Gobi Desert: Canyons and a Partial Comeback

Today's 50K course brought us up and over the Tian Shan range we’ve been staring at for days. It was beautiful and difficult and once again we were up at just below 10,000 feet at our high point. After a long decent we rolled for a while through farmlands and villages before hitting a couple of creek crossings. Our next task was 12K of canyoneering – hiking, scrambling and crawling through a deep rocky canyon. It was picturesque and challenging. To hit the finish we had one more hour-plus long climb ahead to bring us up to our camp at about 8,000 feet. This is the first evening we don’t have wind screaming through our campsite.



Slogging through creeks...
Photo Courtesy of Racing the Planet


With some Cipro my intestines eased up on me and I was able to run today pretty solidly. After a slow start, I was steady and tried to push hard as I could to make up for time I lost on my sick day. I made some up, but I don’t think enough for first place. I’m bummed, but realize there isn’t a whole lot I can do at this point – it's been a great adventure – cool place, cool people, cool event. One more short day and we are done! I’m ready for a shower and some good food. I feel very hungry after shitting my brains out for a day. I haven’t gotten all my energy back and had to pop off another tough 50k today. It is always amazing that we can do this – that humans can push themselves this hard. I feel fortunate to have tapped into that again.



Crossing the Tian Shan range...
Photo Courtesy of Racing the Planet


A bunch of us already have plans for a couple of good dinners and some sight seeing before the long flight back. I’m ready for this race to be over and get some solid R&R.



Obtacles of the animal-kind...
Photo Courtesy of Racing the Planet

Huge appreciation for the emails sent – its more wonderful getting them out here – especially when I wasn’t feeling well. You all rock!

I’ll let you know how things play out tomorrow…

Terri