Winning the world's most gruelling race
HAYLEY MICK
From Friday's Globe and Mail
April 10, 2009 at 12:00 AM EDT
After seven days of running across 250 kilometres of Chilean desert, 34-year-old Torontonian Mehmet Danis crossed the finish line last Sunday to claim first place in this year's Atacama Crossing, a gruelling endurance race staged in one of the driest places on Earth.
Reading details from the race report (37 C temperatures, sand dunes, towering cliffs, torn shoes), it's easy to suppose that the 82 competitors from 20 countries were just hoping to finish. But for a trio of male leaders, it was an epic cat-and-mouse scramble fought over six stages.
After two days of racing 77 kilometres up and down rose-coloured hills at a 3,000-metre altitude, Captain Danis — a dentist in the Canadian Forces — was in second place. With five days to go, he had an hour to make up between himself and Australian leader Damon Goerke. Capt. Danis picks up the story from there: I could not have [Goerke] beat me again [in a stage], because the separation would just be too great. So I had to at least tie him.
On Day 3 I broke away from the pack after the first half hour and I led the entire way. I beat him by about 20 minutes. So I brought his lead down from one hour to 40 minutes. And that's the day where he showed that he was getting a bit tired.
Enlarge Image
Canadian Mehmet Danis won the Atacama Crossing, a 250 km footrace through the Atacama desert in Chile (Zandy Mangold)
Eight racers had already dropped out from the heat and exhaustion. But the worst stage was yet to come on Day 4: the dreaded salt flats.
They're the worst thing I've ever run on in my life. You're not going to believe it when I explain it to you. Imagine a crusty sheet of ice. Then you're trying to walk on it and it'll crack. Underneath it you'll have a salt layer, like road salt. It'll be wet, and underneath that it'll be a river current.
It's the density of coral — it's very hard. Then all of a sudden you'll hit a soft spot and your foot will go down to the knee. This happened to me about four or five times, where my foot got soaked right through the sock in salt water. You can imagine salt water on blisters when you're trying to run a marathon. Thank God that's only about four kilometres of the whole thing.
Then another good 10 kilometres of the hard stuff, where it's too jagged for you to be able to put your foot through the peaks, so your ankles are just constantly twisting left and right.
Capt. Danis won that 42.8-kilometre stage, shaving another six minutes off the ailing Australian's overall lead. By Stage 5 — an epic 73.6 kilometres spread over two days — he still had 35 minutes to claw back.
I was thinking, I'm going to have to make my move early in this stage. Although it's a long stage, I thought I really can't wait too long into it because that's just going to give him more hope. Everyone was feeling each other out. No one made a move for the first hour. And then I broke away from the pack, and one guy followed me. It was the guy from Switzerland [Marco Gazzola]. [He] and I broke away from the rest of the pack for a while, and the Australian did not follow. So I thought, basically, we've called his bluff. But because I was in front, I couldn't tell how far I was in front. I had no way of knowing. So I just kept running and running and pushing harder and harder, pretending he was still with me. And the only person I could see was this guy from Switzerland.
I ended up finishing the stage about 45 minutes after nightfall in 9 hours and 50 minutes. I remember this very clearly. I sat down and I hit my stopwatch to do a split to see how much longer [Goerke] would take. The guy from Switzerland came in soon after, which wasn't an issue — I was already ahead of him anyway. And now I'm just waiting to see when the Australian would cross. I was hoping he'd cross with at least 35 minutes. Only 20 minutes into it, a British runner came and congratulated me. He said … you won the race. He's done.
Apparently, an hour and a half after I broke away, [Goerke] had stopped running. He was jogging the rest of the way and had given up on the overall lead. It was a really anticlimactic way of finding out. All of a sudden I went from a 35-minute deficit to a 40-minute lead.
The final stage on the seventh day was a virtual sprint: a mere 10 kilometres. Along the way, Mr. Gazzola of Switzerland had a question for Capt. Danis.
About five kilometres into the last leg he said, "Do you want to cross together?" It didn't really matter, he was already 50 minutes behind me. I said sure, I'd love to. There's a lot of camaraderie when you run together for a week through all the crap and the salt flats, and you're all going through the same pain. You're competing, but collectively you're keeping each other sane.
The heat is the most painful. It just feels like an actual physical force is pushing you down into the ground. As soon as you step out of the shade and into the sun, it almost feels like a wind is pushing you downward.
After the last leg we ran into the town square from the desert, which was really cool. After shaking hands we just ran into the hotel and showered. We sat there for about three or four hours waiting for all the other competitors to show up, and just eating. Because we hadn't eaten real food for like a week.
The next day we flew out to Santiago, where I stayed in a nice hotel, just sitting at the poolside and waiting to go to the airport.
Capt. Danis landed at Toronto's Pearson International Airport and was in his wife's arms by 5:45 a.m. on Wednesday. After some celebratory cake with his colleagues, he saw his first patient less than two hours later.
What it takes
Just what does it take to win the Atacama Crossing? Here are a few more details from Capt. Danis's race: Accommodations: tent.
Food on the run: pepperoni sticks and "sport beans" full of electrolytes and sugar.
Food between stages: oatmeal and dehydrated meals (800 calories each) from Mountain Equipment Co-op.
How his feet looked by the end: a blister on the end of each big toe.
Money raised: almost $6,000 for the United Way.
What's next: "I want to put out a challenge to companies … to challenge me to do any race in the world. If I meet the challenge, my only condition would be that they give a certain amount of money to a charity."
Hayley Mick :party 003:
HAYLEY MICK
From Friday's Globe and Mail
April 10, 2009 at 12:00 AM EDT
After seven days of running across 250 kilometres of Chilean desert, 34-year-old Torontonian Mehmet Danis crossed the finish line last Sunday to claim first place in this year's Atacama Crossing, a gruelling endurance race staged in one of the driest places on Earth.
Reading details from the race report (37 C temperatures, sand dunes, towering cliffs, torn shoes), it's easy to suppose that the 82 competitors from 20 countries were just hoping to finish. But for a trio of male leaders, it was an epic cat-and-mouse scramble fought over six stages.
After two days of racing 77 kilometres up and down rose-coloured hills at a 3,000-metre altitude, Captain Danis — a dentist in the Canadian Forces — was in second place. With five days to go, he had an hour to make up between himself and Australian leader Damon Goerke. Capt. Danis picks up the story from there: I could not have [Goerke] beat me again [in a stage], because the separation would just be too great. So I had to at least tie him.
On Day 3 I broke away from the pack after the first half hour and I led the entire way. I beat him by about 20 minutes. So I brought his lead down from one hour to 40 minutes. And that's the day where he showed that he was getting a bit tired.
Enlarge Image
Canadian Mehmet Danis won the Atacama Crossing, a 250 km footrace through the Atacama desert in Chile (Zandy Mangold)
Eight racers had already dropped out from the heat and exhaustion. But the worst stage was yet to come on Day 4: the dreaded salt flats.
They're the worst thing I've ever run on in my life. You're not going to believe it when I explain it to you. Imagine a crusty sheet of ice. Then you're trying to walk on it and it'll crack. Underneath it you'll have a salt layer, like road salt. It'll be wet, and underneath that it'll be a river current.
It's the density of coral — it's very hard. Then all of a sudden you'll hit a soft spot and your foot will go down to the knee. This happened to me about four or five times, where my foot got soaked right through the sock in salt water. You can imagine salt water on blisters when you're trying to run a marathon. Thank God that's only about four kilometres of the whole thing.
Then another good 10 kilometres of the hard stuff, where it's too jagged for you to be able to put your foot through the peaks, so your ankles are just constantly twisting left and right.
Capt. Danis won that 42.8-kilometre stage, shaving another six minutes off the ailing Australian's overall lead. By Stage 5 — an epic 73.6 kilometres spread over two days — he still had 35 minutes to claw back.
I was thinking, I'm going to have to make my move early in this stage. Although it's a long stage, I thought I really can't wait too long into it because that's just going to give him more hope. Everyone was feeling each other out. No one made a move for the first hour. And then I broke away from the pack, and one guy followed me. It was the guy from Switzerland [Marco Gazzola]. [He] and I broke away from the rest of the pack for a while, and the Australian did not follow. So I thought, basically, we've called his bluff. But because I was in front, I couldn't tell how far I was in front. I had no way of knowing. So I just kept running and running and pushing harder and harder, pretending he was still with me. And the only person I could see was this guy from Switzerland.
I ended up finishing the stage about 45 minutes after nightfall in 9 hours and 50 minutes. I remember this very clearly. I sat down and I hit my stopwatch to do a split to see how much longer [Goerke] would take. The guy from Switzerland came in soon after, which wasn't an issue — I was already ahead of him anyway. And now I'm just waiting to see when the Australian would cross. I was hoping he'd cross with at least 35 minutes. Only 20 minutes into it, a British runner came and congratulated me. He said … you won the race. He's done.
Apparently, an hour and a half after I broke away, [Goerke] had stopped running. He was jogging the rest of the way and had given up on the overall lead. It was a really anticlimactic way of finding out. All of a sudden I went from a 35-minute deficit to a 40-minute lead.
The final stage on the seventh day was a virtual sprint: a mere 10 kilometres. Along the way, Mr. Gazzola of Switzerland had a question for Capt. Danis.
About five kilometres into the last leg he said, "Do you want to cross together?" It didn't really matter, he was already 50 minutes behind me. I said sure, I'd love to. There's a lot of camaraderie when you run together for a week through all the crap and the salt flats, and you're all going through the same pain. You're competing, but collectively you're keeping each other sane.
The heat is the most painful. It just feels like an actual physical force is pushing you down into the ground. As soon as you step out of the shade and into the sun, it almost feels like a wind is pushing you downward.
After the last leg we ran into the town square from the desert, which was really cool. After shaking hands we just ran into the hotel and showered. We sat there for about three or four hours waiting for all the other competitors to show up, and just eating. Because we hadn't eaten real food for like a week.
The next day we flew out to Santiago, where I stayed in a nice hotel, just sitting at the poolside and waiting to go to the airport.
Capt. Danis landed at Toronto's Pearson International Airport and was in his wife's arms by 5:45 a.m. on Wednesday. After some celebratory cake with his colleagues, he saw his first patient less than two hours later.
What it takes
Just what does it take to win the Atacama Crossing? Here are a few more details from Capt. Danis's race: Accommodations: tent.
Food on the run: pepperoni sticks and "sport beans" full of electrolytes and sugar.
Food between stages: oatmeal and dehydrated meals (800 calories each) from Mountain Equipment Co-op.
How his feet looked by the end: a blister on the end of each big toe.
Money raised: almost $6,000 for the United Way.
What's next: "I want to put out a challenge to companies … to challenge me to do any race in the world. If I meet the challenge, my only condition would be that they give a certain amount of money to a charity."
Hayley Mick :party 003:
