time limits the race organisers had set but I wasn’t sure how much further I could go. My body was screaming at me to rest but I knew only too well that each hour I rested, meant I was an hour further from completing the race.

Eleanor decided she couldn’t wait for me any longer and continued the race on her own. I completely understood her thinking. I was so sick I was holding her back. I wished her the best and off she went. By the third night I’d passed checkpoint nine but was having to stop every 20 minutes to empty my bowels — the dysentery was back with a vengeance and I was still nearly 150 kilometres from the end of the longer course. At checkpoint ten, I was given more medication for my dysentery but it was only 22 kilometres until the end of the Trans 222 race and I had a big decision to make. Did I stop at the final checkpoint for the Trans 222 or did I continue on and risk having my result being recorded as a ‘did not finish’ in the Trans 333 race.

Eventually after three days and nights of some fantastic highs — the beautiful landscape and the camaraderie between runners — and the worst lows, I decided that my run would end at the finish line of the Trans 222 race. Before I left for Niger, Mum had made me promise not to kill myself doing the race. I could hear her voice in my mind and I knew that by continuing I would be seriously risking my health. I had to stop.

I had desperately wanted to complete the longer race and I tried to convince myself that I should be happy with completing the 222, but I couldn’t. Even though I’d done my best, I’d failed. I’d just gone through the hardest 62 hours of my life and I’d failed to do what I’d set out to do.

Still, I was relieved when I climbed into my sleeping bag at the end of the race and went to sleep. Once I’d had some time to recover, I caught a lift to the finish line of the Trans 333 with some of the race organisers. I joined the cameraman who was making a documentary about Gerhard’s race and followed the last 10 kilometres of his race. Out here in the desert, it just didn’t seem real that our life together in Austria was in the process of falling apart.

Gerhard was running with an English athlete called Mark Cockbain. They’d teamed up quite a wee way back and they were pacing each other. They were both in a pretty bad way. They hadn’t had enough water and were incoherent. Thankfully, they’d made a pact to finish together so they egged each other along. While 10 kilometres doesn’t sound like much, they were going at a slow crawl and it took ages before we made it to Agadez. The combination of having failed to complete my race, seeing Gerhard’s condition and thinking about what lay ahead for us meant that I was in tears the whole way.

Agadez is a huge city but it’s incredibly poor. As Gerhard and Mark made their way through the dusty streets of the town, kids surrounded them. They gave away everything they could to these kids who had absolutely nothing and as they reached the finish line in the city of Agadez, they made sure to cross the finish line together. They were second equal having completed the run in a time of 81 hours and 34 minutes. I was so proud of Gerhard.

Gerhard and I spent a couple of days in Agadez before we went home. The whole time we didn’t discuss what was going on. It was impossible — we were being followed everywhere by a film crew who thought that everything was fine.

Jack Denness, an ultra-running legend, had been there before and he took us to a local school. We took all our leftover muesli bars, sweets and anything that we thought the kids would like with us. We also had a whole lot of pens for them, but the pens weren’t that useful because the school was little more than a concrete shelter, with no desks, chairs, blackboards or, indeed, paper. The kids were all crowding around us so the teachers ushered us into one of the classrooms and blocked the door so that the kids couldn’t get in. We thought that the teachers would let the kids in one by one to divide the stuff out. But, no . . . To our surprise, the teachers started hooking into the food themselves! Any of the kids that tried to get in the room were dealt a hiding by the teachers and we just couldn’t believe it. Despite having spent a lot of time in third world countries, the extreme poverty in Niger still shocked me.

I also visited a silversmiths’ in Agadez. The workshop was incredibly basic. The jewellers sat outside in the dirt with their anvils in the ground, using hammers and nails and saws, yet they were able to make incredible pieces of silverware. It was all beautifully handcrafted and so intricate. I was really impressed by what they could make with so little — I even learned a technique or two from them. I bought as many pieces as I could afford and treasure them to this day.

Food

The chance of getting stomach problems in many countries is substantial but if the following simple rules are followed the chances will be drastically reduced:

1) Only eat foods you can cook or peel.

2) Only drink bottled water.

3) Stay away from salads and other food that has been washed.

4) Carry dysentery medication with you at all times.

5) No matter how tempting they look, don’t eat local ice creams.

6) If you’re racing in a third world country, make sure you take your own food with you if you’re not sure about the race organisers