The morning bell bellowed through camp. Restless and ready to go, I began packing my sleeping bag into its compression sack. The air inside my tent was chilly, but the act of gathering my race kit together warmed me up. As I stepped outside, weather conditions seemed favorable, but starting at 2,400 meters and going much higher meant things could change quickly. So, I strapped on my gloves and GORE-TEX® Brand beanie to the outside of my pack for easy accessibility. I pulled on my Mammut Crater Light HS GORE-TEX® Jacket to combat the crisp air. The gear kept me warm but not hot.
What was I doing here? This was a race I had signed up for years ago. Life happened but I finally found the time to make being in Kyrgyzstan work. Now, I was in the mountains, facing physical extremes once more after being in the Arctic Circle. My race to find clarity and perspective started long before this five-stage race began.
I’m an overthinker. For every one situation, you can expect I’ve thought of many others that go wrong. Thankfully, that alertness has prepared me for adventure racing in the most extreme environments in the world. Since that first quarter of a mile ran in 2018 due to a highly stressful job in civil engineering, I had done races in the desert, jungle, mountains, and tundra. Over the years, my “why” evolved and I questioned my true motives often. During this Mountain Ultra in Kyrgyzstan's Tian Shan mountains, the pain reminded me of my silent why. Unspoken in words over the years, I hadn’t fully realized or appreciated the power of nature to reconnect with myself through the noise.
After a three-day acclimatization trek, I found myself trudging through the first day of the Mountain Ultra, a 30-kilometer stage with a taste of the quad-burning climbs ahead. In the exposed canyons, my lungs gasped for air. What replaced the rain from the previous year was a brutal week of high-altitude sun. As with the Ice Ultra, the first stage finish was a struggle. That was the easiest stage by far. The second stage brought with it the climb to our first big pass, Telety pass (3,800 meters high). After a long and grueling climb, I began a sharp descent downwards. On the way down, I made the mistake of losing my focus on technical ground.
Then, it happened. My right ankle turned and I felt a pop. Pain overcame me as I tried to walk it off, but my walk was gimpy. More than pain, I felt a wave of frustration. The words I spoke to myself were not kind. With less than 7 kilometers left, I kept moving along, unsure of what would come next. I picked up my pace, still feeling gimpy, hoping to get blood flowing through my ankle. At the last medical checkpoint of the day before the finish, I informed the medics of my injury and ran into a fellow runner from Scotland I had become friends with on the trek. We shared our thoughts of wanting to quit and carried forward. Then, as we kept shuffling along down the hill into camp, I realized I had not been beating myself up at all.
From then on, it was one moment at a time and one stage at a time. For both my Ice Ultra and Mountain Ultra journeys, there was a divide between the training I expected and the training that happened. Life happened first. As a career design engineer, I had spent hundreds of hours studying for multiple rigorous exams on top of my full-time job dating back to the late summer of 2025. As someone who keeps moving the goalposts, I had to get real with myself: it was going to be about having fun and enjoying the adventure. Between studying, running, and working, each day was a grind.
I remembered that. Over the next two stages, I carried on, with each day becoming harder than the next. The third stage brought with it the highest climb of the race, the viewpoint of Lake Ala-Kul (3900 meters). The ascent was followed by a deadly one-hour scree descent. Every step of the race forced navigation, teamwork, and focus. A wrong move meant the race was over. The Tian Shan mountains tested us physically and mentally. I finished the third stage in the dark with other athletes who would become a team with me until the very end. Together, we suffered and faced the worst versions of ourselves.
Who was I at my worst? This is the question I faced on the last two stages of the race, the two longest days. The fourth stage (the high stage) was a day where we stayed above 3,000 meters and climbed three steep passes. At one point during that day on the first climb, I sat on a rock, completely exhausted and out of strength. The weather changed frequently. The shadows behind the large mountains brought a chilly breeze. My Mammut Crater GORE-TEX® Jacket and gear came off and on multiple times to provide me comfort. Then, I kept going. Throughout the last stage and a half, I felt grumpy, tired, hungry, sad, and angry. I also felt pride, joy, and gratitude. At our rawest and in the present, we were just our actions in spite of our emotions. We all felt our highs and lows with each river crossing, each steep climb, and each challenge along the way.
The fifth stage presented the last big climb on what became a fourteen-hour final day (the longest day by far). On that climb, I stopped every 50 meters and gasped for air. I gasped for air as I summited during an incredible sunset. “That broke me,” I exclaimed. Then, I realized I was still here. And that was when I realized adventure racing is a microcosm of my life. The rawness, the emotions, the movement forward, the highs and lows. Every single thing I thought was going to break me did not. I was still here and still moving. Along with my memories and my new friendships, I took home that new perspective. This was a truth I had felt many times before, but I had never been able to put into words. That broke me…but it didn’t. Now, as I study for another engineering exam while training for my next burly endeavor, I will hold onto those words. I’m still here.
