Expreso DeLos Andes: The Conclusion

As we stand on the edge of the Atlantic, looking back across the continent, it's hard to believe it's only been three weeks since we dipped our feet into the cold waters of the Pacific Ocean in Concon, Chile. So much has happened in such a short time - struggling through heat exhaustion and injury, labouring over winding mountain roads and along sandy dirt tracks, reveling in the majesty of the Andes mountains and the serenity of the Argentinian Pampas, spending mornings alone with our thoughts and afternoons dodging speed-crazed truckers on roads too narrow to share. The Expreso De Los Andes expedition has been an amazing ride - testing, enlightening, frustrating and exciting - a true adventure.

Youth Ambassador Connor Clerke joined us on our final run through the Argentinian capital of Buenos Aires, helping us draw to a close a very tumultuous - yet still very satisfying - running expedition across the continent of South America.

Today Conner announced i2P's upcoming youth expedition next fall - i2P Expedition Africa 2012. This will be i2P's most complex youth expedition with an unprecedented eight youth ambassadors running more than a marathon per day, every day, for the duration of the expedition. And as usual, i2P will create a comprehensive experienced based learning program that will be available for free to students and schools. This years topic be water and food security.

Ray and I will also begin shifting our focus to next years i2P 'extreme' adventure - arguably the most challenging expedition we'll ever face. In February 2013 Ray and I will travel to the Canadian High Arctic to attempt an unsupported trek from the northern tip of Ellesmere Island to the geographic North Pole. The 770km journey will see us travel across some of the most treacherous terrain on earth, terrain where famed mountaineer Reinhold Messner met his only adventuring match. "Everest is very dangerous," stated Messner, "but crossing the North Pole as I attempted to do is ten times more dangerous."

Thanks for following along adventure!!

Day 17: Choices

The tent wall against my face is the first inclination something's wrong. A large clap of thunder jolts me from my semi-slumber and a huge flash of light illuminates the inside of our tent. Storm force winds are blowing it on its side. Ray can barely hear me over the the hammering of rain outside: "Where the hell did this come from?", I yell.

Last night's skies were clear and the weather was calm but no more. It's 4am and the world outside has gone mad. A violent storm has settled over us and is lashing us with everything it has. There'll be no early start this morning.

By 9am nothing's changed. The volume of rain being unleashed by this storm is incredible and it hasn't let up for hours. Wave upon wave rolls over us, letting up for a moment only to reassert itself with a sonic rumble and another torrent of rain.

Over the course of the morning our environment begins to flood with every square inch of low ground - be it a ditch, runnel or farmer's field - being swamped in water.

"The weather is supposed to remain like this for the next five days", states Lola matter-of-factly. She's been following the news on the truck radio and this storm system is wreaking havoc from here to Buenos Aires. It's flooding the entire region and seems to have no intention on letting up.

We immediately hit the road and scout the region for options. Highway #7 is as busy as ever. Pools of water are collecting in the ruts and runnels of the road so deep that our vehicle hydro-planes on one occasion. The spray being thrown from passing trucks is overwhelming, completely obliterating our view until overworked windshield wipers catch up. The ditches that we were traveling in last night are now completely filled with water, inaccessible to anything but a boat.

We turn off the main highway and head down to our only other option, the old dirt track that leads to Buenos Aires. As the water rises so too does the inaccessibility of this route but we need to see it to understand what we're up against. Fabian is nervous because if we go too far the vehicle we're in will likely get stranded.

"The problem with this dirt road", explains Lola, "is that once it gets flooded it takes weeks of sunny weather to dry it out. We cannot drive on it until then." What this means to us is that support along this route is now impossible. The large volume of water on this path has made it unrunnable as well.

We head back to camp and are faced with some difficult choices. Our intended route along the old track to Buenos Aires is no longer available. We'll need to wait weeks for it to be accessible again. This is not possible. Our only option is to run on - (not along) - one of the busiest roads in Argentina.

We've undertaken the Expreso De Los Andes expedition to inspire students to make healthy choices in their own lives. The idea that we'd undertake a suicidal mission to convey this message seems as ironic as it does absurd.

Over the last decade Ray and I have traveled the world undertaking expeditions from the sands of the Sahara to the ice sheets of Antarctica. We've faced sandstorms and crevasses, we've endured some of the hottest and coldest temperatures on the planet, we've pushed our bodies harder than we ever thought possible but amazingly it's this expedition - on the surface one of the most straightforward and definitely the most urban - that's proving to be our most challenging. But there lies the definition of adventure: an exciting undertaking of unknown outcome. The i2P Expreso De Los Andes expedition is holding fast to this quintessential tenet.

We're now faced with the most difficult choice of our adventure but hard decisions are easy to make when they are the right ones. We unanimously decide to skip the final section of the route into Buenos Aires.

We now head directly to the Argentinian capital to meet i2P Youth Ambassador Conner Clerke who arrives shortly to join us for the final running stage of the expedition. Stay tuned.

Day 16: Highway to hell

Today the dial on our oven that's Argentina was cranked to its max. By 8:30am we're sweltering, sweat pouring off us like we've been doused

with water, the humidity in the air as thick as mist. Bob joins us this morning as we make our way down our isolated dirt track, making us a

team of three.

It's difficult to articulate what heat like this does to a person but over the course of our morning we would stop every 5kms to rehydrate and

need 1.5 liters of Gatorade and water each just to stay on top of things. This is the maximum volume our stomachs can hold and even then we barely keeping up with the demand.

By 9:30am Bob and Ray are running shirtless in a desperate attempt to wrestle free of the heat. My pale-white complexion won't allow such a bold gesture so I just sweat my shirt to saturation.

Over the course of our 35km morning I drink 12 liters of fluid and only pee twice - and not much at that. It's as if the water goes straight from my stomach to my pores in some panicked physiological response to keep cool. But I'm feeling OK, my body finally adapting to the heat of this environment.

It's fascinating to look back on the past few weeks and see how my body has adapted to this unique effort. The heat seemed unbearable at first

but I've adapted now and brought this under control - I expected this - but my foot injury at the end of day one was a harbinger of disaster and for me, at the time, the likely end of my expedition. If someone were tell me then that I'd be able to run 40, 50, even 60 kilometers per day on that injury for the bulk of the expedition and that my injury would in fact improve rather than degenerate during this process, I'd tell them they were mad. But they wouldn't have been.

In the first week of the expedition Dr Greg Wells worked around the clock testing Ray with a range of mobile scientific testing equipment that, due to its thoroughness, is likely unprecedented during such an ultra-endurance effort. Apart from recording Ray's standard vitals such as pulse rate, blood pressure and weight, Doc Wells would work-up a full blood analysis on Ray three times a day - morning, noon and night - including hemoglobin, hematocrit, blood glucose, sodium, potassium, chloride and creatinine levels. He had Ray run with a special breathing apparatus that measured oxygen uptake, ventilation and carbon dioxide production under various levels of physical effort, all this to understand what happens to the human body under extreme physical stress, under conditions that a clinician wouldn't humanely ask a typical test

subject to endure.

Dr Wells feels that the Expreso De Los Andes expedition has allowed him to peer through a unique window into how the body works, into the

physiology of how muscles breakdown and recover and into how ones immune system responds to extreme effort. My hope is that the Doc's work can

also explain this dichotomy between physical injury and apparent recovery through continued use too.

 Lunch is the the terminus of our dirt road and our return to the dreaded highway #7. We're facing a 45 kilometer section of this daunting road

before we can return to the dirt track for the duration of our journey to Buenos Aires. Our options are very simple now, there are only two

roads leading to our destination - it's either the highway or the dirt track - and at this point the dirt track has disappeared so it's our two-lane nightmare for the next while.

Highway #7 is everything we had anticipated and more - endless truck traffic, aggressive drivers and no running room. We're forced to navigate the overgrown ditch at the edge of the road, a gully of shin high grass that's designed to collect rain water during the rainy season but now a place littered with road refuse and garbage overlayed on a landscape of deep ruts and holes. Walking is difficult enough, running is impossible. We make it 15kms and call it a day.

Tomorrow we'll wake up early and sprint the final 30 kilometers of this crazy highway so we can return to the safety of our dirt track.

Day 15: Soldiering on

Ray's injury hasn't improved overnight and he now realizes that the coming hours will determine the fate of the expedition. "I've had lots of little injuries in the past", Ray explains to me as we drive to our start. "It's par for the course on expeditions. This one seems worse somehow."

We start the day with a mellow walk/run in hopes of easing into the effort and loosening up the leg but even at such a moderate pace Ray rests often and finally needs to stop at kilometer 17.

This is do or die time now. He's in significant pain and recognizes that unless he can continue running, the Expreso De Los Andes expedition will be over.

We take an hour rest. Ray stretches and massages the injured area, he eats a little, drinks a liter of Gatorade and says to me: "Kev, let's give it one more go"

We're stopped at the edge of an Argentinian provincial border and it's only a few meters before we cross territorial lines. The San Luis province we've been traveling through has upgraded their section of the Buenos Aires Highway #7 - the highway we've been following across the continent - creating a separated 4-lane road to accommodate the large volume of traffic and adding a wide paved shoulder for safety. The Cordoba province we're entering has made no such effort.

Within in minutes we realize that the heavy volume of trucks and cars that have barely been contained on San Luis's dual carriageway is now being funneled into a narrow, rutted two-lane road with no shoulder - a rural country road masquerading as Cordoba's transcontinental highway.

We begin running down the left edge of our new highway, facing down on-coming traffic in a game of chicken, hoping vehicles will drift into the opposite side of the road to give us passage but knowing full well we have the overgrown shoulder if they don't. We're so focused on what's bearing down upon us that we forget totally about what's creeping up from behind. A sharp honk, a blast of wind and a metallic blur to our right brings home the reality - vehicles are passing from behind us as well.

It's all very sobering. Ray's injury quickly drops off our radar as more pressing concerns are at hand, most notably - mortality.

But salvation is close at hand. Our intended route is not on this section of road but rather on the old Buenos Aires highway that runs parallel to highway #7 just a few kilometers north. Our dance with eternity ends an hour later as we connect with our new track, an old cart road - sandy, bumpy and exactly what we were waiting for.

The morning has taken its toll and we decide to walk the final four kilometers to our lunch spot. The heat of the day is building and the berms on either side of our track keep the burning air absolutely still, only the crescendo of a cicada's buzz breaking the silence.

Lunch is set up against the walls of old, seemingly derelict neoclassical brink building in the tiny village of Pauno. Like the town itself, the paint peeled walls of this structure suggest another era, another time. The world has moved ahead but this sleepy little Argentinian community remains much as it was a century ago.

This is what we've been waiting for all along. We had a taste of it in the old Andes but lost it heading out of Mendoza last week. We're finally off the highway and running through the countryside. Amazingly Ray's leg is feeling better and my injuries are feeing better too. The afternoon isn't without incident - we need to use an active railroad line for 16kms, we're forced to go without resupply for over two hours and we finish in the dark without headlamps - but we're in great spirits nonetheless. We manage a very respectable 58kms on the day and are looking forward to the week ahead. We're exactly where we want to be.

Day 14: More injury woes

It's becoming strangely predictable how our expedition is cycling - a good day is invariably followed by a bad - so it's of no surprise that our wonderful day yesterday is followed by a less than stellar one today.

It started out well enough with Ray and I rolling out early to beat the heat, quickly tucking away the first 20 kilometers to psychologically get into the day. Starting each morning can be a daunting affair, anticipating the hours of discomfort that lay ahead, but once that certain barrier is crossed each day, a groove takes shape and the effort becomes manageable. For us the 20-kilometre barrier seems to be this magic line between morning discomfort and daytime reality.

But today by the 20-kilometre mark Ray is labouring, he's not himself. Normally by now Ray and I have hit our stride with the balance between physical discomfort, visual stimulation and endorphin secretion reaching its glorious balance, but not today. Ray has an obvious limp in his gait and it's not long before he's stopping massaging out his left quad.

"Kev, it's just like a Charlie horse...you know?" he says in frustration. "It's like someone punched me really hard in the leg"

By kilometre 25 things aren't getting any better. We take an early lunch to access things and hope an early rest will pay divedends. It doesn't. After lunch Ray and I run/walk an additional 15km and call it a day.

"I've never had anything like this before" Ray exclaims, "I hope it's not serious"

Day 13: Big blue sky

The skies cleared over night but temperatures remained low. We're happy for our down sleeping bags and jackets - items that at first seemed superfluous but now are indispensable.

We're eager to get moving again after yesterday's disappointing effort and are on the road by 7:30 a.m. We're in much better spirits today with the glow of morning light transforming rolling fields of corn into seas of gossamer, gently waving and pulsating to the whims of a warm morning breeze.

Our expedition team consists of Ray, Bob and myself as runners and the Argentinian man-wife team of Fabian and Lola Fasce as support. They prepare meals, provide us with food and water on the road and have our camp ready a night. Support like this is essential on an expedition like Expreso De Los Andes where physical demands are so taxing that there's no energy left at the end of a day. Rounding out the team is Ottawa whiz kid Jordan Thoms who's at the helm of our communications machine.

On a typical day, Lola stays close to the runners in her vehicle and is in constant communication with Fabian who's at the head of the convey in his truck. At a predetermined distance each day Fabian will find a suitable lunch or camping spot and set up the mobile base camp. We're gypsies of sorts - a traveling people - with our i2P possee rolling up to an appropriate spot and having it transformed into a buzzing encampment within minutes.

Once camp is erected the team gets down to the business of sharing the adventure with the outside world. Hours of video footage is downloaded to computers and then distilled into short, compelling video clips of the run, photographs are reviewed and selected and blog posts are written. All this material is then uploaded and shared with the outside world via the cutting-edge MVS BGAN satellite system, the same system that allows us to video-conference live with thousands students and teachers around the world.

Today's run begins with tough times from the get-go. The first 30 kilometres is uphill - no exaggeration, all up hill - but we manage alright, our heads in the game. We reach the town of San Luis at 50 kilometre and stop for lunch - a break we dream about throughout the morning run. Mobile camp today is nestled against a derelict building off the main street of San Luis, a scrubby spot by normal standards but an oasis for us because it's in the shade and we get to stop. We comment how this would never be allowed back home - setting up camp on an sidewalk - but here life moves at a more relaxed pace, the only attention drawn is that from a group of bored pre-teens looking for change to buy a Pepsi.

We're rolling again by 3 p.m. with Bob joining Ray and I for the afternoon. I am trying to build up my mileage through my injuries and decide 55 kilometres will be my exit point today. Ray and Bob continues on to produce a very impressive 80-kilometre effort for the day - the second longest day of the expedition.

Day 12: Winds of change

Running today didn't produce the smooth miles of yesterday, with uphills and strong headwinds being the order of the day. Until now our weather experience in South America has been picture perfect with blue skies, gentle winds and hot temperatures being the daily norm but things have changed. Low clouds, dark and broiling - reminiscent of a nasty Vancouver day - rumble over us, dropping temperatures and hammering us with strong, gusting headwinds.

Truck traffic is heavy on this road with roughly 3,000 trucks blasting by us each day and every one of them carrying a powerful punch of wind that, on this particular day when combined with the headwind, wallop us to a virtual stop. It's brutal going.

And if this isn't enough our road is exclusively uphill. It's not a steep uphill by any means - not one that gets the job done quick - but rather an insidious one that slowly ekes away at our stamina, gnawing at our resolve.

By lunchtime we've managed to claw out 40kms and we're tired, very tired. We wolf down food and take a power nap, awaking two hours later with a start, not believing we've slept so long. The morning miles were rigorous indeed.

The wind hasn't died down during our slumber but, instead, has intensified. It's starting to rain as well. Our shorts and T's are replaced by long pants and jackets. Running is proving too difficult in such conditions so we march out the final 10km at a walk and call it a day. A hard day done and only 50km in the bag.