Harder than I imagined

A chorus of muffled voices jostled me into half-consciousness. I stretched out my curled body only to ignite an intense cramp in my right calf. In a blinding instant, an invisible vice gripped down on my leg and sent a ripple of electric pain through my body. Temporarily paralyzed as cramp passed through, I lay helplessly while droplets of condensed moisture dripped from the tent ceiling directly onto my forehead.

"Jill, it's six-forty. You need to get up. Jill, are you okay?" I heard Beat's voice echo through my pain tunnel.

"Errgh," I groaned. My head was pounding. "I am really dehydrated."

"You okay to start?"

"I guess. I mean, we'll see." I struggled with the simple effort of sitting up in my sleeping bag.

Beat handed me two pills he acquired at the medical tent — some kind of anti-nausea medication and Imodium AD. "I think I'll stick with you today," he said. "You do not look good."

"You don't have to do that," I said. "You shouldn't give up your race for me. I'll be fine. Really. I can just walk it slowly. I won't pass out. Promise."

"We can walk together," Beat said. "It's better that way."

In a daze, I managed to pack up my gear and attach my race bibs to my backpack and shirt. As I struggled toward the starting line, my 27-pound pack resonated away from the luxury I had thought it was to the burden it really was. It was one thing to hoist a heavy pack to the starting line with flu-like nausea, dehydration and fever. It was quite another to imagine all of stage one, which contained 28.5 kilometers (18 miles) of rugged trails with 1,306 meters (4,285 feet) of climbing.

"The cut-off is as 5 p.m., so we have ten hours to walk it," Beat told me.

"Oh, you can do that easy," our friend Steve replied.

"You'd be surprised ... surprised how slow I can go," I sputtered. "I was averaging one and a half miles per hour during my sick point in Susitna, and I felt substantially better than I do right now."

"Well at least this race has a lot of climbing," Steve offered with a wry smile.

The first 4.5 kilometers of the stage were almost entirely flat, along the cultivated fields that lined the Mardi Khola River. The morning was clear and the contours of Annapurna glistened with startling clarity. I tried to muster a brisk walking pace on the flat jeep track, but my efforts were pathetic at best. Even though I started near the back, the rest of the back-of-packers passed us until I could look over my shoulders and see the sweepers not far behind. Meanwhile, Beat pressed several Hi-Chew candies into my palm. "Try to eat something," he urged.

"I need to keep some water down first," I said. I took tiny sips from one of my liter bottles and fought the subsequent waves of nausea as I plodded unhappily through the stunning landscape.

My water showed signs of staying down, but the nausea remained intense. We reached the first checkpoint in about an hour, which I thought was not terrible for 4.5 kilometers, but we were definitely at the back of the race — also not surprising as it was supposed to be a running race. I took a few sips of water in front of the volunteer waiting to fill my bottle and nearly lost it in front of him. Involuntary gasps erupted from my throat. I clutched my neck in an reflex to force oxygen back down while water tried to come up. My gasps must have sounded as though walking 2.7 flat miles in an hour was the hardest effort I had ever made in my life, during an easy section of a relatively easy stage in a 210-kilometer foot race through the rugged mountains of Nepal. Hardly confidence-inspiring.

"Um, are you okay?" the volunteer asked.

"Yes ... just ... trying ... not ... to ... throw ... up," I gurgled. I figured honesty was the best policy.

The the trail started up, on what would become a ubiquitous feature on the trails in the Himalayan foothills — slippery, steep stone steps. This section is mostly a blank for me, as my mind retreated into the special place it sometimes goes to block out pain — like a Kathmandu black out, cutting consciousness to save the grid from overload. I must have been moving very, very slowly, as Beat — who was starting to feel not so hot himself — asked me if I wanted a tow. I would normally be too proud to accept such physical help, but flickers of consciousness understood my body's desperation. "Yeah, that would actually probably help a lot," I said.

Beat grabbed the end of one of my trekking poles, and I held on as he tugged me up the stairs. Even though I still had to walk, Beat's assistance took a good amount of pressure off the climb. I began to feel more comfortable with a faster walk — that is, not taking breaks after every other step. But the effort still felt intense. We passed two beautiful, smiling Nepali children, who were no doubt laughing at the strange white people holding onto each other and gasping as though we were climbing Everest instead of a benign village trail. "Namaste," they called out. "Namaste," I whispered back. Just speaking the words through heavy breaths sent my gag reflex into high gear.

"Beat, I have to stop," I gasped. I hunched over my poles and breathed heavily before an impressive geyser of liquid — I figure about a liter of water and the three Hi-Chews I had managed to force down so far — erupted from my mouth.

The little girl and her brother rushed toward me. "You vomit? You vomit?" the girl said in English.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," I sputtered and turned in embarrassment away from them.

The effort of assisting me quickly cut Beat down as well. We both acknowledged that the intensity was too much, but it was too late. Beat was starting to feel the first symptoms of what would become infamously known around camp as "the bug." I hadn't successfully digested a single calorie or ounce of water since more than 24 hours before. We stopped to sit on a rock about a kilometer shy of checkpoint two to try to settle our stomachs, and also process exactly what were up against. We were already at the back of the pack and nowhere near camp.

We managed to motivate ourselves to checkpoint two, where the medical volunteers showed little sympathy, in a good way. "Several people seem to have that bug," the leader of the medical team said. "We think it's a 24-hour virus. You'll probably start to feel better soon. Have you been peeing?"

"Peeing?" I said. "How can I pee when all of my liquid is coming out the other end?"

"Well, as long as you're not too dehydrated," the medic said. "Just keep going. You'll be fine. Make it your goal to pee before the end of the day."

I remember glowering at her. I felt really awful, and now Beat was sick as well. He mentioned quitting the race, and I wanted to quit, too. And I wanted the medics to give us a guilt-free excuse. At the same time, I knew the volunteer was right. What we were doing, walking slowly through sickness, wasn't going to kill us. It wasn't fun, but it wasn't going to kill us. Beat knew this as well, so reluctantly we got up.

"At least we're sick in one of the most beautiful places in the world," Beat offered as we plodded up the stone steps. Soon we caught up to other racers who were taking long breaks in strange spots. They too complained of flu symptoms, and I realized that a whole contingent of sick people rounded out the back-of-the-pack during that stage. At the steepest section, I had to take a short break for every single step I climbed. Loud wretching noises echoed through the still air as we traded break spots with the other sickies. I started to feel marginally better near the top. I managed take in half of a fruit bar and the rest of the Hi-Chews I hadn't thrown up already, for what I figure is an impressive 120-140 calories for the entire 18-mile hike, with no glycogen in the reserves.

Low energy didn't feel as bad as nausea and vomiting, however, and my mood began to improve. It was about this point that three Nepali women carrying triple their mass in grain stalks — while wearing flip flops and skirts — passed us on the climb. I could only shake my head at my own good fortune. "Just when I think I have it tough, Nepali porters pass us again," I said to Beat. "We have it so easy."

We crossed the finish line at 3:38 p.m., for a stage time of eight hours and 38 minutes. Of the 215 or so people who started Stage One in the morning (seven never left camp), only ten people came in behind us. One person dropped during that stage. Another seven would drop out before the race finished. "The bug" was waging an impressive war, and the race hadn't even really begun.

The bug

Arriving at the Fulbari resort in Pokhara was like stepping through the gate of a chaotic playground into a highly organized running camp for adults. Dozens of people clad in tights and compression sleeves milled about the lobby, and signs listed the schedule of pre-race activities for the following day. Racing the Planet is known for its consistency and organization amid remote trails in developing areas, which is why they're such a popular provider of adventure racing and trekking, attracting endurance junkies from all over the world. Racing the Planet makes a point to provide a wholly immersive experience in a unique country, and it's true that many competitors come for the adventure of the race more than the competition. Beat and I fell solidly into this category. I mean, we were in the shadow of the Himalayas, steeped in a culture a world apart from our own. Why would we want to rush through any of it?

One might ask why we'd bother to enter a race rather than just plan our own trek. But I generally feel similarly about most of my race experiences - I enjoy the camaraderie with other people of similar mindsets, the new friendships forged amid the dirt and distress, the push to challenge myself physically and emotionally beyond what I could in tourist mode, and the personal rewards therein. And especially since I'm not a particularly talented runner in any capacity, I find it difficult to care whether my flailing efforts land me in 67th or 89th or 145th place - just as long as I have fun, meet cool people, take a lot of memorable photographs, and experience an adequate amount of challenge/suffering to fully enrich the adventure.

In the morning, 220 registered participants from all over the world gathered to finalize the logistics. Race officials checked off my required gear and weighed my pack at 10.5 kilograms without water –still on the heavy end of the scale in a list that ranged from 6.5 to 15 kilograms. This wasn't entirely surprising as I had definitely planned a luxury tour as far as self-supported racing goes – 2,500 calories a day, treats in the form of peanut butter and jelly, and enough clothing to stay warm regardless of what the weather did. Again, this was our relaxing vacation. I could afford to move a bit slower if it meant peanut butter-slathered granola bars in the morning. Mmmm.

We crammed into several small Indian buses and lurched down the rough road toward the river. Nepali musicians and holy men greeted us as we stepped out of the bus, dabbing our foreheads with a streak of red paint that would stain our skin for the rest of the week. Camp One was set up atop a cultivated field, and consisted of two rows of basic and poorly ventilated Coleman spring-bar tents with a massive fire pit on one end. Each racer was pre-assigned a tent. Ours contained seven people and hardly enough floor space to accommodate that many sleeping pads, with no room for gear. This was going to be our roving home for seven nights

It was also the beginning of complete food independence. As a competition, Racing the Planet forbid local food purchases during the seven-day stage race. I believe this rule was set mostly to ensure a fair race at the top, and also to prevent the higher risk of illness from strange foods cooked in less than sanitary conditions. Beat and I planned a series of freeze-dried meals for each of our breakfasts and dinners. We rolled out our gear in the cramped tent and walked to the bonfire with our vacuum-packed meals. For the first night in camp, I choose a entree from Backpacker's Pantry called Thai Chicken. It wasn't great but it was tolerable enough to stuff down my throat with the promise of peanut butter and jelly for dessert. Strange to look back now and realize that this was the only freeze-dried meal in my 10.5-kilogram pack that I actually ingested in an entire week. A last meal in more ways than one.

It was 11:34 p.m., about two hours after I went to bed, when the unholy Thai Chicken made its first attempt to exorcise itself from my gut. The sensation lurched from waking stomach rumbles to wide-eyed panic within just two or three seconds. My pad was all the way at the end of the tent, and it was all I could do to wrestle out of my sleeping bag, stumble awkwardly over a row of reclined bodies, rip apart the fragile zipper of the tent and rush into the cold evening. I made it about 50 meters from the tent to an empty rice paddy before the undigested Thai Chicken exploded in an impressive fountain across the mud. I stumbled a few more steps and vomited again, twice. Believing I had successfully emptied my stomach, I turned toward the tent to find toothpaste and water before I felt urgency at the other end. Just a few meters away at that point, I barely made it to the open-pit latrines in time.

I felt fully emptied the first time around, so it was disconcerting to wake up five more times in the night after little sleep with a similar sense of urgency and nothing left to purge. Between painful bouts with globs of yellow foam, I managed to force down enough gulps of water to expel nearly clear liquid out of both ends. I have never before experienced such an intense purging session, violently convulsing to expel tiny amounts of bodily fluid and then writing with full-body muscle aches, fever and chills at the same time. It felt as though my own body was trying to reject itself.

After one of my trips to the latrine, the fever flared up with such intensity that I had no choice but to drop to my knees in the field before I lost consciousness. I still felt dizzy so I laid down atop stubby stalks of harvested millet, right in the mud. The paddy was along my "route" and could have been covered in vomit for all I knew, but I didn't even really care. I shivered and sweated on the soft ground and grasped for understanding. Was this simply food poisoning/traveler's illness? I'd been as careful as I possibly could. I only drank and brushed my teeth with bottled mineral water, and the only non-packaged food I'd eaten was two breakfasts at the hotels. Even then I basically stuck to cooked grains and vegetables, avoiding meat, fruit, milk, yogurt, even cheese. But then again, everything about Nepal was foreign to me. Perhaps some things were just too foreign.

I coughed a few times to expel bits of white foam before rolling on my back. I gazed up at an explosion of stars; the only dark space in the entire sky was encircled by a sliver of the moon. The glittering starlight was enough to light up the snowy face of Annapurna South, far above the surrounding "foothills" that were nearly as tall as the Rocky Mountains by themselves, with Annapurna nearly 25,000 feet over my seemingly broken body. I breathed a happy sigh in spite of myself, simply grateful to be in the presence of such an immense mountain when I was so small and so weak. But the peaceful feeling soon gave way to dread. Was this all I was ever going to see of the Himalayas? What if I had a parasite or other serious illness? Was I going to have to transfer to a third-world hospital in Pokhara, or worse, home? I couldn't remember the last time I felt so sick, and I sincerely believed I'd be lucky to stay mobile, let alone attempt the 17 miles with two huge climbs and descents that was simply the first stage of Racing the Planet Nepal. The race began in less than two hours. But if I didn't start the first stage in the morning, that was it for me. I'd either have to wait it out in a hotel room or go home.

But the mud-streaked truth remained that I was too sick to really care one way or the other. I pulled myself up from the exhaustion and plodded back to the tent, finally admitting to Beat that I was really sick and "who knows?" about morning.

"Don't bother waking me up for breakfast if I'm sleeping," I said. "But maybe I'll feel better in the morning."

Kathmandu

The race is still three days away, but the challenge begins the second we step out of the airport. The psychological gap between the chilled, empty terminal after midnight and the crowd of shouting faces outside feels vast. Once I cross it, I can't step back. Literally.

Two charismatic young hustlers grab our luggage and rush us to a taxi, then demand tips in twenties, U.S. Still smarting from the scam, we pile into the dusty cab. I grip the seats as the vehicle lurches into the darkened city. Motorcycles and tiny cars stream past in a chaotic blur. There are no street signs, no traffic lights, no lights at all. Every day for as many as 16 hours, Kathmandu shuts off the electric supply to prevent grid overload. The chaos of life, however, keeps churning.

I admit the notion of world travel makes me feel uneasy. I'm enthralled with the Earth, but the world of people often intimidates and sometimes frightens me. People with all of their cultural and individual differences create a bewildering geography that seems impossible to bridge. My personal barrier is not so much a social anxiety as it is an overwhelming desire to understand every single one of them in a way I never will. The hunched man pushing his cart of vegetables up the rough street after dark. The skinny 7-year-old boy riding an adult bicycle along the road much too late, and by himself. The beggar in tattered robes with a piercing gaze. The motorcyclist dressed in Western fashion and weaving fearlessly through smog-belching taxis. The unseen thousands inside of all those darkened buildings. I gaze wide-eyed out the window and imagine what their lives might be like, what they return home to at the end of the long day, what they set out to do in the morning. The barrage of images and unknown stories overwhelms my senses, until I find myself retreating into daydreams about frozen tundra.

But I am still in Kathmandu, where broken cement litters the street and shanty towns line the trash-clogged river. A city of a million-plus in a developing country is as far from my people comfort zone as I've ever ventured, and I'm not sure how to process all the unknowns. The truth is I don't really know anything about these people. I know from books that they are largely Hindu, a conglomeration of dozens of different regional ethnic groups, with many cultural similarities to India. I know from newspapers that they are still recovering from a decade-long political uprising and struggling to establish an effective government, although a rapid increase in tourism is driving improvements in the economy and infrastructure. I know from maps that Nepal is a mountainous region full of tortured geography. I know from the things I see that the residents of Kathmandu are largely poor, but I've never been one to equate poverty with unhappiness. In fact, I believe the cycle of hardship and overcoming hardship is the key to happiness; but of course it's a complicated puzzle, and of course I am a first-world person with first-world perspectives. So I know nothing of the Nepali people, but I guess that's one of the main agendas of world travel – broaden the horizons.

I am relieved when the driver actually drops us off at our hotel rather than dumping us in an abandoned alley after robbing us for everything we have. I feel guilty for fretting about this, and experience more first-world guilt as we step into the hotel, which drips with false opulence and independently generated electricity. The room is stocked with fresh fruit, which Beat instructs me not to eat, and two liters of filtered water, which Beat informs me will have to cover all of our water needs from brushing teeth to drinking to shaving for the next 12 hours. The race is just three days away and we can't afford to get sick now.

The next morning we return to the airport for our flight to Pokhara. The regional terminal is  packed wall-to-wall with throngs of people, including tall, blond-haired tourists wearing brand new hiking boots and a Nepali woman with a caged chicken on her lap. We pass through a single metal detector that probably doesn't work, and line up under rafters occupied by live birds. The weather in Pokhara is bad that day, and we're informed that all flights have been canceled. A group of a couple dozen other stranded Racing the Planet participants have gathered in a corner to organize alternative transportation. Matt, a former Marine from Florida, assumes the leadership position and manages to round up six rented jeeps with drivers. The four of us from the Bay area – Beat and I, and our friends Steve and Martina – wedge ourselves and our stuff into one Reagan-era four-by-four. Back on the road.

I wish I could describe the six-hour drive from Kathmandu to Pokhara, but I really can't. I can only say that it was one of the more terrifying experiences of my life, and I was mentally preparing for my life to end in a white explosion until I became too car-sick to care. Imagine a minefield of broken pavement, potholes and chunky gravel, barely wide enough for two lanes of traffic, except there are no lanes, and no signs, and no laws. Traffic generally flows on the left, or opposite side of the road, except for when it doesn't because drivers usually just travel the “best” side, regardless of who's approaching. Huge Indian Tata diesel trucks barrel down as motorcycles buzz past on both sides. Our own driver doesn't seem concerned about anything except getting rid of us as quickly as possible. He overtakes vehicles on blind corners, bounces the wheels over road craters, buzzes pedestrians and swerves away from oncoming trucks at the last possible second. After four hours of this, smoke begins to pour into the cab. The driver pulls over, pops the hood, mills about for several minutes discussing the mechanical with the locals in Nepali, starts the engine several times, waits until smoke stops streaming into the cab, and declares the problem fixed. We are still fifty kilometers from Pokhara. “We can probably run that if we have to,” Steve suggests.

We make it to Pokhara still alive, but it feels like a lifetime away from San Francisco after the insane road trip, night in Kathmandu and 35 hours of international airport travel that now separate us from home. “I'm not sure anything about this race could be as hard as just getting here,” I think. I almost say it out loud to Beat, but stop myself, because it sounds too much like - as they say - famous last words.