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Everest Marathon - Nepal 2007 – The Friendship Race |
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2007 Race Report – A Run in the Clouds Everest Marathon 2007 – The Friendship RaceDon’t walk in front of me, I might not follow,
For all of us the Nepal dream started long ago. For some a year ago, for some months ago. For me it was one and a half years ago when I was running the Mongolia Sunrise to Sunset marathon. Completing this I discovered that the race was not about winning but about making friends with whom you will feel close for years because you shared a wonderful experience together! While running 100km we had a lot of time to talk, and when a friend of mine told me about the Mt Everest marathon he had done a couple of years ago, I knew this is what I wanted to do! As I had been sick a lot leading up to my departure for Nepal, I was not sure if I would be able to finish the race. This doubt was eased by my awesome tent-mate Alison who also had not trained much for the race. Right at the beginning she told me not to worry about the race too much, a holiday in wonderful Nepal was ahead of us and the race was only one day. So we approached everything in a relaxed way, had our “tent talks” every night for about an hour and made lots of friends along the way. There was Mahendra, our medical porter and, at 20 years, one of the younger of the Nepali guys on our trip. For Westerners Asian faces sometimes all look a bit similar and it is hard to recognize them after only a day. Mahendra was quickly well known by everyone in our group due to his big smile and his kindness and interest in all of us. He was the one who taught us the most Nepali language and Nepali songs. I will never forget the day when some of us were really tired on the walk to Lobuche. Mahendra was sitting on a big rock with his friend who was playing the flute and singing for us. There could not have been nicer welcome! Lila also taught us lots of Nepali, but his favourite word was “Hunosaxsa”, “maybe”! Nothing is ever sure in this country (which is quite logical regarding the fact that the government changes every 6 months, flights might leave 6 hours later than scheduled, buses might arrive or not on time) but that is what makes life interesting and it is even more impressive that people here are always smiling! In Namche Bazar we also went to the Tibetan market and I talked to these poor men in Chinese. They had taken loans from banks in Tibet, bought clothes and made the gruelling trek over the mountains until they reached Namche. Here they set up makeshift stalls and tried to sell their clothes to the locals and tourists. Living out of their primitive tents these hardy souls based themselves here through the frigid winter months trying to earn a living. Nevertheless, these men were still smiling and up for any joke…
“You cannot be a good mountaineer, however great ability, unless you are cheerful and have the spirit of comradeship. Friends are as important as achievement. Another is that teamwork is the one key to success and that selfishness only makes a man small. Still another is that no man, on a mountain or elsewhere, gets more out of anything than he puts into it.” Tenzing Norgay The great thing about having been back for two months in our own countries is that we still keep in contact with our friends from Nepal, no matter where in the world we live! And some of them we will see soon again as we are already planning the next races which we want to do together… Alex Ruch
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Life is not only about what you do but with whom you share time and whom you meet!
As David said in his poem which we were asked to write one evening: we came here to run the Everest marathon and everybody trained beforehand, but we never expected to finish it as a team and to go home with the feeling that we have made friends for life!
Another person who impressed me was a monk at Tengboche Monastery who was explaining to us about the monastery. When I showed further interest and really wanted to know what was written in Sanskrit on the ring I had bought in Tibet, he asked me to come up to his room! He showed me pictures of the god of compassion and some others who were mentioned on the ring. At the end he put a red band around my neck – a sign of eternal life. I gave him the ring of compassion because I can imagine a monk’s life being quite lonely sometimes. I no longer needed it because, at this point of the trip, I had already made so many great new friends. This is the most special part about the whole Everest Marathon adventure. Everybody had at least one day when he/she was not feeling perfect but there were so many people around you who motivated you and smiled at you: how could you be unhappy? Some of us finished the race in amazing times, some took a bit longer, but at the end whoever arrived was cheered across the finish line. As this wonderful experience was coming to an end, I had tears in my eyes. When will I ever see these wonderful people again with whom I had shared so much…?