swiss Jura day 1

I am glad to find out that I have internet. I can't guarantee that I will be able to update you daily but i will try whenever possible.

Todays stage was 47 kilometers long and 1677 feet of elevation. At 6:45 we got on the busses to be transported to Geneva for the start of the race. At 8am we stated along the waterfront towards St. Cergue. Swiss Jura is not an ultra race like the ones I am am use to. Swiss Jura is a fast race, today we had 7:30 hours to finish 47K with elevation, I have been worry about timing out and today my worries didn't seem to be unrealistic.

i run the first 22K hard, or at least I was in pace with the top 20. I knew I couldn't mantain their speed when I saw them running hard uphills. Rule number one in ultraraces for anybody specially if you are not elite, walk the hills, I coun't believe when I saw them attacking the hills like Lance Armstrong at the Tour.

The next 20K where really hard, I found having to tell myself the same things I tell people on the races about not giving up, its only pain and don't think is 350K just think next check point. I was in so much pain. Everything is for sure catching up, I feel tired and my legs had just about enough. Usually this is not a problem since they are generous on their times but Swiss Jura has a very strict time limit and they don't welcome power walkers, walking poles are banned form the race.

The course is sure beautiful, we mostly run on dirt roads and some neighborhoods in the surrounding areas. It was so hot at the beginning i burnt right though my shirt then about half way it poured, I was absolutely soaked, fortunately I had only a couple of hours to go.

I am worry about the possibility of timing out, I arrived with only 30 minutes to spare, not much of a buffer if you ask me. Now the worst case scenario will be that if I time out, I then get moved to the shorter distance, 175K so usually a half marathon a day, I know I should be excited about the possibility of running less and enjoying more, since I will not be disqualified, I still get continent number 7, but the truth is that I really want to run the longer distance.

I could have sign for the shorter distance from the beginning but when I was planning the races, I wanted to be the most difficult challenge my body could and my mind could ever imagine. I lay here in my sleeping bag feeling sad with the possiblity of not being able ot accomplish this.

I had many emotions during my run today, doubt has been consuming me more than ever, maybe because i didn't anticipated the ripple effect of such quest. I am still very passionate about my kids and the charities but when i get home is harder and harder to find my place. Life keeps going and I feel that I don't quite belong there anymore. I care for the people in my life and it its hard to get home and find out that my kids friends are more important or that my best friend might have an other best friend since I am not around as much anymore. I have lost as much as I have gain since starting my races but in life there are no guarantees. One thing for sure is that running makes me incredibly happy, this is for me as much as for my kids and the charities. I am not sure I want to live my life without passion.

If i was writing this story I might not write it the way is happening but I am determined to let destiny take it's course, I am living a much fuller richer life now, and I want my kids to live their life with passion and purpose. Hebbel said it best “Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion.”

Swiss Jura Marathon

Swiss Jura Marathon

I am in Paris and making my way tomorrow Saturday the 4th to St Cergue for the start of the race Sunday Morning. I arrived in Paris because this is where the points could take me; I beg and borrow points for flying to friends and this is the closes that I could get to Switzerland.

I never been to Europe so this is a treat. Paris is so alive. I am only shocked at how expensive Europe is. My other races have been in remote mostly developing countries so my money lasted a lot longer, I did get to see Johnny Depp on Champs Elysses on the premiere of his new movie Public Enemy, so I guess it’s all worth it broke and all.

I have been so nervous about this race, it’s the last one and I was having trouble sleeping at home. My kids are out of school so I took them to Houston to meet their father for summer vacation, he lives overseas but has a place in Houston, so they see him usually during holidays.

The race starts Sunday at 8am and it will finish Saturday around 3pm. There are about 63 competitors and 11 of them are female. Most of the participants are Europeans but there is a Canadian Rob Fransen from BC. Daily distance ranges from 47K to 53K and the daily climbs are between 1410 and 2020. At 350K and 11,000 feet of elevation it will be a very though race. It also has a very strict time limit, around 7 hours max time limit. There are also great things about the race, I will not be running with a heavy pack like in Gobi or Namibia, they also feed us at night and the menu looks amazing, I will be able to shower daily and have a massage as well. There is also a friend coming to watch the end of the race, for the first time I will have somebody to cheer me at the finish line. 39 year old Nicola Fontanesi from Italy was a tent mate in Gobi, at 6’3 he looks more like a volleyball player than a ultrarunner but he is light and faster than me, we used each other as pacers, he never wanted to finish behind me, an ego thing and I knew that if I finish not far behind I was usually top 20.

The race is low key and we will be sleeping on school gyms and such, if I have cell reception I might be able to twitter at http://twitter.com/utrarunwild but I will not have access to email so I will not be able to blog until the end of the race.

Wish me luck, I hardly feel ready for Swiss Jura, maybe because my short time at home was hardly enough time to recover from my last three races that where back to back, with everything that was going on in my personal life and my kids end of the year activities kept me busy as well. There are times however that I am amaze of things that happen around me, I was approached at Notre Dame by an older lady, she came straight at me and without hesitation gave me a gold ring, she spoke in French of course, I panicked and told her I didn’t speak French she then spoke in broken English, she told me she wanted to give me the ring because I was lucky and pretty, the ring is a wedding band, I didn’t know what to say, well, define lucky, there are many times that I feel extremely lucky but this is a wedding band after all, being divorced for the last 9 years I am sure that I am not that lucky at relationships, but she just kissed both of my cheeks and left, I kept it, she did say lucky so I am taking it with me to the race along with my the lucky charms that my kids made for me. Author Tim Rice did say, “We all dream a lot - some are lucky, some are not. But if you think it, want it; dream it, then it's real. You are what you feel.”

Gobi March closing ceremonies.

Gobi March closing ceremony

Saturday we run the last 10k of the Gobi March in Kashgar city. We arrived by bus to Kashgar from Upal around 11am to the start line and we started running about 30 minutes later. Kashgar is a remote vibrant city west of the Gobi’s Taklamakan portion of the desert. Of all Racing the Planet races, Gobi March is the race that you come in contact with the most culture, the race happens in areas so remote that not many foreigners will find their way to. For the last leg of the race, every competitor was allowed to run, it was nice to see fellow Canadian Leonard Stranmore who had dropped out on day four because of foot infection, and severe foot pain at the start line again for the last 10k. It was amazing running thought town, we must have been a sight to locals, and the local authorities redirected or stopped traffic for us to navigate the city, the smells, the sounds of people going around their business on Saturday morning, then having 110plus sweaty and dirty runners with backpacks making their way to Kan Mosque. It sure feels amazing having people cheer you along the way. I wanted to run hard the last leg of the race but my legs are so use to long distance that they seem to have a mind of their own thinking that we where going yet again for an other 40k run. I still managed to run in about an hour, crossing the finish line holding hands with 45-year-old Toronto native Louie Santaguida. It was nice getting my medal, especially since there where some days that I struggle just to finish feeling lousy from a nasty virus that made it’s way around camp.

There were about 13 Canadians on the race, three had to drop out. Stefan Danis was the fastest Canadian and 40-49 age group winner and I placed third female after Diane Hogan-Murphy and Shirley Potter both of Ireland, the overall winner was American Eric LaHaie.

The awards ceremony was help at a square across the Mao Statue in Kashgar, I had to give thanks when receiving the award and as usual I had trouble speaking in front of so many people, it feels weird to be recognize for something when I feel that it’s hardly me why it’s not me who needs to be recognized here, there are so many people that has made my journey to all 7 continents possible, I know that without their support I wouldn’t have been there standing receiving an award. There are so many people in the world that are living their lives everyday with so much courage, I volunteered in Calgary for an event hosted by Foundation Fighting Blindness call Comic Vision there I met a lot of parents who just like me are raising children with visual conditions, and some of them are raising them being legally blind themselves, I feel hardly like I am the hero on this story, my mission is to spread the world about these amazing individuals.

I felt a bit sad last night when I left the ceremonies, coming back to a hotel room, too late to call my kids and share the great news I just sat in front of the computer trying to put my thoughts in order, I am glad to be almost done my races, I am glad I am still healthy to run my last continent in less than two weeks, but I am having a hard time finding my place, I now feel this is as much part of my life as it is being at home with my kids, I am sure I can ever go back to an office job anymore, when I started I though I was going to be mentally done with living such a stressful and emotional quest but I have found that it has made me a happier healthier person. My favorite poem is the Road Not Taken by American Poet Robert Frost and his words have never rung so true to me, “two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the less traveled by and that has made all the difference”

Gobi March Day 5

Yesterday I did the long 80k stage in about 13 hours and 20 minutes, good enough to finish 31st. I felt great and run most of It and the last 30k hard. Camp as usual looks like a war zone with people limping and walking around looking shell shocked. The first finisher crossed the finish line in a about 6 and half hours and the last finisher finished in about 28 hours.

I love camp the day after, people have amazing stories to tell, and if It's your first time doing and event of such, people go home changed. It's amazing how the boundaries of what's possible expand.

This race had a lot of first timers so emotions where raw everyday, It really feels unnatural to push your body so hard, and mentally the struggle is even bigger. We experience pain as an alert mecanism to prevent injury or death, the problem is that it shows up way before there is any damage, sort of like the empty gast tank on a car shows up before you run out of gas. The trick is to know how far is too far.

There are many amazing stories of courage, one in particular will linger with me because She happens to be my tent mate and I watched her go through the pain and the doubt. When she walked to camp the first day, people probably bet She was going to drop out just like the way She looks, sort of the Susan Boyle syndrome, Hanna Sandlings is an UK TV personality so She is extremely beautiful, her skin looks like it has never seeing the sun. But day after day She pushed trough and did it, She was ready to quit after the first day but I wouldnt let her, I know that all she needed was somebody to believe She could do it, I could see She was starting to doubt, my advise was to take it one check point at a time, never to think that she had 250k, if She had enough to get to the next check point then She had to to it, then ask herself that question over and over again, You never want to go home thinking that You had 10 more kilometres on You.

I had a great run yesterday, I crossed the finish line 31st overall and second female again, I just looked at the results and I am currently at 3 place 27 minutes behind second place giving that is only 9k tomorrow it seems that that will be the final results. Way beyond my wildest dream, I though at most was going to place first on my age group. Ray Zahab my coach and founder of impossible2possible did predicted top three, I have to say that I though He was nuts when He told me that after Namibia, but that's why He is Canada's top ultrarunner and one of the top in the world.

Tonight is the last night on camp, then We run only 9k in Kashgar, the mood is light and fun, in our minds we have done it, talks revolve around what We are doing as soon as we get to town for me is a nice long bath, changing into clean clothes then laying on clean sheets, for other is a beer, or pizza.
Gobi March race a trully unique experience, We are in such remote towns that foreigns arent allowed, so its truly an experience of a lifetime.

Gobi March Day 4

Today was a tough day in Gobi, the stage was 41.2k and it's called Starway to Heaven, We climb a total of 1,175 feet of elevation. At the top we where treated to Heavens gate in a canyon with ladders, It felt more like the ultimate challenge.

I definitely feel better after antibiotics so I guess is great to know that Namibia didn't leave me trashed, it was a virus that it's going around camp. I am glad that the antibiotics are working, today's stage was very tough, as usual there where several river crossings and We also had to run along the mountain ridge, the path was narrow, single track and the wind was very strong, at one point It picked me up and threw me about a foot over.

I kept thinking about the people behind me, like my tent mates that are by now struggling severely because of blisters, as I write this at almost 7pm some haven't crossed the finish line. It took me also longer than I expected but I surprise myself to find out I was second female across the line and top 40 overall.

I had a chance to chat with some of the other Canadians on the race, there are a total of 8, since everybody retreats to their tent to rest after the race I haven't talk to everybody. when I got to camp Blain Davis a personal trainer who live in Edmonton was chatting with Louie Santaguida of Toronto, they both had a great race considering that Louie is suffering from a sprain ankle he still managed to run both enjoying a great dehydrated meal, since the race is self supported We have to bring our own meals with us for the entire race, We are only provided with hot water for our meals.

Blain has a story similar to mine, He is here to fundraise for cystic fibrosis, his 6 years old son suffers from the disease, It sure put things into perspective for me when He told me the prognosis is death eventually.

When I started my seven races I have met amazing people that are refusing to sit down and ask the question that first comes to mind when you here a life changing diagnosis,"why us" instead they are creating a small army of people that are determined to do whatever It takes to change things for the better.

Here I am in Gobi, China with one long hard day ahead of me then I am done, I am feeling blessed for the wonderful experiences i am adquiring, when I started I wanted to do something for the cnib, Foundation Fighting Blindness and Operation Eyesight because I truly believe that the work they do is amazing but in return I am receiving so many blessings.

Gobi March Day 3

Today was a tough day, I woke up feeling sick but couldn't figure if it was because I am run down or if it was the virus that it's going around camp. I took some pain killers and decide to push through today's 38k.

The first 20k went fast,I was feeling fine and run most of it, we went through Langerville a very nice small town, it was fantastic to see everyone in the village come out to cheer us on, they wanted to shake our hands or offered fruit. The second leg we went trough rivers, mud and farmland, it's hard to believe this is a desert, I run though what I tough looked like rice paddies, but turned out to be wheat.

It was after this stage that I hit the wall, I started to feel dizzy and short of breath, I had only 18k to go so I knew I was going to be ok so I just pushed though, slowed the pace significantly and all I could do was walk . In no time runners behind me quickly caught up, Todd Handcock of Red Deer became my company for the next while, Todd's wife grew up in Calgary and they now live in Hong Kong with their 3 kids, they still have family back in Calgary and they are following the race closely, like many others, this is Todd's first endurance event, you wouldn't know if you saw him, he seem to know well what to do and has finish around the 30th place since the start surprising even himself.It was nice chatting later back at camp with Todd, Eddie Naylor of the UK and Mitchell Stock of the USA all being begginers at endurance events such as Gobi March, it's always nice to hear their comments and observations coming from a fresh perspective.
even I felt like a begginer crying the last 7k totally destroyed, and this is my 6th race in 6 monts, I felt like a begginer not feeling like I was ever going to master the art at all.

Katrina Follows of Toronto and my tent mate kept me company for the last leg and tried to distracted me, she had dropped out of the race yesterday feeling sick herself so She was fantastic at making me feel better.

I am on antibiotics now and the doctor said I should be better by tomorrow, just two more hard days to push through and I should be crossing the finish line on Saturday, as I am writting this three ours after I finished, people are still crossing the finish line so I am feeling guilty for crying knowing what everybody is going though, and at the end that's why we form such a strong bond.

We are now a society that look for quick fix to any discomfort, but hardship and pain sometimes can be cleansing if it has a higher purpose.

Gobi March Day 2

Day two in China, todays stage was 41.2 and it was named Mars on Gobi referring to the red canyon river bed we crossed.

It took me a lot longer to finish than yesterday, i droped to 6th female, i feel fine but had a ard time running my legs felt like bricks, otherwise i am healthy.There where not a lot of flat seccions and that takes a lot of oxygen to fuel the legs.

The scenery still takes my breath away, I am trying very hard to do my best but I also need to stay focus, I have a race in two weeks and I need to remain healthy, some part of me feel like I am letting my friends and family down when I see my times dropping.

We still have some tought days ahead, so I am just going to run my race and what evertime I finish that will be my right time.

I am missing everybody back home, I feel like the last 6 months I have hardly been home, living out of a suitcase in strange hotels around the world, I know this is an amazing opportunity for me and my kids are well look after by my mom when I am away.

As usual I am making fantastic friends, some that I am sure will be my friends for life, that's the best part of it all, when this is all forgoten, the record and all, what it will remain will be the lasting friendships I am making.