It's Not About the Race!

My good friend and coach Bud Baldaro has always pointed out my tendency to wax lyrical about my races. “Oh get out of it, Davidson,” he usually says when I complain of ‘turning my lungs inside out’ or running ‘eyeballs out’ on some course or other, but I’ve no need for melodrama here. The cold hard facts of the race speak for themselves: 20km of mountain racing, ascending 1500m on the ominously named ‘Skyline Track’ within the first few miles, then climbing further still to 2,800m before dropping off the side of the mountain down granite slabs and hard-packed clay soil to the finish. Phew!

I’m sure there must be more gruelling races on offer in different parts of the world, but I promise you, in terms of its sheer originality, there is no race in the world like this one.

The worst I usually have to face are a few hills and tors around my home town of Liskeard. But what also made this so different from any other race I can imagine was the sheer joy of the people in the run-up to the event. I don’t know how else to put it. Hundreds were in a party mood as they waited excitedly for their running bib. The air was vibrant with laughter and chatter. This race does not charge its entrants. Its purpose is to unite all the porters working around Mount Mulanje and to publicise the importance of AIDS awareness. It’s a wonderfully sociable and lively event, and as I was welcomed into the race and even hugged by several of the other competitors, I realised I had never been to an event like it. It was fabulous. The carnival atmosphere continued right to the gun as people sang and some of the younger girls competing held my hand. No one really knew what time we would begin.

“When we’re ready,” came the puzzled reply to my blatantly stupid question!

And that is precisely what happened. Lots of warnings were given about taking short cuts and everyone nodded sagely in approval and clapped, then the gun went off around 8.45am and everyone except Mark and I shot off into the bushes to cut the first corner off!! Initiative on this course was a definite advantage! In front of me was a whole array of outfits; very few of them resembled what we would call ‘running gear.’ Most people were barefoot, one girl wore a 1980s style raa raa skirt and a puff sleeve top and some of the men wore cut off suit trousers. However, state-of-the-art running appareil, or rather the lack of it, did not hinder them in the least. The first porters shot off into the distance at a breath-taking pace as the path climbed brutally. Teresa, the 16 year old African cross-country champion quickly disappeared out of view. The only time I’d really seen her was when she shyly came up and shook my hand before the race. Diminutive and pretty, I wondered if I was shaking the hand of a future Olympic star.

Mark, my husband elected to stay with me on the course and I came to be very glad of his company. Within 15 minutes I was forced to walk because the sheer severity of the Skyline Track and the rapid ascent left me gasping for oxygen. At this juncture I would probably have told Bud that my lungs were ‘sticking together’ and he would have replied “stop getting all Dickensian on me, you long-legged Cornish tart and get on with it!” At least that’s how I heard his voice in my head as I craned my neck to the top of the mountain and thought, “I can’t do this.” It was only Bud lambasting me, Mark’s presence and a guy called Bob Brown, who was at that moment running a marathon a day for 71 days, that kept me going. I thought “what have I got to complain about when Bob is crucifying himself for 71 days? Surely I can manage a few hours”? I reached the top of the mountain in 4th or 5th (female) place and gulped down a cup of water thinking “why the hell haven’t I brought my own water up here”? Both Mark and I had been so preoccupied with the building work that our preparation for the race had been abysmal and we were both paying for it in the form of severe dehydration.

From that point on I began to deteriorate little by little until I struggled even to remain on my feet. Mark had to hold onto me and was an incredible support as I felt like I’d ‘hit the wall’ several times over. People flooded past me and were exceptionally supportive, grabbing my hand and calling,

“come on sister”.

Had I been compos mentis I’m sure it would have helped enormously, but now I was just focused on getting off the mountain, all thoughts of competing gone.

In the run up to the race Mulanje had suffered from ‘Chiperone,’ (high winds and storms), which had left the granite and clay treacherous and slippery as ice. This meant that our descent became a much stiffer prospect than the climb up the Skyline Track. In total I fell six times, twisting my knee, severely bruising and cutting my elbow, and finally (the last straw) hitting my head on a jutting rock. I was in pieces and sat down on the side of the mountain in furious tears, desperate to be back at base. I felt so ashamed and pathetic after watching so many competitors stream into the distance with bare feet cut to shreds, but not in tears like me. They were going to finish no matter what. Well, to be frank, you have little choice except to finish when you’re half way down a mountain, so I dragged my sorry self to my feet with the sole aim of staying on them! By this time the lime-marked trail was also stained with big blobs of blood, so it was quite easy to see that I was going the right way! Several competitors had stopped for a quick snooze in the bushes, also exhausted, but I didn’t dare; I knew I wouldn’t start again!

Mark’s soothing encouragement combated the fury I felt within myself for being so weak and ill-prepared, and he certainly kept me sane as the descent wore on...and on…and on. When we finally got to the last river crossing I was too shattered to be euphoric. The pair of us staggered across the line then found a nearby bush to be violently sick in. Not our most glorious moment, but we had done it. Hallelujah…I think! The queue for the cup of complementary rice was by now too long. I couldn’t wait, I couldn’t even stand and we had no money on us to buy drinks, so we staggered back a quarter of a mile to collect our rucksacks and were a comical sight as we tried to set up camp and tend to ourselves. Mark continued to wretch violently and later developed a fever as a result of his dehydration. It became a real task to try and get enough electrolytes and water down his throat as he shivered and wretched in the heat of the day. Happily good old Dirolyte eventually did the job and revived him. Two days later we were trekking across the massif back on good form.

When I look back on the Mountain Porters’ Race, I don’t feel any great sense of achievement. I was naïve, irresponsible in my preparation and I paid for it dearly. But I have taken many things away with me that I DO want to remember: for one, the awe I felt at the incredible fitness of the porters and some of the girls in the race. All the clichés leap to mind: hard as nails, fit as fiddles, fleet of foot…These young people, who run this race in a shade over two hours, have been plagued by AIDS. Their fit bodies wracked and destroyed by this vile disease, and it’s hard to imagine as you watch them run, but this region of Malawi has been hardest hit in a country where nearly one third is HIV+. This race urges those at risk to learn and change their behaviour and ultimately to protect themselves. It’s a message that is getting through. The best part of the day for me was the lengthy conversation I had with Wellington, a 16 year old boy who told me all about the AIDS education he was receiving in school and how he was positive he wasn’t going to be a victim of this disease. In a country that has been so traditionally conservative about discussing these kinds of issues, here was a boy completely unembarrassed talking candidly, and knowledgably I might add, to a female stranger. He was far less embarrassed than many students in my own classes in Britain and I felt exhilarated to witness this. The race is only a drop in the ocean, but it’s a fantastic AIDS awareness event, and its message is reverberating around the mountain loud and clear. I was privileged to run at the back of it!

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