Dean Karnazes looks out over Töö Ashuu in the Kyrgyz mountains, more than halfway through his 525-kilometer diplomacy run along the Silk Road.
Dean Karnazes looks out over Töö Ashuu in the Kyrgyz mountains, more than halfway through his 525-kilometer diplomacy run along the Silk Road.
Uzbekistan/Kyrgyzstan/Kazakhstan
Dean Karnazes has competed in organized road races. He has also run many adventure races off the beaten path. But until July of 2016, he had never run in the role of US diplomat.
“I was running in the San Francisco Marathon a few years back, and a guy came up and started chatting, as he recognized me,” Dean began. “He’d read my book and said it kick-started his life. He explained that he worked for the State Department and was based in Kyrgyzstan . . . and that he wanted me to come and run in the footsteps of Alexander the Great, along the Silk Road. I thought he had a few loose marbles. But he followed up. What he had in mind was a bit of running-sports diplomacy. He brought in folks from the White House that were involved with the program. I realized it was legit—the roster of athletes included Cal Ripken, Shaquille O’Neal, and other notables. There had never been any runners. They wanted me to be the first.
“Their plan was for me to run through the ‘Stans’—Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan—tying together three different embassies because 2016 was going to be the twenty-fifth anniversary of these countries’ independence from the Soviet Union. Something like this had never been done before. The idea was that sending in an ambassador who strips half-naked and runs down the middle of the street would create a positive impression. The power and commonality of running would unite people. It sounded great on paper, but when feet are on the street, running forty miles a day across the Stans can pose challenges. There’s potential for things to go to hell in a handbasket fast.” Overall, Dean would run 525 kilometers over eleven days.
For more than 1,500 years, the Silk Road connected East and West, fostering trade and laying the groundwork for the development of civilizations along its route, from China to Rome. (The Silk Road was actually not one road, but a network of interconnected trade routes.) Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan rest midway on the route, in the heart of central Asia. While no camels were involved, getting to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, was no easy task. “Coming from San Francisco, it was something like forty hours of travel time,” Dean continued. “And twelve time zones. Coming off the plane, I was jet-lagged, sleep-deprived, it was 95 degrees . . . and hardly anyone spoke English. I was something like the tenth American to visit Uzbekistan in ten years. A State Department person drove me to my hotel and warned me that my room would be bugged. ‘It’s a throwback to the Soviet era,’ he said. ‘Look at how many smoke detectors there are.’ That first day, I was whisked around the city and gave a speech at the embassy. The next day, I was running forty-two miles, crossing the border into Kyrgyzstan past guys with AK-47s. They stamped my passport, and I started running again.”
Over the next ten days, Dean’s schedule took on a similar tenor. “I’d run twenty or thirty miles across the desert or mountains and come into a township,” he described. “The whole town would come out, as people had never seen an American. Bands would be playing, and a big spread of food would be presented. Though I was running and the food was heavy, I was advised that I had to try everything. Usually there was a big platter of horse meat—horse is a staple there—and a bowl of kumis, which is fermented mare’s milk. I would equate it with drinking liquid Feta cheese. Then there would be a ceremony, a few photos, and then three or four more hours of running. Some people looked at me like I was a ghost—with my colorful running gear, Oakley sunglasses. I was certainly very different from anything they’d ever seen. But there is a commonality in running. My skin color was different, I didn’t speak their language, I have a very different lifestyle, but when we run, we run the same way. When I passed, people would smile and wave, even if they had no idea of what I was doing. Sometimes kids would run alongside me . . . once they got over the shock of my appearance.”
Dean was not alone in his travels. But his crew was somewhat different from those with whom he’d worked in the past. “I’ve done the Badwater® 135 before, and the crew I work with there is very smooth and efficient—like a military operation,” Dean shared. “The van that accompanied me on my run had only one small door. There were eight people in the van. Every time it stopped, it was like a clown car . . . and they’d all get out and light up cigarettes. There was no cooler, just a bag with plastic bottles of water. I was dying from the heat and breathing in secondhand smoke. There were a few times along the way where we were supposed to stay with certain families, but they happened to not be home. But people were incredibly hospitable to take us into their yurts and feed us. Such hospitality is part of their nomadic culture.”
Some of the terrain Dean crossed was quite arid and unfriendly to human endeavors, but there were nice surprises along the way as well. “The countryside of Kyrgyzstan was completely unspoiled,” he described. “The rivers were filled with wild trout. That was one of my favorite meals—trout grilled over a flame with just a little salt. It was inspiring to see that there are places like this out there, so untouched in their natural state. I was also impressed by Almaty, the capital of Kazakhstan. It was very clean; the architecture and infrastructure were very modern. There’s a ski resort like Squaw Valley just eight miles outside of town. I’ve seen many incredible cities, and Almaty was right up there.”
Acting as an emissary of the United States, Dean met many influencers in central Asia. But his most memorable meeting may have been with a humble family. “It was my third day in Kyrgyzstan, and I was running into the mountains,” he recalled. “A storm front came through, and it was hailing and raining. I was getting a little hypothermic. I passed a yurt and a family looked out. I smiled at them and they smiled back. The mother waved for me to come down, and she brought me into her home. She was cooking kumis, and the yurt was warm. I had some kumis and warmed up. We just smiled and pointed and laughed.
“I can’t imagine what they thought. Here’s this guy in funny clothes, running in the cold rain. But they were very welcoming and respectful.”
DEAN KARNAZES has been hailed as one of the fittest men on the planet; TIME magazine named him one of the “Top 100 Most Influential People in the World.” An internationally recognized endurance athlete and New York Times bestselling author, Dean has pushed his body and mind to inconceivable limits. Among his many accomplishments, he has run 350 continuous miles, foregoing sleep for three nights. He’s run across Death Valley in 120-degree heat, and he’s run a marathon to the South Pole at temperatures as low as –40 degrees. On ten different occasions, he’s run a two-hundred-mile relay race solo, racing alongside teams of twelve. He also ran fifty marathons in fifty consecutive days, one in each US state, finishing with the New York City Marathon, which he ran in three hours flat. Dean and his incredible adventures have been featured on 60 Minutes, The Late Show with David Letterman, CBS News, CNN, ESPN, The Howard Stern Show, NPR’s Morning Edition, the BBC, and many others. He has appeared on the covers of Runner’s World and Outside and has been featured in Newsweek, People, GQ, the New York Times, USA TODAY, the Washington Post, Men’s Journal, Forbes, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, and the London Telegraph. He is a monthly columnist for Men’s Health, the largest men’s publication in the world. Learn more about Dean at ultramarathonman.com.
If You Go
Getting There: Tashkent is served via Moscow by Aeroflot (888-340-6400; aeroflot.ru) and via Seoul by Korean Air (800-438-5000; koreanair.com).
Best Time to Visit: Most visitors will travel to central Asia in the more clement months—between May and October.
Running Information: Recreational running is not a highly developed activity in central Asia. You can learn more about Dean’s travels at the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs website (eca.state.gov/ultramarathon).
Accommodations: The larger cities (like Tashkent and Almaty) have a smattering of western-style hotels. Along the rural sections of his route, Dean and his support crew would often arrange lodgings on the fly with local residents.