The Way We Ran

Two sore days into the 100k Cruce de los Andes, my partner and I hit the tent. By headlamp, Anne trimmed the parts of her feet that would soon fall off anyway. With dirt-streaked, inflamed ankles and knees, I was more discarded Cabbage Patch doll than adventure athlete, despite a recent wet wipe sponge bath. Was my head actually resting over a dried cowpie? After 8 hours on the course, all prime camping spots had been taken.

A bullhorn shook the campgrounds, "Mandatory racers briefing on the beach! Tomorrow's route has changed..." Were they kidding? It was 11pm.

Welcome to Argentina, where even in an athletic event, the day doesn't end until it's the next. Another sure sign we were there--the race director would soon urge us to pocket meat from the grill to fuel the following day's grueling summit run. In his pep talk (which was sounding more and more like a concession speech) he said that the final day would rival the one we had just faced. The crowd groaned. The day we had just finished included five river crossings, some skittish scree descents and an elevation gain of 2000meters.

But he had good news! Those teams who just weren't up for it could take an 'alternative route'--which turned out to be the main road for cars over Icalma pass into Chile.

Did we come this far to run a road? Broken as we were, we thought not.

That second day, we had soldiered on but run less and less. A pain in my right knee made running downhill excruciating--so we hiked. And I can say that the most difficult aspect of this long-distance race was watching myself perform at a rate I knew I could exceed. But part of the challenge lies in reconciling high adrenaline with an injury. I had to go for it without going for it. A muscle relaxant passed on by an anonymous racer and the searing views of the high Andes helped.

One aspect of the race we hadn't expected--bottlenecks. These happened when the trail narrowed and a tall rock outcrop or ultra-steep descent made for lines a hundred runners strong. On the final day, we had reached the ridgetop with fanfare-- we were technically in Chile!

The path was narrow, the views were big. Pain? Face to face with giant, snow-covered volcanoes, we started running out of sheer joy.

That wasn't destined to last. Ten minutes on we hit a bank line. Hundreds of runners were stopped before a steep section with a rope and race monitors. In an hour, the line had barely budged. Runners were weary, antsy, spent. But in this situation, there was little to do.

A pair of condors swept toward us, gliding, spiraling over the human spectacle (and smells). Everyone looked up. In a moment to remember, we weren't busy trying to beat ourselves. We were just alive in the Andes.

Much later, we would cross the finish line just in time for Chilean customs to stamp our passport before they closed. Almost everything was broken, but you had to be pretty happy about the almost part.

Training in the Wrong Hemisphere

With less than one week until Cruce de los Andes I'm sharing this blog post from Anne Upczak, my race partner. I think she's going to need a lot of sunblock.

In June, Carolyn invited me to an ultra race consisting of three days of 18 miles per day up and over the Andes from Argentina to Chile. My fantasy life was aroused.

I sat on my deck in the Colorado mountains, red wine in hand, and indulged in the idea of embarking on an adventure put in front of me. It is hard to find an excuse to stay inside during a Rocky Mountain Summer so I diligently began to train.

I registered for the Imogene Pass run, which takes runners from Ouray, Colorado (7792 ft) up and over the Imogene Pass (13114 ft) and back down into Telluride (8750ft) all in only 17 miles. It was a race I never imagined myself doing, but the crisp September air and the spectacular views helped me up and over the grueling pass.

As the fall progressed and the days became shorter and colder my internal motivation to be outside began to dwindle. As many of us who live in regions with four seasons know, fall is a time to wind down and begin thinking about fattening up for the winter.

This is a difficult inclination to fight.

So as winter approached and the darkness encroached on my training I struggled to motivate myself and I began to wonder why I agreed to a race in the southern hemisphere in the middle of the northern winter.

As December winds howled outside I organized myself to re-motivate and make it through the winter training. I strapped on my cross-country skis. The wax squeaked as my skis glided across the snow and I climbed higher and higher.

I realized that the whole reason I wanted to travel thousands of miles and participate in a three-day adventure race was not to prove anything to anyone; rather I was to be outside and experience the glorious blessing that the mountains share with me.

A mountain girl, I thrive on the open ended feeling being outdoors gives me. My heart and spirit are in the mountains, so even if my nose is frozen and my toes are numb, I know I still want to feel the wind on my face, see the sun hanging low in the winter sky and continue to try to train for whatever it is Argentina and Chile have in store for me.

I know that within a matter of weeks the hot southern summer will be forcing beads of sweat to run down my neck and my body will ache from the long days on the trail. I keep this vision in my mind this evening, on a dark, cold night in front of the fire.

Just keep moving forward one friend advised. Isn’t that all we can ever do in our unpredictable lives? Put one foot in front of the other and believe in ourselves.

Running across the Andes

“How bad could it be?”

With this, Anne convinced me to enter Cruce de los Andes, a 100-kilometer footrace from Argentina to Chile. Does it matter that I’d never run half that far? Anne is the same friend who pushed me to travel solo throughout South America in 1998. Of course, I had wanted it badly, but the idea just seemed too big then. When I dithered, she pushed. “So what? If you don’t like it, just come back.”

I did return, but it took two years. Anne had been onto something.

So, we are the ideal team for a partner-run race. One plods and plans while the other rips the cord. With Anne, I know that there is no whimping out. It doesn’t matter that we live a continent away and reunite only every few years. Together we have backcountry skied, run and raced. We have braved roadside saloons in New Mexico.

This is the thing about pushing your limits. It’s all the better to grab a big idea. A beautiful metaphor, fodder to chew on when hailstones start flying in the second hour of your training run (as did yesterday).

For centuries, the Andes equalled an impasse, a fat, forested wall running the whole length of a continent. Over the centuries, missions and armies struck failure trying to find a route across them. Of course, everything is different now. I’ve hiked them and flown over them. But it seems altogether different to meet the Andes on their own terms, start to finish, like the first explorers did. On foot.

This is the 10th running of the Cruce, a lakes district race with a route that changes every year. In 2011, it starts on February 4th near San Martin de los Andes, Argentina, climbs above tree line, hugs some 2000-meter ridge tops, and finally drops into Chile via Icalma Pass two days later.

A  big, beautiful what if. But how do two everyday runners get there?