All posts tagged: chile

Chile — Racing The Sun

Published by Colin Nanka

We started the day at 8am after a brutal cold night camping out on the salt flats. This desert has huge extremes and we are getting both of them. The long march started out with 16km of salt flats. Mix of crusty trail and nasty craggy hard and sharp salt. Many places all you can do is hike, carefully and try not to blow any ankle. It knocks the wind right out of you. The next two stages were mix of hard and soft packed sand and I handled ok. Just pushed one stage at a time. It’s amazing how your mindset changes in this day. I judged wanted to get through the first 42km so I could push hard in the last three. After the end of stage 3 – 32km, we got a surprise, they gave each of us the choice of Coke or Pepsi. Coke it was! Oh man, what a boost! Gave us a good jolt and helped me run a difficult stage four. A mix of sand, salt flats, a …

Chile — Resiliency Stage 2

Published by Colin Nanka

Resiliency My mantra going into this race was “Strong, Resilient and Grateful.” My continuation of “Strong, Relaxed and Grateful” from Iceland. I talked with a couple people about preserving energy in this race. Today, as with many people, the breakfast didn’t taste so good and had to focus on keeping it down. Had to trek most the first stage. Once I got the stomach in check I was able to run a decent amount of the final three stages. We ran down and hiked up huge dunes and had a 15km salt flats from hell section. It was hot, monotonous, and crusty. Everyone hated it. On a new note, bit by two bugs, one had sharp teeth, took a quill in the foot. Was pre warned but we’re hard to see. Surface wound. Pulled it out and kept going to. Our tent had a good day. 1,2, 10,11, 12, 20, 43 (me), 50 and the Finns! 7/8 of us are in. Our inspirational Finn still on course. We know he’ll make it. I’m tired, the …