Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 112, November 2018 | Page 28

TRAIL RUNNING
World’s
Highest
Trail Race
My wife Cindy and I took part in the amazing Tenzing Hillary Everest Marathon, which included an 11-day pre-race hike
up to the Advanced Base Camp, where Everest climbers start their acclimatisation ahead of their climb. Even though we’d
hiked to Base Camp before, this was still an incredible running adventure. – BY HENNIE PELSER
Himalayan Adventure
However, even with the best planning, the execution
sometimes fails... Winters in Japan are terrible, with
wind, rain and sometimes snow being normal. Also,
I had to travel for work a few times, and we had
a week-long holiday to Vietnam planned a month
before the event. All these combined saw us arriving
in Kathmandu on the 11th of May slightly
overweight and way under-trained.
On top of running the highest trail run in
the world, you first have to hike for 11
days from Lukla Airport to Base Camp
to start the marathon in freezing
conditions on the 29th! Lukla is
the most dangerous airport in the
world, as there is no radar, and
the pilots fly by sight, landing on
a very, very small airstrip. Our
flight on the 17th was delayed
by four hours, and once we were
airborne, we were forced to turn
around at the halfway point due to
zero visibility, but we eventually got
through a few hours later.
28
Aboard the flight to Lukla
The race was started as a tourism initiative to
commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first
summit of Mount Everest in 1953 by Edmund Hillary
and Tenzing Norgay, and the race takes place at
the end of spring climbing season, when most of
the mountaineers have completed their summit
expeditions. (In fact, the season ended on the 29th
this year, same day as the race, and during our two
days at Base Camp we saw the Sherpas bringing
down the ladders from the Khumbu Icefall.)
ISSUE 112 NOVEMBER 2018 / www.modernathlete.co.za
Taking the High Road
The route we would hike is the normal Base Camp
hiking route we did a few years ago, followed by the
race itself:
Day 1: Lukla (2860m) to Phakding (2610m)
Day 2: Phakding to Namche Bazaar (3550m)
Day 3: Acclimatisation rest day at Namche Bazaar,
with a short hike and 4km run back
Day 4: Namche Bazaar to Khumjung (3790m)
Day 5: Khumjung to Pangboche (4012m)
Day 6: Pangboche to Dingboche (4359m)
Day 7: Acclimatisation rest day at Dingboche, with a
short hike and 3km run back
Day 8: Dingboche to Lobuche (4940m)
Day 9: Lobuche to Gorakshep (5170m)
Day 10: Acclimatisation rest day at Gorakshep, with
short hike to Khalapathar (5500m)
Day 11: Khalapathar to Base Camp (5335m)
Day 12: Acclimatisation day at Base Camp
Day 13: Marathon day
The weather was mostly warm and clear in the
mornings, and we could hike in short sleeves, with the
M
any people have a bucket list, but sometimes
something new drops into your bucket when
you least expect it. Cindy and I did the Everest
Base Camp Hike in December 2016, and since then
we had moved to Japan in April 2017. Then in August
I read on a trail running Facebook page about a South
African woman that took part in the 2016 Everest
Marathon. I checked out the website, and saw it would
take place on the 29th of May, and would be the 15th
running of the race. It looked like fun, a marathon
starting at 5364m... Hey, been there once, why not go
back and run as well? A quick message with the link to
my wife, asking “Are you in?”, and two minutes later we
were already making plans.