Dignity
Equity, Diversity & Inclusion
The Great Silk Run in Tajikistan.
The Great Silk Run! This is the first time I would have done any multi-day race. In March 2023 I did my first ultra-marathon, covering a total of 57 kilometers through the Dalat hills. It was incredible, but the next day I could barely move my legs. So the idea of doing eight consecutive days of running is mind boggling.
The training for this has also had to take priority in my life. I currently run 13 kilometers five times a week, and will soon increase to twice a day, five days a week. In the Hanoi heat this is particularly challenging. As I am ‘heart rate training’ to improve my endurance, I have to run at a heart rate of 154 bmp (beats per minute) or less. This is even harder when hot weather increases your heart rate. Each 13 kilometer run takes me about two hours to complete.
I would like to say a huge thank you to my friends and colleagues who have been taking my bag into work, to allow me to run from my home in Truc Bach, Ba Dinh, to my workplace in Long Bien!
The Challenge.
For the run in Tajikistan itself, we will start at the Afghan-Tajikistan border and then run for eight consecutive days. The shortest day will be 31 kilometers, the longest day will be 48 kilometers, which averages out to roughly 42 kilometers per day, or about a marathon a day. Meanwhile the incline each day ranges from 2000m to 4000m. The incline is something I am the most worried about, because Hanoi is so flat I haven’t had much training for incline. Fortunately, the two steepest days are the last two, meaning that my legs won’t be destroyed at the beginning of the trip!
Without doubt the greatest challenge of this will be the mental endurance aspect. After a long day of running, there will not be tea and medals at the end - at least not for eight days. The plan is to chunk the day into 13 kilometer sections. Continuing to move when you are exhausted, drained and with no ‘end’ in sight, will be the hardest moments. I expect them to be awful. I have been there before in races when my legs are screaming, and my insides are twisted, where I have fleetingly considered dropping out.
This is called ‘the wall’.
I never have dropped out of a race, and have always found a strange at-peace feeling when I have moved past ‘the wall’. But this race, The Great Silk Run, will be totally different. I will be in a team of people, including my cousin Nick, the group leader, who is an adventurer and ultra-athlete who has climbed Everest and run across Iceland etc. To be honest, I do not know exactly how hard it will be, maybe I wouldn’t even attempt it. Therefore I am GLAD I do not know.
7 days.
282km
I'm raising $2,000 (USD) for HopeBox Vietnam.
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