Run or Die (19 page)

I look up from the ground. My objective is no longer the back that continues at that same rhythm a hundred or so yards in front of me; my objective is now the Auburn stadium. I breathe hard, take in all the air I can, and breathe out forcefully. The race starts here, now, with only 3 miles to go. My legs begin to respond. With each stride I struggle to overcome the stiffness and to avoid a fall. I feel as if I am breaking the chains imprisoning my muscles, and with each stride, I drive them harder, gaining speed. The chains finally break, falling from my body and allowing me to move more freely, to flow.

Within a few minutes, I have almost drawn level with Nick, but now is not the time to stay close on his heels. I am now nearly shoulder to shoulder with him as he and his pacer just stare at me in astonishment. A hundred yards on, I begin to hear the shouts of encouragement from the last aid station in the race before we join the roadway. From then on, only 2 miles of asphalt on the flat, with a slight uphill incline at the end and a half-mile slope down into the stadium.

Nick matches the pace I have imposed and runs next to me, elbow to elbow, not letting me pass him. As if it were merely
a mirage, we pass the aid station without stopping and turn as quickly as we can onto the asphalt. The 100-mile race has become a 3,000-meter chase. There’s no time to think about hydrating, or to watch how night falls on Auburn, or to debate with our pacers, who are shouting like madmen behind us. We keep elbow to elbow, staring straight ahead, not wanting to look at each other and betray any sign of weakness.

It isn’t about overcoming a rival in these last yards, after so many hours of solitude, but rather about proving to myself that I am capable of giving my best, of telling my body that it can still run fast, that I can reach the finish line content, knowing I couldn’t have put even one more ounce of energy into it.

On my right, Nick begins to accelerate at top speed—more than 11 miles an hour. He moves ahead, but not so far this time that I can see his back. Fifty yards and the slight asphalt incline begins. I decide that here is where I will mount my counterattack on his sprint. I start to take deep breaths, to stretch my legs long, trying to gather strength. Now is the time. I increase my pace. I begin to feel the uphill climb and draw on every bit of strength I have left. My breathing increases, my chest is about to explode, and my legs are running wild, making it difficult for me to control the cramp that’s invading my calves. But I think only of accelerating; there’s no point in turning my head to see where Nick is. Looking back loses you vital tenths of seconds and breaks your concentration. Jorge starts shouting like a madman that I’m leaving Nick behind me. I grit my teeth and accelerate faster. Ten yards, the final yards before the downhill stretch into the stadium, then only half a mile left before turning right and starting on the athletics track.

It feels like the longest half mile in my life. My legs begin to rebel, Nick is right behind me, and the stadium is nowhere to be seen. Another stride, going faster and faster. I can’t look back; I
can’t look at the ground; I must look ahead, only ahead. Finally, the entrance to the stadium looms before me. I close my eyes for a moment and take a deep breath; now I can say that I have succeeded, that I have given everything, that I have fulfilled my desire. A turn to the right and I enter beneath the bright glow of the floodlights that illuminate the final yards of an adventure that began early this morning 100 miles to the east.

In my final strides, I thank Jorge for giving me strength when my mind had none and greet the spectators who have come to see us make the finish. I cross the finish line and fall to the ground; my legs cannot tolerate any more of the fire burning in them, and they abandon me to gravity.

A good friend of mine once said that you learn little from victories; on the contrary, when things are going badly, when the situation is hard and it’s difficult to get out, when you’ve made 99 attempts to get up and have fallen back 99 times, and at the 100th have managed to find a solution, that’s when you mature and really learn something about yourself. Injuring my kneecap had been a terrible but significant moment in my life up to then, a turning point. The Western States 100, too, taught me a lot about myself. On the very practical side, it taught me how to feed and hydrate myself more efficiently. But much more importantly, it helped deepen my understanding of how my body and mind work and how to better fight back.

A
lthough it has been less than three months since my American adventure, it seems very distant now when viewed from 13,000 feet above sea level at the Barranco Camp, beneath the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. But the desire I feel is the same as I felt in the United States: I want to challenge myself, give the best of myself, and try to discover what my thresholds are, to know myself better. In Tanzania, the thresholds I will test don’t relate to heat and distance; here it is about how my body will react to altitude and speed in a more technical terrain.

I’ve never liked to restrict myself to a single pursuit; I think that limits the ways you can get to know yourself. I don’t mean to imply that I like to do a little bit of everything but do nothing well; quite the opposite, I like to prepare the best way I can for whatever I do and to be as competitive as possible. But variety of activity allows us to explore every corner of our body and mind. I like the taste of blood in my mouth when I’m competing in a relay race or skiing in a vertical race, just as I like to feel the loneliness of the long-distance runner. Each activity reveals something new about myself, and not simply about my body. It’s obvious, if you’ve been running for 40 hours and then collapse, that 40 hours is your
threshold. But what use is such knowledge to me? No use at all. However, the things that my body has learned during those hours and, more importantly, how my mind has been able to motivate me to concentrate during that time, even in moments I thought it was impossible, will forever be of use to me.

Knowing I can run 3,000 feet straight uphill in 30 minutes isn’t of much practical use in a world in which technology can transport us at unimaginable speeds, but it does help me to know that my muscles are able to function when they lack oxygen, to know that I have an ability to concentrate 100 percent, to know that I can successfully fight to achieve what I set out to do. The goal may be a vertical mile, or an ultra-trail, or a marathon, but it can also be about playing a piece of music, finishing a painting, solving a theory, or carrying out research. The result isn’t what’s important, but rather the path you must take to get there.

The path is very obvious here in Tanzania, where the air surrounding us feels completely different from the air in the rest of the world. It seems we have returned to our origins, where nature imposes its laws and humans are the ones who must adapt to go forward. Here, I will ascend and descend the magnificent Kilimanjaro in what I hope is a record time. We will see what nature allows.

We have been sleeping in tents for a week to get used to being at this elevation and are now fully into the routines of tent life. Day-to-day life is straightforward and is about doing only what is necessary. We get up in the morning when the warm sun starts penetrating the canvas of our tents, and after a short medical check to measure the oxygen in our blood, our breathing, and our pulse rates to confirm that we are adapting well and to discount any likelihood of altitude sickness, we go eat breakfast in the meal tent. Tea and hot ginger help keep us warm in the cold that comes
down from the glaciers and are fine accompaniments to the toast or pancakes with honey and jam that give us energy to begin the day.

We fill our backpacks and help the porters fill the sacks with the gear necessary for camping, and we gradually start to move on to the next camp. It is remarkable to see the porters walk so skillfully up between blocks of volcanic rock and huge tree roots, balancing sacks of more than 40 pounds on their heads. They move forward slowly but surely, stopping for short breaks to give their necks and shoulders a rest from the weight they are carrying.

Once we reach the camp, we erect the tents and kitchen in a few minutes before preparing lunch, and we wash in a bucket of cold water under a warm sun. In the afternoon, everyone is free to do what they want and what their bodies require: some rest in their tent; others walk around the camp and take advantage of the magnificent light and views to take photographs or simply sit on a rock and watch the colors in the sky change as the sun sets. Simon, the expedition guide and record holder for the ascent and descent of Kilimanjaro, and I use the time to run to higher altitudes to acclimate my body to making that effort with much less oxygen.

I have adapted well from the start. I have had no headaches and have been able to run easily uphill between 13,000 and 19,000 feet. My body seems to be reacting well to the lack of oxygen, though the truth is that with views like these, it is difficult to listen to your body when your mind is so filled with contemplating the wonders. Earlier, on an afternoon training run from Barranco Camp, I was surprised and utterly charmed by the sight of the sun projecting the shadow of Kilimanjaro onto the savannah extending before me, 13,000 feet below. The shadow drew a perfect triangle, darkening the cape of bright gold that swathes the whole mountain. In that moment, I really began to feel that I am on the ceiling of Africa.

To the right of the shadow from Kilimanjaro, a single obstacle halted the spread of the savannah: Mount Meru imposed itself as if it were fighting against Mount Kilimanjaro for domination over the plains of Africa. I looked at the ground, trying to leave the dreamlike vistas awakening in the distance, but the incredible gilded light that illuminated Barranco and the looming protrusion of volcanic rock known as Lava Tower wouldn’t allow me to turn my gaze away.

Perhaps the most surprising feature of this trek, though, isn’t the play of light on incredible landscapes or the whimsical shapes of the lava, but rather the constant cheer displayed by the porters. As the days have passed, the trust and convivial feelings between the Franco-German and Catalan team and the Tanzanian porters and guides has grown. On the first days our exchanges were few and brief—“Jambo, how are you?” “Good, thanks”—but as time has passed, the conversations in broken English and the universal language of signs have taken on more depth. We are no longer the porters on one side and the Europeans on the other: We have melded into a single team.

From the start, we have been surprised that the porters always have a smile for us. When loading up the heavy sacks between the rocks, when cooking dinner in the dusty camp, when getting up at 6 in the morning in 5°F temperatures after spending the night in a tent without a sleeping bag … they are always smiling and happy. The landscape deserves such an attitude, though I imagine that after you have looked at it day after day, it ceases to be exceptional and simply becomes the backdrop to everyday life. The work is very hard, but they seem to take pleasure in it and in the fact that they can participate in the dreams of climbers who perhaps help them realize some of their own.

The conditions are difficult: wearing battered rope sandals and clothes salvaged from what other climbers have given them at the end of a descent from the top, sleeping in a tent in all the clothes they own because they didn’t have warm sleeping bags, and always being away from their family, week after week, expedition after expedition. But after talking to them, I realized that despite all of this, they
do
appreciate the beauty of these landscapes, and they enjoy seeing them through the eyes and words of foreign visitors experiencing them for the first time. They enjoy telling visitors about how, years ago, the glaciers reached 3,000 feet farther down, as far as Barranco, and that before the cities became so enormous, you could still see lions running wild across the savannah.

I learned that they dream of being able to travel, of finding better work so that they can install electricity in their homes or buy shoes for their children. Iddikenja, a porter who was just 30 but looked a good 10 years older, wanted to earn enough money in two years to be able to go to the capital and study to be a guide and then lead groups up the mountains. Or China, who was a great fan of snowboarding, although he had only seen snow on the glaciers of Kilimanjaro, he followed the sport enthusiastically by looking at photographs in magazines. His eyes were full of dreams when he saw pictures of the snow-capped Pyrenees and Alps and videos of mountain ski races.

We have just come down from the peak for the first time and are tired but content as we arrive back in Barranco. Today we went up with the whole team to scout the last section of the route, and everyone had specific tasks: the camera team—Olivier, Raphael, and Marlène—to find the best spots for filming; Stephan, to take the
best images; Sònia, to acclimatize herself, as she would be the one who would have to help me in case of an accident or if I got altitude sickness; Thierry, to find places from which he could see the route and give live coverage; and my father, who, after taking clients on a climb to the top the previous week, had joined the group in order to participate in and add his experience to the adventure. Three porters and Simon completed the team that would lead the way and carry medical supplies, scout the final stretch to the top and the descent, and complete a last training session before the real attempt. However, as we approached the top, we began to lose any sense of what we were supposed to be doing and became absorbed by the astonishing scenery and by the fact that we were flying high above the continent of Africa. Whichever way we looked, at eye level there was only sky. It is a difficult feeling to describe—a bit like the experience of victory, when you know you have succeeded, you are ecstatic, can feel your hair standing on end and your pulse racing. We could all feel that tingling sensation as we touched the top of Uhuru, more than 19,000 feet above sea level.