A marathon on the roof of the world, an emotional and physical roller coaster

Running a Marathon is hard… But running the Everest Marathon is just something else. Altitude illness, low temperature, muscle pain blended with intense emotion and spectacular environment, leave an unforgettable print on the minds of the ones who dared! Ollie walk us through this amazing race that he successfully finished!

Why this race?

Honestly, this race felt like a perfect fit for me. I had experience of running ultra-distance trail and mountain races in the UK and Europe and had been looking for a way to make my running more adventurous, I had also been looking at doing the classic Everest Base Camp trek anyway – That’s actually how I found out about the Everest Marathon, while I was looking at going just to visit the base camp. So when I saw that I could trek up to base camp and then run a marathon I was sold on the idea instantly.

What was the build-up to the race like? What logistics are involved?

There’s a statistic I read somewhere about normal road marathons, I can’t remember the figures exactly but it basically came down to the fact that most people who pull out of a marathon do so before they cross the start line. The Everest Marathon is the epitome of this idea, getting to the start line takes a pretty big effort – And once you’re up there the only way down (aside from helicopter evacuation) is on foot anyway.

Everybody meets up in Kathmandu for a press conference and introduction by the founder of the event, then from there, we had a bit of travelling to the town of Ramechapp where we stayed overnight before flying up to the famous airport at Lukla early the next morning to start our trek. From there we spent 12 days trekking up towards Everest Base Camp, following the traditional trail with several rest days to help acclimatise to the increasing altitude. Once we got to base camp we spent two nights camping there alongside the Everest expedition teams to give us a chance to acclimatise to the sort of air we would be running in.

How did you find the altitude? And you did this race at 25 years old, do you think that was an advantage or disadvantage?

Altitude is what it is. It makes everything harder for sure, and it has the potential to turn small problems into bigger problems if you’re not careful. I learnt a lot about myself from this, for me, I think successful acclimatisation comes down to a combination of two things; accepting the fact that there’s a process my body has to go through, that I’ll feel rough at times and I need to take care of myself to allow my body to do what it has to do. But alongside that, you also have to be able to tell the difference between “This just sucks a bit because there’s half the oxygen available that I’m used to” and “I’m getting sick and need to rest/sort myself out”. That isn’t always easy if you’ve not experienced altitude before, it can be a pretty fine line between the two and getting it wrong can have consequences. In the second week of the trek I caught a cold that’d been going around our group, it wasn’t too bad initially but combined with the increasing altitude it really started to take it out of me.

I don’t really know if my age helped or not. From the reading I’ve done, there isn’t any proven link between age and successful acclimatisation, although there’s some anecdotal evidence to say that the profile I fit (Young, male, very fit & active) can have a rough time of it. I’d suggest that’s more psychological than physiological though – If you want to storm through each day's trekking, go for extra training runs in the evening, drink beer in all the tea houses and don’t take care of yourself then, of course, you’re going to come out of it worse off. And they’re all the things that young, fit, competitive people like to do. I tried to take it easy and listen to my body, there’s no prize for getting to that evening’s tea house first. My dad told me once “If you were any more laid back you’d fall over” – I think that trait was more of an advantage than my age.

How did it feel when you realised you were looking right at Everest?

It was amazing. It’s hard to put into words how it felt to be staring at the highest mountain on earth. One morning before the race we went out early to walk up Kala Patthar, we saw the sunrise behind Everest which was phenomenal. The Himalayas are a very special place.

On race day, what was your state of mind when you woke up?

Cold! Until the sun comes up from behind the mountains it’s pretty cold there. I was a combination of nervous, excited, and also relieved. As I mentioned earlier, there’s just so much involved simply to get to the start line of this race that once I realised it was race day, I was awake, I was definitely going to be running, and I hadn’t forgotten my trail shoes. I actually felt a huge sense of relief. Obviously once I got down on to the start line that turned back to fear again pretty quickly.

So once the race started, how hard was it?

It was hard. Really hard. For the first mile or so you’re running on glacier and moraine which is slightly difficult underfoot, then there’s the altitude to contend with again. Even with the acclimatisation time, we had you’re still affected by the reduced amount of oxygen available to you. After a short, while I sort of managed to settle into a groove with it, it was still hard, but it was a sort of hard I could rationalise and deal with.

There must have been some hard times when your body was telling you to stop, how did you get through these?

Yeah, there were definitely times when I wanted to sit down at the side of the trail and cry. There are a few things that help me deal with this, first and foremost I’m a pretty stubborn person so I kind of already have the ability to grit my teeth and push on even if I don’t want to. Through past experiences with running, climbing, and life, in general, I’ve also become comfortable with discomfort. A lot of people talk about “Be comfortable being uncomfortable” but to genuinely be at peace with discomfort and pain takes some work. When I was running a particularly nasty section of the course I was in a lot of discomforts, I wasn’t happy, and I had the mental demons come knocking at the door as well. So, although it was hard, and I don’t want to understate how hard it was, when those things come along it’s almost like meeting an old friend again – Although it’s perhaps a friend you don’t really want to see.

Being able to frame it like that, and see the pain and negative thoughts as something familiar was probably what got me through it. It was kind of like “Okay, this sucks and I want to quit. But I’ve been here before” – If you can see it as something familiar then it isn’t so overwhelming and you can get back to the important thing which is putting one foot in front of the other. Plus, as I mentioned earlier, there’s no roads or vehicles – So unless you’re going to call a helicopter then the only way back to the finish is on foot.

How did it feel when you crossed the finish line?

It was a weird feeling! For most of the race I felt like I was going to break down in tears the moment I crossed the finish line, but that didn’t happen – I think I was too exhausted to feel particularly emotional at that point and far too dehydrated to cry. I really just wanted to eat and drink after I finished, I don’t think I had processed everything that happened. The race finishes in Namche Bazaar, so there was still something like 5 days before I’d be getting on a plane back home. I think that meant it didn’t really sink in until sometime later, so the normal “finish line feeling” you get from a big trail race or ultra came along quite a bit later.

How did you feel after you got home? Did you experience any kind of depression afterwards?

I went through a bit of a rough time after I got home. For a start, I was pretty unwell. The cold I picked up whilst I was out there had turned into a sinus infection, and I had this awful hacking cough. So suddenly my body wasn’t doing all the stuff I’m used to being able to do. When I was in Nepal trekking and running, I was feeling brilliant, probably because of the endorphins, your body releases when you’re exercising. All that stopped like someone turning out a light switch the moment I landed back at Heathrow airport. It was one hell of a comedown to say the least. It took me quite a while to properly get over.

So what’s your next adventure?

The plan is to go back to Nepal to climb some 6000m peaks! That’s if the “you-know-what” doesn’t put a stop to it. I definitely want to do some more running in remote and beautiful places like this though, and there’s also an Everest Ultra, so watch this space!

Read about the full experience of Ollie in his blog.