Steps forward

In my mind, the real challenge began after the stage ended. Other racers had already devoured their late lunch and were moving onto pre-dinner tea and, for the heavier packers, snacks. I watched them tape their blisters (of which I had none) and massage their sore knees and shoulders (mine were fine.) But as I observed them shoveling in spoonfuls of slop with glee, I would have welcomed all of their maladies just to have what they had — an appetite.

They looked happy and content; I felt ragged and empty. They sprawled out comfortably in the sunlight; I was unnaturally tense and my muscles ached all over. My body was consuming noticeable portions of itself that I was convinced included a fair percentage of muscle (there are conflicting studies out there on the science of starvation, but I have read about research which concluded that a depleted body in motion turns to muscle proteins, which are more easily converted to energy than fat, even if there's plenty of body fat available.) Of course I don't know exactly what was happening biologically, only that I was losing weight and weakening by the hour.

But it wasn't such a simple dilemma as just stuffing down more food. Food I had. It was my stomach that seemed to cease functioning with any sort of effectiveness. As long as my body was in motion, I was fine. I could consume my simple carbohydrate energy food and feel restored as the glucose passed directly into my bloodstream. But simply eating my bars was like using kindling to stay warm on a winter camping trip. The flash-flame wore off too quickly, and if I burned up all of my bars, I stood no chance of igniting the disgusting freeze-dried logs that comprised the rest of my energy source.

One of our tent-mates, Patty, overheard Beat and I analyzing our dinners and offered us one of her bland meals, a benign-sounding, low-fat entree called Chicken Noodles. When we tried to trade one of our meals, she refused. Patty and her husband fell ill with the bug during the second stage. Her husband dropped out, but Patty, miserable but determined, continued. I felt guilty because I was the first one in our tent to catch the bug, but I had been as careful as possible with removing shoes, using wet wipes, and dousing myself in hand sanitizer. Anyway, how could any of us really have known?

Beat and I shared the chicken noodles. They went down well, but not long afterward my stomach revolted. After two dashes to the open-pit toilets, which were perched precariously on a rocky ledge above camp, I was fed up. "I'm not really digesting any of it anyway; what's the point?" I skipped the camp social scene and planned second dinner, and went to bed early again. I was still nauseated, but more than that, I was frustrated.

Morning came with a renewed spark of hope. Waiting out sickness in camp was such a tedious challenge compared to hiking tough terrain while burning kindling. Even through my weakness, I preferred the latter. I prepared a strawberry jam granola bar for breakfast, and, with temporary vigor, practically skipped to the starting line.

Stage four connected us with a portion of the Annapurna Circuit, climbing to an elevation of nearly 3,000 meters before plummeting 2,000 meters into another narrow valley. The route itself was 27 kilometers (17 miles) with 1,524 meters (5,131 feet) of climbing and a soul-crushing 2,275 meters (7,463 feet) of descending in that relatively short distance. But before that, I told myself, at least we could enjoy a big climb. The first six miles alone gained 4,100 feet of elevation. Since the steep climb of stage three had been my strongest section of the race so far, I looked forward to another ascent.

The climb actually went well. Powered by bars, I marched up the stone steps, happy to breathe cool air and absorb awesome views of Annapurna and Dhaulagiri. Beat and I actually held a solid spot in the front half of the pack that I knew would disintegrate on the way down, but I didn't mind. We were climbing a mountain, glucose was coursing through my blood, and all was right with the world.

The views during stage four were striking, but, as part of the Annapurna Circuit, the route had a decidedly different vibe than the other stages. For starters, the trails were packed with tourists (in a relative sense. There were still probably more of us than them.) Instead of seeing Nepalis herding buffalo and carrying massive loads of straw, we saw Australians carrying bulky external-frame packs and a large group of Japanese teenagers who took photos of us as we passed. Instead of farm villages constructed around animal shelters and grain paddies, we saw three-story hotels and signs in English advertising hot showers (heated by firewood), clean rooms and "best mountain views." This wasn't a bad thing, just different — the modern (and lucrative) face of trekking in Nepal.

It was also terribly tempting. Outside each of the tea houses were friendly-looking cafes stocked with soda, Mars Bars, and other valuable sources of kindling. We had already heard rumors that the night's accommodations would be in village tea houses. We also had a sense that the race organizers might be more lax than they let on about their "no outside food" rule. But I wasn't quite willing to go there yet, not unless I knew that everyone had been given the okay to buy food. I may have been close to desperate, but my own race ethics aren't willing to defiantly break rules.

The descent soon took my mind off obsessions about Sprite and Fanta, and planted it solely on a few square feet of uneven stones directly in front of me. The course notes indicated a descent on "thousand-year-old Gurung steps" of which there were reportedly more than 3,000. The problem with that description is that the 3,000 steps only comprised the steepest two kilometers of the descent. Just to get to the Gurung steps, we had to descend thousands of stone steps. Racers who were keeping track started to lose count at 5,000; some reported 6,000. For my clumsy feet and weakened legs, it was a slow grind. My right knee began to hurt for the first time in the race. Lots of people passed us, including casual trekkers and 5-year-old children wearing flip-flops (the last one was not surprising.) I am certainly not the master of descents.

I like to think that I at least looked like this down the 7,000 vertical feet of steps ...

But more often I probably looked like this.

I was grateful to see the bottom and the final water stop at checkpoint two, where an extremely upbeat Marshall Ulrich was helping racers take off their packs and refill water bottles. He's quite famous in the ultrarunning world, and I admit I (wrongly) assumed that he'd be too busy or filled with a sense of importance to actually remain with the race like he said he would. But even though illness forced him out of competition, he remained to volunteer for all kinds of exhausting checkpoint jobs. The guy has class.

The final five kilometers into the village of Birethanti were enjoyable jeep track. I had mowed through my day's supply of bars and was feeling pretty good at this point. I mainly posted this photo to prove that we actually did do a little bit of running during our running race.

We finished at 1:53 p.m. for a stage time of six hours and 53 minutes. The rumors proved true; Racing the Planet had rented out what appeared to be the entire village and put everyone up in various tea houses. Beat and I were assigned a simple room with two single beds and one light bulb that worked occasionally. The walls were paper thin and the floorboards were right above a large local family's living quarters (and open-fire kitchen.) I think I preferred the tents but I wasn't complaining, because we also received a meal ticket to eat Dal Bhat — a nicely bland local dish consisting of lentils and rice — and a wink-wink-we'll-look-the-other-way okay to order extra side dishes. Beat and I drank three 250 ml bottles of Fanta each and shared a small plate of fries and an equally small pizza with a Canadian racer, Patrick. After the sodas my stomach felt full, but I managed to work through the food and it seemed to be sticking. Which was good, because tomorrow, we had 45 miles to run.

Toward Annapurna

I dug through my pack to find the blandest, highest-carbohydrate dinner possible. I purchased all of my freeze-dried meals back in August and couldn't even remember what I had in there. Each one sounded progressively less appetizing ... Chicken Korma, Chicken Tikka, Vegetable Tikka, Pad Thai, "high-energy" Spaghetti Bolognese with more than 60 grams of fat in a serving, and one whose name struck particular fear into my nauseated stomach, Kathmandu Curry.

"They're all curry," I said to Beat with dismay. "Every single one of them is spicy, fatty curry. What the hell was I thinking?"

Beat dug through his pack and found he mostly had the same. He had one meat lasagna that sounded marginally okay — but, no, I couldn't think about it. I couldn't even think about it. Anything freeze dried only evoked horrific memories of the demon Thai Chicken. "I can't deal with this," I said.

"You have to eat."

"I'll eat tomorrow. Breakfast. Promise."

"You need to eat tonight."

I wandered miserably around camp until I found Martina. "You should talk to Jack, he has soup," she said. Jack was Martina's tent-mate. The South African was developing a reputation for being the MacGyver of RTP Nepal, because he had a 15-kilogram pack that contained practically everything under the sun. Jack offered me a small package of powdered corn chowder. Corn chowder is probably the last soup I would choose of all of the soups in the world, and it only had about 80 calories, but it was a start. Anyway, my body was low on electrolytes. However, when I added water and tried to eat the corn chowder, I only made it through half before my stomach protested with lurching grumbles and an instant urge to use the restroom. I dumped it out when Beat wasn't looking.

Beat insisted I eat more, so I went back to my pack and dug out one of two Snickers bars that I had brought specifically for use during the long stage. But if I didn't even make it to the long stage, hoarding Snickers bars wouldn't make a difference. "I'll eat a Snickers," I told him. "Sugar I can eat."

The Snickers did indeed taste like a little chunk of heaven, and melted perfectly into the hole in my stomach. "I should know this about myself by now," I said to my friends. "Candy just works for me. I always think I should try to eat healthier while I'm racing, but in the end my body just wants sugar."

Breakfast was not much more successful. Beat brought out a package of "high energy" strawberry porridge that was loaded with powdered cream and tasted to me like strawberry porridge that I had thrown up already and was trying to eat post-regurgitation. Again my stomach lurched and hurt after just a couple bites, but I did manage to chase the disgusting taste with a Nature Valley granola bar slathered in strawberry jam. It would have to do.

Just before the race started, a man turned around and approached me. I instantly recognized him from the author photo in a book that I recently downloaded (before I even knew he'd be at RTP Nepal) — Marshall Ulrich. "I just wanted to say that I'm proud of you for being out here today," Marshall said. "I saw you after stage one. I got the bug, too, and I was so sick. Just so sick. I couldn't continue. I had to drop. I'm going to stay with the race but I'm not racing anymore."

"Oh wow," I said, a little bit starstruck. "I'm sorry to hear that. Really."

Marshall smiled sadly and reached out to shake my hand. Being complemented on my own grit by man who's accomplished what he has — climbed all seven summits, ran across America, and completed more than 120 ultramarathons, to name a few — meant a lot.

The night before the race began, RTP finally revealed the final course notes and elevation profiles that had been shrouded in secrecy until then. I was stoked when I saw the profile for stage three:

Under normal circumstances, I am an enthusiastic climber and a terrible downhiller, so a stage that was entirely uphill was exactly my kind of thing. Stage three was 38 kilometers (24 miles) with 1,478 meters (4,850 feet) of climbing. The final three miles gained 2,200 feet by themselves. In my current state, "On the Bug," I flip-flopped from enthusiasm about stage three to dread. It was like an steep uphill marathon with 25-pound packs. How was I going to finish this one if I didn't have any energy?

I packed my day's allotment of two granola bars, two fruit bars and one Clif Bar, and added a few extra bars because I knew I was still running a severe calorie deficit and because I didn't eat any on day one, I had a few to spare. In an effort to fire up my fragile digestive system, I started the stage by snacking on the second of three precious packages of gummy candies. The bug was definitely subsiding, but my stomach still seemed to protest everything I tried to put in it. I theorized that the 36-hour purging session so fully scrubbed my system that I lost all the good bacteria I need to aid in the digestive process. My stomach is sensitive under normal circumstances; on endurance it becomes especially persnickety. On "The Bug" it was all but useless.

The first 14 kilometers of the stage fluctuated between a flat jeep track and rocky shoreline along a river. The gummies started kicking in for me and Beat was feeling quite a bit better, so he suggested we try running some. We upped our 17-minute-mile hiking pace to an 11- or 12-minute-mile shuffle that most every cell in my body seemed to object. My stomach churned and growled, my legs burned with lactic acid, my arm and back muscles ached, my shoulders slumped and my head spun with exhaustion. I was in no shape to run in this running race. In fact, I felt like I just might be in the worst shape of my life, like I hadn't trained for the race at all, like I hadn't done anything all year but sit on my couch and eat peanut butter cups. Oh, if only I had some peanut butter cups.

I felt incredibly weak, and so dizzy that I began to fear for my coordination and safety, even on a dirt road. I believed my body had coped well up to this point, but now I was nearing the bleeding edge of an absolute and binding bonk. We crossed the big river on a foot bridge and began to follow Kaligandaki Nadi, a roiling whitewater river that tore down a stunning gorge. The rolling jeep track became steeper, which forced more hiking. For this I was grateful, because it gave me a chance to finally try to eat some of my bars. I started with an all-sugar fruit bar. Just a few minutes later, I felt a surge of energy in my blood — so much joy, happiness, sheer elation at the simple act of moving and breathing that makes a person believe they finally understand exactly what it means to be alive. And then, just a few minutes after that, crash. The needle dove back to empty. Bonkville.

So I ate a granola bar, and for a few more minutes there was joy, happiness, elation ... and then it was gone. I ate a fruit bar, and experienced a surge that felt a little closer to a normal burst of energy. Then it was gone. Beat and I alternated hiking the uphills and running the short downhills. I sent another granola bar down the hatch that quickly disappeared. I didn't have many bars left in my pouch, and wasn't sure I wanted to pillage the next day's supply of bars, given bars were the only food I could stomach so far.

"I feel like all of my bars are going down a black hole," I told Beat. "But I guess, well, at least I can eat again."

The Kali Gandaki Gorge began to open up, revealing the bald face of Annapurna South, 26,545 feet into the stark blue sky. Annapurna is a Sanskrit name that literally means "Full of Food." In Hinduism, Annapurna is the "universal kitchen goddess, the mother who feeds." As Beat and I shuffled along the road, I gazed at Annapurna's snow-swept slopes, jagged knife ridges, terrifying coloirs and almost unfathomable mass. I remember reflecting on the stories I had read about the mountain and giving silent thanks for my ability to eat again. I mentioned to Beat a book I read, written by British mountaineer Chris Bonington, about his harrowing Annapurna expedition in 1970 — the first attempt on a big wall at altitude.

"I can understand why people come to these mountains and become obsessed with them, and risk their lives climbing them," Beat said. "I thought the Alps were incredible mountains, but the Himalayas are truly incredible mountains."

We took a 20-minute break at checkpoint three. Beat traded me a precious Payday Bar for my Clif Builder Bar. I felt a new surge of life-giving food energy, and charged open-eyed and joyful into the 2,200-foot ascent. We climbed hundreds of stone steps as the Kali Gandaki Valley dropped swiftly below us. Each step seemed to pump fresh blood into my aching muscles, for a self-perpetuating cycle of endorphins and vitality. I remember wishing the climb could just keep going the next day, just up and up and up, maybe all the way to Annapurna's summit. I hadn't felt so awake in three days, and I hadn't felt so alive in a long while.

Beat, unfortunately, had been stuck with the protein-packed Builder Bar, so he felt significantly more weighed-down on the steep climb than I did. But he kept up just fine as we climbed over a small pass and approached a mountainside dotted in rural villages.

What seemed like the entire population of the village of Ghara came out to cheer racers at the finish line of stage three, perched as it was on a narrow ledge above the town.

It was gratifying to see so many people, who had so much hardship and yet so much natural richness in their lives, show their support for our little racing endeavor. I hope they understood how grateful I think all of us were to be there.

School children adorned us with flower garlands. We finished at 1:59 p.m. for a stage time of six hours and 59 minutes. We were getting faster, and slowly beginning to feel stronger. Even though freeze-dried dinner still sounded to me like the third world war in my mouth, I let myself believe the worst was over. 

Total immersion

Steve and Martina greeted us sympathetically at the finish line, having arrived at camp hours earlier. Amid my relief at having simply survived stage one, I launched into a hyperbolic (and uninformed) diatribe about my conviction that alcohol poisoning or drinking household cleaners had to be more fun than that stage. "If I feel this way tomorrow, there's really no way I can finish another stage. There's just nothing left."

By this point, Beat was in the throws of The Battle of the Bug. We barely mustered the energy to unroll our sleeping gear on the floor of the tent and collapsed into unconsciousness by 4:30 p.m. He stirred me awake at 6:30 and we shuffled to the medical tent to see if they would give us any more drugs. Beat suspected bacterial infection and wanted antibiotics. I was still convinced it was a flu virus and sure enough, the doctor told us to wait at least 24 more hours. Not that we'd make it another 24, anyway.

The camp was abuzz with activity and chatter. One of the draws of Racing the Planet events is the social energy of camp, where runners from Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, Scotland, Spain, Germany, South Africa — really, everywhere — share their tales of adventure over a campfire and dinner. I was not in mood for any of it, and felt like I was wading through a exhausting obstacle course as I made my way through the crowd. Friends who had a good day and were excited about it flagged us down, and I tried to smile and listen even though the smell of their expedition food was almost unbearable. We made it back to our tent by 6:45, and, except for a couple overnight bouts with the runs, remained there until morning.

Beat woke me up early, at 4:45 a.m., insisting that we needed to try to eat something first thing and see how it took. "Are you two starting today?" asked one of our tent mates, Peter Clarke, a retired British investment banker who lives in Hong Kong.

"Gonna try, have to keep water down first, though," I said. Peter later told us that he didn't think we stood a chance, given our demeanors the previous night. "I admire that you went out for the second stage," he said. "I didn't think I was going to see you again."

We tried to share one freeze-dried breakfast, a package of raspberry granola with milk. I only forced down about five bites because it was revolting and made my stomach do bad things. I did manage to eat several spoonfuls of my strawberry jam without issue. In fact, the small but immediate surge of energy felt like an electric jolt amid my extremely depleted state. For all of the bad press sugar receives, it is the only thing that works for me when my stomach has shut down. I regretted that my pack wasn't filled with candy.

On paper, stage two had looked like a moderately easy one to me. It was 32 kilometers (20 miles) with 1,364 meters (4,475 feet) of climbing, but really only one sustained climb followed by rollers. But then I neglected to realize that climbs are listed in meters, and climbing from 900 to 1,800 meters is actually kind of a grunt. I tapped one of three bags of my "reward" gummy candies for the climb. It wasn't much, only 260 calories, but even that small contribution made a world of difference in my energy levels and outlook. It was clear my body was willing to keep down water at this point as well, although my stomach wouldn't accept it in large amounts. I felt desperately thirsty, but big gulps caused intestinal distress, so I held a bottle in my hand and nursed it as we walked.

Stage two connected a series of porter trails along the Modi Khola Valley, following routes that have been used in the same way for hundreds of years. Most of these trails are what one might consider "off the beaten track," through villages that see few tourists. Racing the Planet had been announcing the coming of the race via radio, and local children gathered along the road to cheer us with loud "Namaste" greetings, practice their English ("What is your name? Where are you from? Where are you going?) and only rarely (at least in these non-tourist areas) ask us for chocolate. (I personally felt desperate enough for more sweets that I might have bribed some off the children if I thought I could get away with it.)

Finally conscientious enough to actually see the things I was looking at, the nature of the landscape was revelatory to me. The Himalayan "foothills" are not wilderness by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, they are wholly steeped in human activity. Entire faces of steep mountains have been cut into staircases of cultivated fields, but not in an overly invasive way. Forests still grow up around them. Ancient stone trails connect small villages built of brick and stone. People often conduct their household chores out in the open — separating millet grains by beating the straw, cooking, drying clothing, and washing their hair and bodies. Water buffalo, goats, mongrel dogs and occasionally sacred cattle wander the central "streets," which are nothing more than singletrack trails themselves. Most people get where they need to go by walking, and groups of schoolchildren wear crisply laundered blue shirts and ties as they run up the muddy steps. "I bet the best mountain runners in the world live here and they don't even know it," Beat speculated.

Although I felt the grip of the virus diminishing, Beat was still battling diarrhea and nausea. The tables turned for the two of us on the big climb, and I found myself able to hike more easily as he struggled. And I of course waited for him when he stopped to rest. Our original plan had been to race individually and not travel together. But it was becoming clear that Racing the Planet Nepal was going to be a heftier challenge, physically and mentally, than either of us had anticipated, and we wanted to see it through as partners.

I still couldn't stomach more than small amounts of mostly simple sugars, although I had at least moved on to granola bars. Still, even late in the day, my successful energy intake for the entire race wasn't more than 1,000 calories, and even that number was debatable given I was still experiencing bouts of diarrhea. It is interesting to experience the gap of what we think we need and what we actually need. Bodies can do impressive things if they have to. My <1,000 calories of simple sugars was enough to sustain the fat- and muscle-burning process, carrying my body for 38 miles and nearly 10,000 feet of climbing on fumes. A person can't move fast in this mode, and it certainly isn't sustainable indefinitely. But the fact I was still moving at all made me feel grateful for human biology.

The final two miles descended into an incredible river gorge beneath peaks that were 5,000 feet higher than the valley floor (Yes, these are still the foothills.) We were still both too weak to entertain the effort of running — even on a gentle downhill grade — but at least we were emerging from the sickness fog. We walked with a Spanish woman, Ana Sebastian, who is usually a fairly fast runner but was also battling "The Bug." I could sense her frustration with struggling in a race she expected to do well in, for reasons she couldn't control. I also admired her willingness to keep at it even though illness forced her out of top competition. It must be especially difficult when expectations are dashed, although I don't think anyone could be disappointed about the opportunity just to travel through these incredible mountains.

We reached the finish at 2:12 p.m. for a stage time of seven hours and 12 minutes — an hour and a half faster than stage one even though the distance was a little longer. Basically, this just means Beat's low gear is faster than mine. At least it offered a few more hours of downtime before we really had to worry about eating dinner. I was still dreading that chore. 

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.

Culture shock

As the three of us ran into the finish line together - Beat, me and our new Canadian friend Patrick - I absorbed the strange familiarity of the scene. Beautiful Nepali children twirled in rapid circles, world flags flapped in the breeze, and the November sun cast brilliant light on the 8,000-meter peaks towering over the valley. A race official draped a medal over my neck as an old man dabbed red paint on my forehead. We had come a long way in one week. Farther than I could yet understand.

Contrasting the celebratory scene was a memory from the night before the race began, in Camp One just outside of Pokhara. I stumbled out of my tent for the fifth time that night and sprint-shuffled to the toilet, making it just in time to experience the startling sensation of purging a nearly clear liquid out of two ends simultaneously. I have had the flu and intense food poisoning before, but I had never before been so sick to really experience what it's like to have a body reject itself. As I stumbled back to my tent, I became so weak and dizzy that I had to lay down in a rice paddy, with my head resting on a clump of grass. They sky was white with stars, surrounding a sliver moon. The snowy mass of Annapurna South seemed to glow in the starlight. "If I don't start the race tomorrow, they won't let me continue. I won't be able to see any of it. Any at all."

I don't remember much about stage one. I remember Beat coaxing me out of the tent to the starting line and force-feeding me Hi-Chew candies. I remember sucking down sips of water at the first checkpoint and gasping as I struggled to keep it down. The race volunteer looked so concerned I thought for sure they were going to pull me out of the race, if I didn't quit myself. I remember wanting to quit. I remember Beat pulling me up the first mountain by holding one of my trekking poles as I limped along behind him. I remember vomiting water and Hi-Chews right in front of two Nepali children. I remember taking stone steps one at a time between rests with the other sick back-of-packers. I remember the Annapurna skyline in the sunlight. Actually, I guess there's a lot I remember about stage one. It was a difficult challenge unlike anything I've ever taken on.

I didn't want to gut out the first stage of Racing the Planet Nepal but I did. I'm so glad I did. It was an incredible experience and as the time comes I'll have much more to say about it, and of course tons more photos. More to come.