Runner reaches for new heights of endurance
by
Bob Brownne/Tracy Press
Tracy Press
Jan 06, 2012
When Stephen Major was ready for a new challenge he wanted more of an
upgrade from 10K races to marathons.
Major’s fate was to fall in
with a group of runners who take on more than five marathons in less
than a week, usually in the most inhospitable climates the globe has to
offer.
The latest race was a seven-day, 131-mile run through the
foothills of the Annapurna range in Nepal, hosted by international race
organizer Racing the Planet, from Nov. 20 to 26. The race brought Major
to the southern edge of the Himalayas, west of Nepal’s capital of
Kathmandu.
“The roads were crazy. There were masses of people and
various sorts of vehicles and buffalo and chickens and everything
everywhere in no orderly fashion,” he said. “That took a couple days to
get used to, to navigate what in my mind was chaos. After a few days in
the country you get used to it.”
The course traversed the
mountains at 6,000 feet with competitors running at the base of a range
where mountains rise up to 20,000 feet and higher.
“Up until that
point I didn’t really get my head around how enormous this range was.
That was really an eye opener for me,” Major said. “We’re running
through nearly tropical terrain and vegetation, and in the distance, not
that far, you’re looking at snow covered peaks.”
Major finished
54th in a field 169 runners — trimmed down from the 200 that originally
began the race — to cross the finish line near the city of Pokhara.
Major
ran the six stages -- including four stages of nearly 25 miles each, a
fifth stage of nearly 50 miles, and after a day of rest, a final
nine-mile stage -- in 41 hours, 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Race
organizers adjusted distances along the way because of elevation gains
and losses of about 5,000 feet on each section, so that it turned out to
be about 131 miles total.
It included a run of nearly nine hours
on the first stage, a day when Major and other runners were burdened
with a virus that forced some, including his running partner Nicholas
Wickes, to withdraw.
Increasing the challengesThe
36-year-old engineer with the Tracy Fire Department got into running
during his early 20s as a way to remain in shape. He’s been a regular
participant in local 5K and 10K races and big events like Bay to
Breakers in San Francisco, in addition to some bicycle races.
He
elevated his degree of toughness after meeting Wickes who founded Good
For Kids Foundation of San Francisco. The two men’s wives attended
graduate school together, and the both discovered their mutual passion
for long-distance foot races through their spouses’ relationship.
“He
told me all these stories of the Racing the Planet races and other
multi-day events and distance runs,” Major said. “He had all these great
stories about the places he had traveled and the people he had met. To
top it all off, I really believe strongly in Good for Kids as an
organization and their mission.”
The nonprofit organization helps
urban children get into the arts and sports activities that have been
cut from their middle schools.
It’s the charity that Team Good
For Kids supports at each event its runners enter. In addition to paying
his own travel expenses and entrance fees, Major raised about $750, and
will match that with his own money.
Racing the Planet encourages
its participants to run in the name of charity.
“It’s
interesting to see what other people are doing philanthropically,
throughout the world, Major said. “You come back feeling like you could
do more, you need to do more, that you have the capacity to do more,
once you hear all of these people and what they’re doing.”
Training and CompetitionMajor said the real work
involved with an event like this was the months of training leading up
to the race. By the time he got to the starting line he was eager to
take in the scenery and the culture of Nepal’s countryside.
“What
Racing the Planet did really well was set the course up so that we were
running through some pretty rugged terrain, and in and out of villages,
some that have been there for centuries,” Major said.
He also
got to meet the people of Nepal. Many in Kathmandu speak English, and he
learned that cab drivers are good tour guides. His only verbal
communication with folks on the course was the country’s greeting of
“Namaste,” which he said to everyone he could.
“Everyone I met
was gracious and seemed genuinely happy to see us going through,” he
said. “There was a lot of communication visually with people cheering us
on.”
One of the surprises was the discovery of a country where
there is little in the way of government services or infrastructure.
Among
the bare essentials that he carried, he included a camera and returned
with photos he took in Kathmandu and along the course, including
Buddhist monuments, the Annapurna Range, the ancient stone staircases,
river crossings, and locals who were glad to meet the runners from
around the world.
“I think I took over 200-something pictures and
I should have taken 200 more.”
The other bonus is the chance to
become inspired by Racing the Planet’s international community of
athletes. The group that Major shared a tent with included two women who
have scaled the “Seven Summits,” the highest mountains on each of the
continents.
“It renewed my interest in hiking and climbing
mountains, so some friends and I are planning to climb Shasta, which
I’ve done before,” Major said. “Our plan is to climb Rainier in
Washington, and that’s in preparation for climbing Denali (in Alaska) in
2013.”
Racing the Planet’s multi-day events typically cover 150
miles. Every year the Four Deserts series will bring runners to the
Atacama in Chile, the Gobi in China, the Sahara in Egypt, and Trinity
Peninsula in Antarctica, considered the driest, windiest, hottest and
coldest deserts on Earth.
The series includes a “roving” event
each year. Major’s introduction to Racing the Planet was the group’s
Australia run in 2010, where Team Good For Kids runner Mia Farley was
first in the women’s division. He also ran in the Gore-Tex Trans-Rockies
race though Colorado in August, 2011, and the Nepal race, Racing the
Planet’s 2011 roving event, was his third multi-day event.
