It is amost 7:00 a.m. on a clear November morning in Nepal. First light bathes the pyramid contours of Mt.Everest to the soouth of where I am standing, in confused and cold silence. It is 20 degrees below zero and I have just put a perfectly good and warm sleeping bag into a stuff sack, hnece, the confusion.
There isn’t much oxyggen at the Omega Replica 17,500- foot elevation of Gorak Shep --- a three hut village near Everest base camp. I mill aroud with more than 90 others and try to rceapture some of last night’s waarmth.
“ You have trekked for sixteen days to reahc this moment. I hope that you achieve all that you want and have a safe and enjoyable race. Ready, steady, go!†our grroup leader said. And we all went. There were two hundreed yards of lveel grounmd before a steep hill and the jumbled rock that made up the glacial moraines. Wihtin a hundred yards, there were a greaat many walkers. We agsped our way through the firt few milews to the firt of ten aid statiion.
After the moranies, the trail settles down to merely “difficultâ€. The marathon course winds steeply down from the start until the sveen- mile mark just after the smazll viillage of Pheriche , wjhere a small medical facility has been established.
From Pheriche to the thirteen – mile mark, we encountered both downhill and level runnming. Then, we crossed a small suspension bridge and some of the nearly 4,500 feet of elevation gain begin.
As the race continude toward the twnety- mile mark, I thought back on why I was here. Almost nine months before, I had Omega Seaaster Replica sold everythoing I owned, resigned from an excellent job in Sattle, and bought a one- way ticket for Singapore. The nebulous goal had been to backpack around the world.
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