Never at any point during did I ever think that I would withdraw from a race. Barring any extreme injury or being pulled my the medical team I really never even contemplated it. Now, here in the Sahara, even with difficulty breathing, vomiting, and heart palpitations it never crossed my mind. Don't get me wrong, when the muscles under my jaw were cramping from vomiting so hard, and when every inhale felt like I was lifting a grown man with my lungs, I could acknowledge that I was in a bad way but I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I would make it to the starting line of Stage 2.
I got up at 4am and had a hunch that it might be a long day. That hunch in the form of an excruciating cramp in both legs beginning in the quads then rotating to the hamstrings down through the calves and into the arches of my feet and ending in my toes. My damn toes. My damn toes. Here's the silver lining I could finally get water down. Bad news, only 2 hours till race time.
Still, never a doubt that I would finish the day. Not finish in the top 20, fine. Not finish in the top 50, cool with me. Top 100, couldn't care less, but never a doubt that I would finish. If my own constitution wasn't strong enough, Dave O'Brien the legend that he is, vowed to stick with me through the day. Rock on, let's do this.
The morning crisp and cool started easy enough. Hell, I was only out for an easy ramble, how could it be anything else? With an eye on the first checkpoint a mere 10km away, Dave and I chatted as we walked. Piece of f#%*ing cake.
Pride cometh before the fall. 4km in, the oxygen went away and the chest pressure, heart palpitations, and shortness of breath showed up. The cramps in my calves didn't help and certainly the dry heaving was a warning sign. And it hadn't even gotten hot yet. Something was wrong and by the time we reached Checkpoint 1 it was time to make a grown up decision. 13km of dunes awaited beyond the shady shelter and the sun was just beginning to rise. This wasn't a question of blister pain, or muscle strain, or tiredness. This was a question of risk versus reward.
I couldn't let Dave hang behind with me in the dunes during the hottest point of the day. Doing so would put him in danger, leaving him open to exposure and more time in the sun. He wanted to stick with me god bless him but he too knew the risk in store.
Here's the question: if I continued through the dunes and a problem arose, would I be accessible by vehicle for extraction? The answer from the race organisation was, "unfortunately no". It would take a camel to get me and transfer me to a vehicle and then onwards to a hospital a few hours away. Fair enough, that's the situation, but what's the likelihood that I wouldn't make it? Having not urinated for 36 hours as well as my other symptoms, and with the memory of Nick Kruse's death in China still somewhat fresh in my mind, what became immediately apparent was that the uncontrollables were beginning to outweigh the controllable. The margin for error and odds began to favour the "House" and I wasn't sure if this was the time to mortgage the house and bet on black.
I scooped the rest of my chips and pushed away from the table choosing to live to play another day when the odds balanced a bit. The risk just wasn't worth the reward. My Grand Slam dream was over with two words: "I'm out."
After several dozen medical tests at home in London what most can agree is that what happened was freakish and most likely some kind of acute kidney failure or acute "metabolic acidosis", a condition in which the blood becomes too acidic. The good news is that those same tests show that my heart, kidney, liver, lungs, etc...remain strong and healthy.
As my good friend John Stroker used to say to bad news during a sales call with a prospect is "there's good news in there somewhere..." While the Grand Slam dream is over what remains is the completion of the 4Deserts Challenge. Because I completed the Sahara Race in 2008, I am still on track to finish all four deserts.
Anarctica calls...
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