Hut 2.5 started to separate the finishers from the rest. By the time I got there, a half dozen runners were sleeping, flat on their backs, as the volunteers and soldiers assigned to assist made sure they didn’t roll back down the side of the mountain. I had been walking for some time by this point, alternating 100 walking steps with 100, then 50, then 20 running strides. But I passed on through - I figured that I’d only been out 3 and a half hours at that point, and if I hit a fourth wind, I could make up for my earlier sluggishness. An hour later, though, with Hut 3 within screaming distance, I encountered a man walking down the mountain with a backpack. Turns out he’d been manning Hut 3, and after a cold, lonely night on the mountain waiting for the runners, it was close enough to noon that he was calling it quits.
He gently suggested that he wasn’t going to make it. Since he had been part of the race course, and he was going home, he probably had a point. I sat and talked with him a bit, lightening his load by wolfing down bread and water, sharing some with the few stragglers still behind me. In the end, though 4 more passed me, I called it quits, picked up a volcanic pebble, and began my descent.
Even in defeat, the scenery was breathtaking. The mountain is its own habitat, sequestered from the world below by its sheer elevation. I chatted with an American who’d come from Nigeria to run the race. We compared notes, then started to jog down ... and I couldn’t. I was stuck halfway up a huge-ass mountain, and could no longer run. With nowhere to go but down, those runners who had passed me and completed the ascent, passed me on the way back, leaving me once again at the back of the pack, this time above them all.
Hut 1 had been a festival, volunteers gaily sharing water and cheers to those who’d dared climb so high. Now, hours later and on the way down, it was a ghost village, with straggler voluneers packing in the last few empty water bottles. And on I trudged. A gentle rain tapped the broad, flat leaves overhead as I re-entered the forested approach to the foot of the mountain. At the lowest point, I stopped to relieve myself (at least I’d managed to stay hydrated) only to have a resident appear and scold me for going too close to a water well (I didn’t know it was still in use. Really!). I got lost trying to return to the roadway, then teamed with fellow tortoises for the last four twisting miles to the stadium, and an unnoticed return. I joined with a young girl who had made it to the top, and she and I entered the finish area together... and I roused the few standersby to clap for her as she crossed the arrivée line. She deserved it... maybe in time, I will, too.
Steve, Brad and Pedro
I found Brad and Pedro, who’d gone a little past Hut 1 before deciding this was a silly idea and returned to the start. They’d made some friends, had some beer, and were baking in the sub-Sarahan sun. I’d decided not to take my camera with me, fearing its weight would slow me down. Hindsight, since I'd missed some spectacular scenery and could have shown a whole lot of people running past me.
I ran about 20 miles, and returned to the start about 8 hours after I left. I gave everything I had, but I didn’t make it. I took a piece of the race and the mountain with me. Who knows: one day maybe I’ll put that pebble on the very top of Mt. Fako, and look down, and there will be someone behind me.
