The Atacama Crossing - My Experience in a Multi-Stage, Multi-Day Race by Sumanth Cidambi

It is now a little past 3 AM on Sunday, 20 March 2011, just over a week to the day I completed the 2011 edition of the Atacama Crossing, or AC in short.  Life is slowly returning to normal after the culmination of almost nine months of training regime.  What made it especially sweet was that I was the first Indian to have completed this event and even more so, for the first time in the AC, there were two competitors from India - Michelle Kakade from Pune and me.  I am writing this down in the fervent hope that we see more Indians from India participate in such challenges globally.

To wind the clock back a bit. . .

The idea for the AC came to me through a post on Facebook and a mail that one of my Singapore based friends sent me last March.  I went to the website, www.4deserts.com and my interest was gradually piqued by what I read.  At that time, I was what you would call a free lance runner with no set time or distance goals.  My running was mostly at the local parks in Hyderabad and I used to cover a distance of about 45-50km every week, on a good week.  Given that I am diabetic, I used to run to ensure I got my weekly quota of exercise to keep fit and my sugar levels under control.

I kept going back to the 4D website a few times and read about the course itself, what it meant to run a self supported race in harsh climatic conditions, the experiences of the runners who had gone before me and a whole host of other information. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the course itself, the AC is a six-day six-stage race covering 250 kilometres (or nearly 160 miles).  It takes place in the heart of the Atacama Desert in Chile, South America.  The desert itself is 15 million years old and 50 times more arid than California's Death Valley.  The entire race is held at an altitude varying between 2,400m-3,200m above sea level.  Daytime temperatures are expected to reach 40 degrees Celsius/104 degrees Fahrenheit, while night-time temperatures may drop to 5 degrees Celsius/41 degrees Fahrenheit.

Joining me in this race were over 120 other people from 35 countries.  The entire race is self-supported which means that each individual must carry his or her own gear, food and clothing for all days in a backpack.  There are just checkpoints, plenty of water (at checkpoints and campsites), tents (at the campsites at the end of each stage) and medical assistance – no other outside assistance is allowed.

In late May of last year, I decided that I would run the race in 2011.  I made my first tentative plans towards a training schedule that started off at a modest 50km per week, interspersed with strength training and (just before tapering down) would ideally finish at roughly 140km per week.

My training runs were based at Hyderabad’s famed Kasu Brahmananda Reddy Park or KBR as the locals refer to here.  The course was roughly 5km distance that I used to run anywhere 3-4 times on a single run, depending on my energy levels.  My kit was a very simple pair of running tees and shorts and the shoes I was then using were Reebok’s DMX Shears.  The iPod kept me company on some days, and of course, there was water and bananas for nutrition.

By July-August last year, I was comfortable running distances of close to 20-25km in single runs, at my own pace.  The idea was not to run at a fast pace but rather cover more distance, i.e. a stronger-for-longer approach to running.  Running was also interspersed with floor exercises and stretching at the gym, including the mandatory exercises for building the core. 

Given that I had to carry my own food, supplies and all gear for the entire duration of the race, I needed to build strength on my back and shoulders.  I slowly started strength training, one aspect that I have never been comfortable with ever.  I dislike weights and even more, lifting them!!  However, I looked upon this as an area that needed to be worked upon and accordingly devised a set of simple exercises that would help me.  Happily, I became quite comfortable with the weights training regime.

Come September, I was really fired up and the weekly distance was a comfortable 70-75km, interspersed with gym training.  The routine varied between two short runs of 13-15km on Mondays and Wednesdays, strength training and elliptical training on Tuesdays and Thursdays and two long runs (20-25km) on Fridays and Saturdays.  I had also started nutrition for the main event, primarily comprising Hammer Nutrition’s (www.hammernutrition.com) extensive range of products - I started using Sustained Energy and Perpetuem together with Race Caps Supreme and Endurolytes.  Given that I wanted my body to become comfortable with these, I tested them extensively.

My sole pillar of support was my family - my wife Nandita, a doctor and nutritionist by qualification who made sure that I got my meals in time, monitored my daily calorie intake and most importantly, sacrificed her time.  I am very grateful to her for putting up with my eccentricities and oddities necessitated by the training, the least of which is having her sleep disturbed at 3/4 AM when I wake up to head out - for the demands made on her time to accommodate me -for making me many meals through the day to keep my constitution up and for all the other endless things she did to help me stay focused on my running objectives.  The second was my son Atri, who is now too young to realise but he unwittingly gave up time away from me and found ways to keep himself occupied when I was too tired to play with him and for welcoming me happily when I got back home exhausted after a long run.

By December, I was in a comfort zone that I was finding difficult to break - 80-90km per week of freestyle running interspersed with strength training.  I also met with the Hyderabad Runners Club in late November, through the common acquaintances of Bhasker Sharma from Bangalore.  The HRC members welcomed me warmly and took me into their fold.  After almost six months of solitary running, I was now running with a group and that made me feel so motivated and enthused.  I started running with a backpack, simple weights at first 3-5kg and gradually increased it to 9-10kg by mid January 2011.  I also ran the Mumbai marathon earlier this year and completed it in a time of 5hr30mins.  I was quite chuffed since this was the first time I had actually run over 90km in a single week, in a long time (I clocked 117km that week, including the marathon).

I also started to include some basic yoga asanas in my weekly routine, primarily centred on the back and stomach areas to help strengthen them.  In February, one aspect that was added to the training program was 15-30minutes of meditation each day, to calm the mind.  The race itself, I realised, was equally a physical and mental exercise.  One should have the mental strength to go through with it in an enthused manner.  It was very important for me to have a frame of mind that made me want to complete the race and not just approach it with a “just-do-it” mentality.  The risk we run in the latter mindset is that it becomes all too easy to give up.

In the background, there was a whole lot of activity happening on the administrative preparations for the event - medical tests to be completed and sent, travel arrangements to be completed, visas to be obtained, et al.  I also identified the charity I wanted to support, the Nethaji Mercy Home (www.nethajimercyhome.org) in Chennai.

I had also flown to Hong Kong for a brief holiday and while there, I went to the RTP store there to kit myself out - lots of food (Hammer, Nuun, and Expedition foods), some clothing accessories and a new pair of shoes, Inov-8's Roclite 318 GTX.  These were the shoes I wore on the main run, so a one-month break in period seemed reasonable.  Also, I picked up a few pairs of Injinji moisture wicking toe socks to run in.  I found Injinji to be most comfortable and coupled with Hydropel sports gel, they worked like a charm.  During the actual run, I got off with just one blister through the entire week.

My final equipment list read somewhat like this – 30litre backpack, sleeping bag, headlight and backup, compass, knife/multi-tool, whistle, survival bivvy, sunscreen, lip screen and blister kit, medicines for fever, inflammation, etc, red flashing LED safety light, jacket, shorts/tights/underwear, t-shirts, shoes, socks, cap and AC buff, fleece hat, iPod and sunglasses.

In addition, I carried food for six-seven days including freeze dried meals, nutrition fuels/gels, energy bars, electrolytes, salt stick caps, instant coffee and creamer.  Primary brand of choice, which I have tested extensively was Hammer Nutrition's range - Sustained Energy, Heed, Recoverite, Endurolytes, Race Caps Supreme and Hammer Whey followed by Cliff Energy Bars (Chocolate Almond Fudge, very handy) and Nuun.  Dinner is a preset menu - Expedition Foods' Vegetable Tikka and Rice or similar for seven nights.  The daily calorie intake is a minimum of 2,000 calories per day (I was roughly at a 2,400-2,800 count per day).

I also carried a plastic plate and a fork as well as water bottles to carry 2.75 litres of water or more at any given time - Raidlight, Camelbak and Platypus were first choice equipment, having been tested thoroughly during training - they've survived quite a few drops, falls, etc with no damage.  In addition, stuff like tablet-towels, wet-wipes, etc form part of the equipment I carry (there's more but let me not bore anyone with the details).  Lastly, and importantly, I carried my book of prayers for my daily reading.

The trick was then to pack all the above and see how the backpack weighs.  Ziplock bags and Sea-to-Summit's Ultra Sil Dry Sacks were the heroes here!!  I was aiming for between 7.0-7.5kg on the back and about two litres of water up front!!  My actual pack weight was 11.5kg during the event, excluding the water supplies.

The only off putting news was that my Polar RS400 wrist watch's strap broke so I just pinned it to my back pack, close to me to measure heart rate (it worked just fine!!)  The foot pod was switched off as it has been acting up a bit recently and giving me wrong calibration (I intend to get this fixed now).  As regards, navigation - Garmin remained the hands-on favourite.  I used a Garmin Oregon 550 and I just needed to set the satellite and some related settings to position accurately in the South American hemisphere.  So distance, time, elevation and so on and so forth were measured with this.

My last training run was on 27 February 2011, a HRC run where I ran 21km with my entire kit strapped on my back.  I managed to complete the course in 2hrs55min and was feeling very pleased.

I flew out of Bangalore on 2 March.  The race was to commence 6 March and I wanted to get to San Pedro de Atacama, the host town, a few days earlier to acclimatize myself.  I spent a good two days walking around Santiago to get a feel for the temperature and altitude and thankfully, there were no issues at all.  The body adapted well to the environment and I was spared having to take any medicines for mountain sickness.  I also met with other participants in the AC - Gary Cambridge, Eric Goutier, Michelle Kakade, Martin Moisen, Scott McMurtrey, Ash Mokhtari, Richard Wang, Dr. Tan Ming, among others.  Some of these people have participated and completed in other 4 Desert events before and it was an experience for me to learn from their experience and stories.

On 5 March, we had competitor check in.  My kit and equipment were inspected by the RTP staff, as were those of the other participants, to make sure we were carrying the required mandatory equipment and food.  Once this was done, we boarded the buses to Camp 1 for the overnight stay.  The race was to begin on 6 March at 8:00 AM.  After a good meal at camp, we retired early (by 8.30PM) for a restful sleep before the long days ahead.

The race started on 6 March 2011 at 8:00 AM and ended on 12 March 2011 at noon.  It comprised six stages spread across seven days.  The average daily distances on Stages 1 through 4 were 40km, Stage 5 was 73.6 km and Stage 6 was 10km.  The terrain was extremely varied ranging between loose gravel and soft ground, compact surfaces, compact tracks, 4x4 trails, wild donkey trails, river canyons, water crossings, rock ridges, steep sand dunes (up and down), crusty sand, waist high grass, gravel, hard packed sand, slate rock, soft and hard crusty salt (yes, salt!!), lake crossings, heavy vegetation and dry sandy creeks.  The Atacama Desert was a huge water body many tens of thousands of years ago and all that is left now are sand, salt and rocky surfaces.

Stage 1 was a distance of 35km that I managed to cover without too much stress, although it did have its moments.

In terms of difficulty levels, I felt Stage 2 (the Slot Canyons, 41.8km) was tough.  The first 20.8km were sheer hell - 3km by road - 8km in a river canyon where I got soaking wet upto my knees and at times, thighs - one km on a 4x4 track (and this was just upto checkpoint 1).  The next 9.6 km saw us climb up and up and up.  Great scenery but I wasn't in a frame of mind to appreciate.  The incline was really steep, at times almost 45-60 degrees.  The route to Check Point (CP) 2 ended with a tumble down through an endless sand dune, which sloped at an incline of 60-70 degrees (almost vertical, if you ask me).  As a reward, I received my first blister of the race, which was quickly treated at CP2 and after a brief rest, I set out for CP3.  The route to CP3 was an off road track and I was walking this at an easy pace of 4-5km per hour.  The terrain was just loose sand, packed at some points, rocky in the other.  What hit most of us was that the sun was right out there and blazing away.  I must have consumed about 2.5 litres of water just to keep from dehydrating.  And I promise you, CP3 was a sight for sore eyes.  I filled up and headed out to CP4 (also camp for the night).  The route to CP4 was just crusty and sandy terrain.  Lots of scrub/bushes which made one look out carefully for the route markers.  I can only say this - there was one single tree about 4km from CP4.  And this was the only tree for the last 26km or so.  When you see this, you only feel grateful to Mother Nature.  I rushed as quickly as I could manage and took a 5 minute stop and refreshed myself with water and salt tablets.  I reached CP4 at 5PM, a total of 9 hours in the desert.  I can only sum up my feelings at this time - gratitude and a renewed respect of the sun.

Stage 3 also known as the Atacamenos Trail was a total of 40km and although difficult in parts, I managed to complete and moved up to 60th spot, up 8 spots from the previous days.  During this Stage, the most difficult terrain for me terrain was enroute to CP4.  The first half was very sharp rocky surface (the kind that could cut your shoes (if you were lucky) or seriously slice your leg).  I lost time here since I was exhausted (temperature must have been about 40C and dry heat).  I just kept drinking water like it was going out of style.  The second leg (roughly 4km odd) comprised steep sand dunes (45-60degree incline) that we had to climb and descend.  Luckily for me, I had a buddy who came out of nowhere - Scott McMurtrey (check him at www.ikeeprunning.com).  He stayed with me through the last 4 km, through and through and helped me reach Camp for the night.

I do not remember much of how I completed Stage 4, the Salt Flats.  This comprised 43km in all, including about 20km of rough, crusted and sharp salt.  By this time, my legs were hurting really badly.

Stage 5, the Long March comprised 73.6km in total and started with 15km of extremely difficult salt flats (to CP1) followed by another 10 odd km of hard and crusty sand (to CP2).  I did decent time here and also managed to reach CP3 by 1PM, given the cut off was 7PM.  CP3-CP5 was brutal with a dry desert heat and no shade anywhere.  I was hobbling for the most part, given my bad legs from Stage 4 and at one point almost felt like giving up.  It is also funny, how at times you pass people, people pass you or you are moving on alone for miles and miles, just you and your thoughts.  The key was to just keep sucking up all the good thoughts and wishes and channeling them inward, to move on.

Nutrition wise, Stage 5 did not go well at all.  I could not eat any solid food for the last two days and had to force some soup in at the end of Stage 4.  To ensure no nausea or giddiness, I kept nibbling on a few sugar bars during the day, washed down with loads of water and antacids at each CP.  I also consulted the doctors monitoring us and I was assured no cause for concern.  This is a very important lesson for me as well.  I observed most of the competitors eating the food that they would eat daily.  I was experimenting with freeze dried food and I did not like it one bit after the second day.  Also, the daily “overload” of complex sugars and carbohydrates, coupled with the desert heat made me nauseous and in no state to have dinner at the end of the day.

At CP5, I took a break for two hours, consumed a large cup of miso soup and took a short nap.  At this point, I had company - Len (my tent mate) and Gary and Brad (both of whom I met a day ahead of the race).  We set off from CP5 around 10PM.  CP5-CP6 took us almost on the border of Argentina-Chile and we were told that because of border issues between the countries, we were passing through a landmine field for about 6km.  Oh well, onward and upwards.  Gary, who worked in Tanks in the Canadian Forces took lead and we followed.  We kept to the path, following the glow sticks and not straying too far from the designated path till we reached CP6.

Post CP6, we walked on through a difficult creek/river canyon.  We stopped many times over to look at the night sky.  It was beautiful to see the entire Milky Way, a sight you will never see in a city, thanks to light pollution.  We identified the Southern Star, The Belt of Orion, The Two Bears, etc.  Against the backdrop of an ink-black sky, the glowing stars were so refreshing to see.  We finally made it to Camp at 3 AM, having covered the last 20km from CP5 in 5 hours.

Stage 6 was a short 10km run that I completed in 1hr 30minutes roughly.  It felt simply great to be running into the San Pedro town square holding the Indian flag and to be greeted by other runners and the entire RTP team.  I became the first Indian to have completed this race and my time was 56 hours.  Words cannot describe the sheer joy and happiness I felt on seeing the finish line.  I just went straight ahead and consumed the pizza and coke, my first real meal in six days. 

In closing, I would like to say this.  The race itself taught me that I could and should move outside my comfort zone and that is not necessarily a bad thing.  On the contrary, I actually learnt that I could push my body to limits that it had not endured before.  It is about conditioning one’s body to recover quickly in a limited time period and get ready for the next day’s run.

Secondly, the race itself is about mental strength.  It is about having and retaining the mindset and fortitude to constantly reinforce to the body the importance of finishing and not quitting halfway.

Lastly, and most importantly, the great experience of this entire race was that the 110 participants bonded together almost as one big family.  Personally, I made several new friends including deep bonding with quite a few of them.  It opened my eyes to cultures and experiences that were hitherto unknown to me.  I also had my Hyderabad Runners t-shirt signed by several of the people who had run with me.  This and the medal  I received are now very precious to me, more for what they represent – the camaraderie of having run a tough race with some great human beings.

I would like to finish by saying that if you have the ability to run in one of these events, take the opportunity.  You will be pleasantly surprised by what you discover about yourself.

Keep running

Sumanth

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