ENDURANCE » KALAHARI DESERT
BREATHTAKING AND
LIFE CHANGING
by Dion Leonard, winner of KAEM 2017
n 2012 I bought my wife Lucja a
book entitled “World’s Toughest
Endurance Challenges” and
jokingly said that whatever page she
opened up to, we’d do. The page she
opened was about the Kalahari Augrabies
Extreme Marathon in South Africa.
I’d never run a marathon before, let
alone a multistage desert endurance
race, when I first headed to the Augrabies
Falls National Park. Little did I know
then how much buying that book would
impact our lives. I’m based in Edinburgh,
and this first taste of desert running
would lead to more races, including one
in the remote Gobi desert in 2016 that
saw me adopting a stray dog and making
headlines in my quest to get her from
China to Scotland.
When I lined up for my third KAEM, it
had been 15 months since that run in
China. I was pretty nervous at the start,
and worried that my rushed lastminute
training wasn’t going to see me through
the full distance. However, I didn’t
want to pass on the chance to run in
the stunning seclusion of the Kalahari
Desert. I went with the thought that, if
nothing else, I would enjoy the adventure
and sunshine on offer.
I took a comfortable second position on
day one, and pushed hard on stage two
to take my first-ever stage win at this race
– and give myself a small seven-minute
overall lead. I kept the pressure on during
stage three, where the temperature really
pushed everyone to their limits, and
I
increased my lead. We camped beside
the Orange River that night and I enjoyed
the afternoon swimming and washing my
clothes before the long stage on the menu
for the following day.
On day four, the front runners had the
dubious pleasure of starting last in the
scorching midday heat. This penalty
for being fast meant that, like the rest
of the field, we’d have to run in both the
daytime heat and the cold, dark of the
night. I started strong, but when my main
competitor had to drop out, I realised I
could take my foot off the gas and enjoy
the 70km stage a little more. The early
evening thunderstorms were extraordinary
to watch as I ran through the runners
ahead of me and I spent some time talking
to them on my way to the finish. The race
was effectively over as my lead increased
to three hours, so the remaining stages
involved me chatting to the other runners
and checkpoint staff. To run the final short
stage into the Augrabies Falls National
Park as the race winner was something
that four years previously I would never
have dreamt possible.
The Kalahari Desert is very beautiful
and running with giraffe, zebra and
springbok in the national park is
breathtaking and life changing.
I have met some truly inspiring and
incredible people at KAEM. They’re
from all walks of life, and doing this
extreme event for their own reasons.
I’m so grateful to have been involved with
this race. The organisers and volunteers
do a world-class job!
KAL AHARI
AUG RABIES
EX TREME
MARATHON
NEX T RACE
10-20 October 2019
116