The Burning Man Ultramarathon
The story of how some unprepared crazy people push their limits
Fuck. We’ve all done silly things in life that we are more or less proud of. For me, one of them was running the Burning Man Ultramarathon, exactly 6 months ago actually.
I want to share my story because I would highly recommend the experience.
I have had mixed feelings about that race for a little while though, because yes it was awesome, yet it also put me off running for a little bit (ok — maybe one month, but still, it counts! And only the NYC Marathon managed to reconcile me with running after that). And if you ask me even today, I don’t think I’ll do it again.
I would not encourage someone who has never ran or has not trained to do this - it’s brutal. But to someone who has ran maybe one marathon and is in relative good shape, I would say GO FOR IT, you’ll discover bits about yourself you didn’t know you had in you.
How this even started
The short answer is: I don’t remember. I guess it started when I heard about Burning Man itself: another story on its own. I decided to participate to BM thanks to one of my best friends who went the previous year and talked about it with so much enthusiasm that I was sold in less than one hour.
Then, someone in our BM whatsapp group chat mentions this marathon. So of course, being a runner, I google it. Thoughts go like this: It is in fact an Ultramarathon. Ok cool, I have never done one. What’s a few extra kms anyway? How do I sign up? Mmmh there is no link, I can’t sign up, never mind, I’ll see when I get there. I’ll pack my running shoes, and throw in a few running gels, because you know — “radical self-reliance” . Worst case I’ll just do 20k just for fun, no pressure. That was it. That was literally the extent of my BM Ultramarathon preparation. And you’ve guessed by now: a few extra kms make a LOT of difference.
Turns out: you can sign up in advance before BM starts, you can even sign up at the camp the days before the race (it’s on a Tuesday, most people arrive at BM on Saturday/Sunday). I did not do that though.
I eventually manage to find some info about the race, it’s called the BRC50K (Black Rock City 50K) and it starts at 5am on Tuesday morning at the Pink Lighting camp. Good. After all, BM life is nothing but a flow of unprepared and unexpected events. Surely, it will be ok if I show up before the race (it was).
As I described in a previous post, I was not prepared for this. Out of curiosity, I was checking my Garmin stats to write this article, and I actually ran 37km in August, and 40km in July (in case you doubt it, that’s not proper training).
The day before the race (Monday) was the proper first day at BM. I just went on about life and BM like I was not going to run that race the next day. I hardly gave it any thought. Then, my luck was that by 12pm, I was already heavily alcoholised and by 7pm, as I peaked too early, I went to (inflatable mattress) bed into my little tent (I loved that tent) despite the loud music around me. I set my alarm for 4.30am, I could do this, why not?
Race day
I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of my alarm. I was tired despite the good amount of sleep I got. Damn it was cold. Well, it’s the desert. I struggled to get out of my duvet. It was very quiet in my camp.
When you wake early to go running, and it’s dark and cold outside, whether it’s London or Black Rock City, it’s inevitable, you sometimes ask yourself: ‘Why am I doing this again?’ which I asked myself that morning. And immediately answered ‘because it’s cool’.
So for those who have both run a marathon AND been to BM (and are reading me — damn, that is NOT a lot of people is it??), you will understand the sort of outfit required to actually do a marathon AT Burning Man. Having said that, this is maybe me being precious as some people just ran naked.
- For a marathon you need good running shoes, good socks, stuff against chaffing, sunscreen, gels (sugar), a running belt to carry your gels, a watch to track your distance, time and speed (not essential at a BM race but still super nice to have) and relatively comfortable clothes
- For a regular outing in the playa, you need a scarf and goggles in case a sand storm breaks out, a hat if you are going to stay under the sun for (6?) hours, a tutu if it’s Tuesday (optional), a bottle to receive liquid, and even more sun screen. Sunglasses are also not a luxury. And if it’s dark, you need lights on you and a headlamp. And if you are biking, you need to make sure your bike has its lights on etc.
Needless to say that that was A LOT of gear to think of at 4.30am, and most annoyingly, a lot of gear to carry.
After a little bit of detours on my bike, I eventually found the Pink Lighting camp. It’s not hard but orientation in a new environment is one thing, orientation when you never had to figure out where you’re going because you always follow your friends is another, and then orientation when you are late, at 4.30 in the morning is just a bit of a nightmare!
The Pink Lighting camp is this incredibly well organised generous camp that set up one of the best organised races I have ever done in my life. Gotta give credit to the guys: they bring all the essential stuff you need for a race (a tracking chip, water relays, lots of nutritious fancy gels etc.) in the desert. AND they go the extra mile with stands that wait for you with real coconuts so you have fresh coconut water (WTH!), homemade chia chocolate caramel balls, cocktails, photographers, lots of other wonderful things I am forgetting to mention, and most importantly, a great team of cheerers throughout who stay there for the whole duration of the race! (that is.. more than 6 hours).
I felt suddenly really unprepared for this as a lot of people where already on site, had parked their bike, got their bib pinned on their shirt and were just waiting for instructions. I quickly signed up, literally 10 min before the race started (luckily not everyone was as bad as me otherwise this would never be possible! sorry everyone!!), got a chip, posed with everyone else for a pre-race picture, and asked to 3 different people the course because I was too ashamed to ask the same person more than twice. I had not quite gotten it but figured I just had to run not too slow to still be able to see the next person in front of me (tip: not that easy when only 300 people run and the race is 50k long!!!).
The race
So here we went. The weather was perfect. It was cold and still dark when we started. After 6k, I felt awesome, and said to myself ‘I am going to do this, I am going to finish this race’. This does not make any sense, let’s face it. Everyone can run 6k, not many can do 50. Yet I had made up my mind: I would finish this race. I was very confident and happy once I made that decision. And so here I went.
I started talking to a few people, and realised no one prepared for this properly. Well “no one" — a dude finished it in 3h06m. So not that dude. But I meant the people that surrounded me. Because if they did, of course they would not be running next to me, they would be in front of me or running pass me! That somehow gave me some level of comfort (although this was very illogical as I had no idea if my neighbors would finish either).
The scenery was breathtaking. Really there is no way to describe it. It felt a little bit like being Forrest Gump crossing the country and watching sun rise every morning while running. And because I had not been in the deep playa yet, near the trash fences, I just felt this was the opportunity to take me places I wouldn’t have gone otherwise (well little did I know that I would do this every night afterwards). So yes, like any marathon you do abroad, it’s an opportunity to discover the surroundings (cause how else would you do 42k on foot?).
We could see the moon, very clearly, and then suddenly the sun rising slowly, and then both the moon and the sun facing each other. The temperature was still ideal. I pass by a Boeing 747 — the first time I see it. I meet people who were just finishing their nights, some gave me sausages — I take them.
Each full lap is about 11k. You have to do 4 full laps which start and end at the camp, and then a mini 5th lap.
The first three laps are somehow very fun.
- The first one, you are in exploration mode: where are they taking me? You discover areas you have not been before. By the end of the lap, you have run c. 11k, you feel great. I start documenting the whole thing, I take some pictures, some selfie videos. Here I am, Sophie, doing a special report from BRC 50K. Did you know that on Tuesdays we wear a Tutu and the elastic is really not comfortable to run a marathon with?
- The second lap is still fun because the camps and people slowly emerge, you see what they look like in day light. Some people say hi.
- On the third lap, people are properly awake, they cheer you. Some offer you whisky and some spit at you if you say no! Runners are now spread out more thinly along the course. Some overtake you, you overtake some. You realise this is long and tiring and you take longer breaks at the stands where you have a proper 5 minute rest because it’s been 3.5+ hours now and a few minutes won’t change much. You catch up with a runner in front of you who was walking and encourage him or her to resume running with you, and then you run together and start chatting to each other. Yes you can chat because at this point, really your cardio is not the limitation given how slow you are, it’s your legs and your knees, they start to let you down. They did not quite expect any of this and are really sore now.
At the beginning of the 4th lap, my spirits are still extremely high because I am telling to myself ‘last lap’. This is a silly approximation btw. It is not the last lap. There is that 5th mini lap. It’s like when you do 42.2k for the marathon, you round them up to 40k. But really at km 40, you are not done, you have those last 2.2k to run.
The 5th lap is particularly hard because it starts like a regular lap and then at some point you turn around and go back to the camp. Inevitably, runners end up running in opposite direction, with one of the runner being the unlucky one who is beginning his/her lap while the other one is very close to the end.
I was ok though: as I entered this 5th lap, I just had no idea what was coming my way. I had no idea that I was entering another world (sorry for being so dramatic).
‘Ignorance is a bliss’ they say.
The emotions
That 5th lap though is why you do this, it is what you came for. That 5th lap is what separate the men from the boys (no disrespect intended).
As I start km44, I am still smiling, I can feel the end is quite near (WRONG!). I have finished all my previous marathons with a mega happy face, I have never ever ‘hit the wall’. ‘6km. I do this any day of the week.’
BY THE WAY this is what I had been saying to myself for the whole second half of the race. At km30: ‘20k to go? I can do that, I do that often, no biggie’. At km35: ‘15k. Easy peasy. A standard outing on the weekend’. Etc. This is my dirty little secret in a marathon when everyone hits the wall, at km33 (mile 20) I speak to myself -literally- and this is how and why the last 10k of any marathon I have ever done has always been my fastest 10k of the race: AUTO MANIPULATING MYSELF aka THE MIND.
So here I am at km44, happy.
I first meet with Ammi, who I had bumped into ages ago, at km20 or so, and she had overtaken me before sharing some most valuable Ibuprofen. I see her again and say hi and we chat a little bit.
Suddenly the race becomes difficult. As I run, that km46 mark never shows up. I keep running and my watch never bips. I keep checking it and I have only done 100m, then I wait for what feels like an eternity and check again, I am not even halfway through that km. It’s a never ending km.
That’s where I meet Connor and Dreamer — the two burners with whom I eventually finish this race. I think we first meet Connor. I had seen him before along the race, he had overtaken me a long time ago but there here he was again. Together the 3 of us with Ammi start running together. It feels already better being 3. It gives us strength. Then on the way we pick up Dreamer, he was in front of us but walking, we encourage him to resume running with us or I think he actually asks ‘Can I join you guys?’ WELL HELL YEAH — LET’S DO THIS. So here we are - the 4 of us, running side by side.
Then Ammi’s daughter joins us and bikes with us. We keep going, we cross a few runners going in the other direction. We have 4km to go and we are done.
We keep searching for that turning point: Where the hell is H (the street from which we can turn around)? Is it the next one? Nope. How many more? One? Damn that block was fucking long.
Eventually we finally see H, we turn back to the camp, somehow we lose Ammi, she is with her daughter and she seemed overall much more stable than we were. So we keep going and it’s suddenly Connor, Dreamer and me.
We talk a little bit. Not too much. Not because we are out of breath, but because every inch of our body is basically focusing on putting one foot in front of the other one.
We take turn in saying how grateful we are for running together, how much more bearable this is thanks to the other two. How we could have never kept going without each other. How we are finishing this together and how much more meaningful it is to do so. To this day, I know it was true.
At some point, I feel an overflow of emotions. I suddenly feel like crying. It’s km47, and I tell the guys ‘I wanna cry’. They tell me ‘You got this, we can do this’. I don’t want to hold them back: ‘Guys maybe you should continue without me. I am slowing you down’. ‘No no no’ they say ‘we finish this together’. I feel a bit guilty but I also feel instantly much better.
It sounds absolutely crazy but I honestly felt like giving up at km48. Can you believe it?
And then 1km later, I start crying while running. It’s weird but all these emotions come out. I don’t know why I am crying. Yes everything hurts, but that’s not the pain.
The end
A long time ago, someone told me about ‘psychosomatic diseases’ and recommended this book ‘Mortelles emotions’ by A. Exposito. In short and in a very vulgar way: both our mind and body are linked, and sometimes we go through some terrific traumas in our lives, and our brain just cannot deal with them psychologically, and because we still need to function and live and go to work and coexist with other people and cannot go completely cuckoo i.e. because we cannot let our brain freeze out of sadness or fear or anger or any kind of distress, we cope with these psychological traumas through our bodies : those “diseases” are basically a coping mecanism. Think eczema, ulcers, chronic stress, rash: it’s the way for our physical body to deal with a psychological trauma (caveat: I am no doctor but to me, it makes sense) (I apologise to the specialists in the field if this was in anyway too simplistic).
So anyway, to go back to why I cried, I think it was the opposite of a “regular” psychosomatic reaction: my body was deeply hurt and all the emotions it held inside just burst out. It could no longer hold them. I came into BM and the BRC50k a completely happy balanced person. And suddenly everything I could ever feel resurfaced, it was overwhelming and I started crying for absolutely no reason. It’s like the feelings were buried, and running unearthed them. I still today could not tell you if it was happiness, sadness, anxiety, fear, despair. It was just me crying.
The guys were really nice and tapped my back, all while still running next to each other. I dry my tears and today only realise how weird and sadistic this might have looked. At some point, we feel the end is very near. Maybe 400m to go — not even. That’s when a guy tries to cheer us up and says ‘You guys are almost there. Not even one mile to go’. The 3 of us unanimously go something like ‘One mile? No fucking way. 200 metres MAX’ .‘Yeah. What’s wrong with him?’. I think each of us probably thought ‘One mile? FUCK OFF!!’. Poor guy meant well but in our state of mind, there was just no way we could have done one extra mile.
Eventually, we see the finish line. We hold hands and we cross it, with no sprint finish.
As soon as I cross the finish line, I feel a bit underwhelmed. First: relief. Then: ‘That’s it?’
A few people cheered and clapped. But that was it. I got a medal. Well two. And well, that was it.
My friend Mido was waiting for me at the finish line. Suddenly I burst out crying (second time) and sit on the floor and he doesn’t get it. He thinks it’s happy tears. Some people think I am hurt. It’s none of that. ‘Why are you crying?’ ‘I dont know.’ with both a big laugh and a big cry.
If you had told me on August 28th, 2008 that I would run an Ultramarathon at Burning Man 10 years later, I would have laughed. ‘Really?’
6 months later, I am still proud of what I know is only a small achievement in the big scheme of things. I just learnt more about myself and that is why I would recommend the experience.
I go back to my camp. My friends treat me both like a hero and a princess who suddenly never ever needs to get up to grab anything as they attend to me so thoughtfully. I can’t even quite remember what we did on that afternoon. We continue into the night — it’s already another day.
August 28th, 2018 – 50k in Black Rock City, Nevada, a test to my mental strength. The furthest I have ever run.
