^^^That's me, running up a hill, with the Dead Sea desert for a backdrop.

Last weekend I ran the Dead2Red Ultra Relay--a 242km run from the Dead Sea to the Red Sea. It's name should be the "Dead to really really Dead" relay. Haha, it sucked. But also amazing. Wierd how that works out sometimes.

I mean the whole idea of running from the lowest point on earth, up through the desert, and then back down to the shores of the Red Sea, just seems like someone trying to prove something. Something really absurd. And I guess absurd is the buzz word. Because when you're on the 200th kilometer, and you think you see the shimmering promise of the ocean on the horizon, only to run up a hill and realize, "hey, that's just a mirage", it's a bit hard not to question the rationale of the race.

But I did the thing, along with 300 other runners, and we're still here, still sore but also more the wiser. I mean at the very least I know I'm never going to do an "ultra-relay" again. The format of the race was simple--I took turns running, with 9 other team members, from the Dead Sea to the Red Sea. For a ten person team, like mine, that meant each person was theoritically responsible for a 24km chunk of the road. That's how it was supposed to go, and through the first half of the race we stuck to our system--one person runs 2km at time, then switches out with the next runner in the chase van. The 2 km sections meant each person ran for >10 min at time, giving us a chance to keep a high pace throughout. But of course towards the end some people were so exhausted they couldn't run anymore, so the rest of our team had to pick up the slack and run extra.

Some teams who actually cared about their results (we were doing it "for fun" ????) switched out every 100m. Sure, they went fast, but I remember driving by one of their vans about 20km in, and everyone in it already looked pissed about playing this game of musical chairs from hell.

I trained every day, months before the race, usually with daily 8km run. I thought myself in good shape, and I guess if the race were a long, slow run, I'd be fine.
But after my fifth or sixth leg, when the soreness set in, I started to realize the human body is not conditioned for ultra-relays: to run really fast, then stop immediately to sit in a van for 45 minutes, then get out again and run really fast, then go right back into the van without cooling down...
But the real challenge, it turns out, is trying to stay awake and motivated for 20 hours...

It's 3:12 A.M. Our van is stopped along the side of the road. The moon rising, a chunk of ice over the desert. Someone in the back seat mutters, "Are we in the Sahara?" Spilled out in every direction, sand dunes. I get out, slam the door, the sound gets lost in the empty horizon. The highway shoulder slopes down sharply into the desert, and I skid down the sand bank to pee. Someone shouts "Matt it's your turn!" and I scramble back up to wait for the oncoming runner. A minute later I am the runner. I feel only my pangs of breath, a million grains of sand sloshing in my shoes.