Now the word is out that I am in the race – people are asking me how I have trained for it. I suspect that they doubt my match-fit readiness for such an arduous event.  That’s OK, because I have substantial doubts myself: however, my Doctors, my Trainer, and the crew of professional experts I have assembled/hired to do the job on me are now giving me thumbs up signs, smiles, and ‘OK – you are ready’ signals.  This is much better than the contempt they were showing in January, but that was along time ago.

After nearly 30 pre-dawn, secret training sessions with Sam my fitness instructor, at Fitness 1^st, I am emerging from the cocoon of his gym with a re-shaped body.  This is necessary preparation for RtP for aesthetics reasons alone.   The participants I know, and those I have newly met, are all beautiful people.  They are athletic. They are shaped – hewn in fact.  On this sampling, I am now in great anticipation of running the desert in the company of the in-crowd.  These are clever, accomplished, people: articulate and witty.  I don’t want to let the side down, so I have had the full physical makeover as essential conditioning and will be trying hard to be urbane, graceful, in mind, word, and deed: and ever so hard in a laconic, ironic, and super cool manner throughout.   

On the physical side a lot has had to be done.  Decades ago, there was a TV show called the ‘Six Billion Dollar Man’ – about a shot-up secret agent who was bionically re-engineered by the CIA, or some such outfit, to outperform in his secret-agent line of business due to the replacement of body parts with bionic bits.  I have taken the same approach with my training but bought a much cheaper package, more biological than bionic.  It feels much the same I imagine, now I am walking around with new bits inserted under the skin – these are called muscles.  It is alsso rather like the strapped on padding used by American footballers, but it is alive, it is me.  After a ten minutes warm up on an exercise bike my thighs are swelled up and slowly revving over like a performance engine.  Under the unwanted excess of too many business lunches I now have a rock-hard core of car tyre-like reinforcement.  I am so proud of this that I am frequently tempted when standing in the elevator to challenge whoever is standing next to me to ‘go on, punch me in the stomach, as hard as you can.’      

This is a lot of progress from my starting condition a year ago.  May 2008, I was standing glass in hand at the British Consul-General’s Reception in Honor of the Queen’s Birthday when I was greeted by an old friend.  The voice I recognized, but not the hewn, lean, muscular man, rippling under the elegant business suit, white shirt and classy tie.  Odd though, that he was bare foot, except for some cloggy things on his feet.  ‘What happened to you’ I asked in total admiration.  The answer was a four letter word – ‘ Gobi ’.  From then on, I was hooked: I wanted to travel across the Gobi Desert like him: the hard way, to travel in great company with the beautiful people.  I wanted to look like that. 

I thought ‘and why not?’  For past two decades, I had made a general habit of a 5 km run in the early mornings, spent time in the gym and generally stayed lean and fit – or so I thought.  I asked the advice of stalwarts of previous RtP the events and was given generous reassurance that I was fit enough to do the Gobi or any other race, providing I had the determination to finish.  

I signed up for in mid-summer 2008 and have spent the rest of the year upping the road mileage to 10 km most mornings and increasing time in gyms - I now know los of gyms.  ‘A good start’, I thought.   In January, I hired a sports trainer.  Session one, I was put through my paces.  “What’s that noise,” he asked.  “My knees,” I answered.  Afterwards, I ached and burned throughout for several days.  He did not look happy and told me that we had a lot of work ie I – to do building muscles – throughout. .

In spite of that ongoing re-engineering: my wife and daughter had doubts, grave doubts.  In fairness to their concerns – we went to see my GP.  Who had even graver doubt?  So, we went to see my Orthopedic Surgeon.  He had no doubts – he was confident that I was in no shape for whatever it was I planned to do. 

I changed consultants to ‘Sports Physicians’ in Hong Kong .  They gave me a new perspective, a new direction, and excellent prognosis subject to necessary adjustments of body and gear.  Their Physiotherapist took a critical look at my form on a running machine – years of jogging apparently proved nothing – my gait was wrong, all the sports shoes I’d brought along were rubbish, I had been running for years with an ankle rotation and basically using my calf muscles and not my upper legs.  In short, my running was crap. The Podiatrist concurred and suggested I was a borderline case for orthotics although he liked and approved of my natty New Balance trekking shoes.  The Orthopedic surgeon specializing in feet was decisive – you get the orthotics, you build muscles, and go for some serious sports massage with ligament stretching, which I haven’t done yet because it sounds very painful.  The Orthopedic surgeon specializing in knees, listened to the clicking sounds coming from mine from many directions before deciding that, ‘yes there is deterioration but, what the heck, takes these painkillers/anti-inflammatory tablets with you as a precaution and go for it’.  In short, I am cleared for race start in .           

Over the past three months I have been working at completing the remaining training tasks – by getting onto the trails - in full combat gear.  I like this best if done with other RtP trainees, or before dawn, as I am embarrassed by the incredulous, stopping and gawking looks from the day-tripper hikers in their shorts and shirts, with sandwich and water bottle in hand.  Don’t they realize I’m going to war. 

Now with a few weeks to go – training is into the final phase of run, gym, or hike a day: but vitally, to stay strong, keep fit, avoid injury, and be ever so cool even if inside I am in a state of turmoil. 

Welcome, and thank you for logging on to this journal. Hopefully, you will keep it on your screen long enough to, at the least, read this opener, and thereafter come back.  That is important to me as these journal postings are intended to keep you entertained, informed, and, crucially, in communication with me: especially, when I am deep into the canyons and deserts of Namibia.   

 
Engagement and entertainment is to be the mood going forward.  I am certainly engaged/entertained by the whole scheme for Racing the Planet’s 2009 Expedition to Namibia.   That’s part of the beauty of it – it is engaging.  I find it fascinating to contemplate, interesting to prepare and prepare, and, hopefully deeply satisfying to compete. 

 OK having made the introductions, me to you, the key messages in this inaugural blog are; communication – that is now up and running via this website and ongoing journal, and I hope to stay in touch with you.  Also it is to deal with the obvious queries of ‘what’ and the ‘why’.

 As you will have seen in navigating the website, or already know, – Namibia 2009 is a race.  A race against others – superb athletes, ulta-marathoners, extreme sports aficionados for the most part: certainly more conditioned, better prepared than I, but that is not important because it is also a race against time, and therefore a race against yourself.  In my case, it is a race in defiance of being too busy, too old, too distracted.  It is an extreme race – there is nothing reasonable about it – that is another part of the beauty of it.  Two-hundred and fifty kilometers (150 miles) on foot, across canyons, rivers, desert landscapes, sand dunes, and along the Skeleton Coast. It will require extraordinary, unremitting, physical effort.  For that reason alone, it is scary.  Everything, but water, is carried on your back.  You focus on what you need, not what you want: and it’s not much.  Calories win over taste. Weight and function wins over wardrobe and cleanliness.  Minimalism is the rule of thumb and becomes a style of its own.  So imagine this: a succession of cross-desert marathons: one a day for four days, with, on the fifth and sixth days, two marathons back-to-back, finally on the sixth day a 10 Km race to the line.  Throughout, living is Spartan.  Feeding from your rucksack, with water limited to drinking, sleeping rough, existing in the clothes you stand in, maintaining personal hygiene with wet-wipes and a smile.  There is also the pain.  It will hurt.  The question is to what degree.  Every injury, every blister will be a setback.   

 Remember, I am paying to do this – there’s irony for you. 

 I get asked ‘why do it?’ by everyone – and over and over again by my family in tones of increasing exasperation, concern, and possibly a calling to the heavens.  The idea of my doing this is absurdly fanciful is my favorite attempt to respond- ‘romantic’, if you like.  The concept is extreme.  That is itself, the beauty of it to me.  It started out in my mind as a what-if possibility, what would it feel like to make such a journey.   Lots of what’s, quite a bit of how, and great excitement about the where have since occupied my mind.  Anyway the answer is immaterial, there is no answer – this journey is absurdly romantic, it is a piece of drama, it is an event, it is relatively pointless.   That is the beauty of it, and I am drawn to it.     

 To make something more, for others: I am also doing this in the name of the Foundation Theodora. ( www.theodora.org ).  I am asking for your support in the form of a donation to this charity.  It raises funds to pay for Clown Doctors to bring laughter back into the lives of seriously distressed children – mostly in hospitals.  ISS Facility Services has supported this cause for many years and are helping organize this fund raiser of my behalf.  I ask you to think of a unit of currency and pledge that per kilometer: but you decide, and then, please email your decision to celin.leung@hk.issworld.com   Thank you.