photo of joc #81 (possibly don at her right shoulder.. hat looks likes the one in his pack)on day 4

the results after day 3:
i’m adding registration numbers so that if you are viewing the photo gallery and you see the racer’s number and not a face you’ll have a better chance of recognising our ‘guys’.

Stephane (registration #118) is at position 25!
Louise is (registration #159) is at position 63!
Don is (registration #80) is at position 72!
Jocelyn is (registration #81) is at position 73!

correction: Out of 91 original competitors… now…down to 77 after stage4
click on the link below for the leaderboard.. it lists elapsed time for each marcher as well.
http://www.racingtheplanet.com/gobimarch/live/2006/leaderboard.pdf
the photo gallery is amazing the mountains of sand on day/stage 4 are awesome.

amazing ‘guys’!

Click here to see Jocelyn & Louise - Video - Stage1

or….The direct link to their videos is here:
http://www.bluent.us/rtp/2006/video/default_display.php?id=39
If that didn’t let you in go to: http://www.racingtheplanet.com/gobimarch/live/2006/index.asp
scroll to the bottom, click on videos.. they are number 4… interviewed after the first day.

Click on the leaderboard while you’re on the main page…
http://www.racingtheplanet.com/gobimarch/live/2006/leaderboard.pdf

Day 2: another 37km. Woke up feeling alright, dirty, disheveled, a bit stiff but at least no blisters. Some of the babies that I have seen on people’s feet over the last few days has made me forget my moaning pretty quickly. But, after yesterday’s funny funny day, sinking into the mud, I really thought today would be easier. The race day briefing sheet anticipated the longest and shortest times as less than yesterday, but I think they were just adjusting for the miscalculations of yesterday.

Today was long and flat. I found it very disheartening as to be honest, it was just quite soul destroying. I started to experience a weird pain at the bottom of my shin, I think due to the repetitive motion of just walking and walking and walking and walking. The scenery was beautiful, with snow-capped mountains in the background behind the mountains, but there was sand and scree at the beginning, making taking the steps difficult. I arrived in around 8 hours, same as yesterday but much disheartened. Nearly got my head down on the course for a quick a kip an hour before the end, as I just couldn’t take it anymore. But luckily 2 US army officers picked me up and engaged in a heated discussion of US, Venezuelan, Chinese and HK politics which made me forget my pain until the end. Thank goodness.

Looking forward to tomorrow – it’s a bit longer, but there are some hills so I’m looking forward to a bit of variety. Love you all

x

WOW!!! How can I begin to share this experience by email?

Firstly, I have been so focused on training and preparing for the race, that I had not even considered the momentous journey that we would have to undertake in order to get to the starting point. A 7 hour flight to Urumqi, arriving at 1am, then a 7 hour bus ride the next day to our starting point, a disused horse racing track in the middle of the mountains, somewhere near Hami. Spectacular scenery, amazing campsite.

The organizers had arranged hotel catering, served on silver platters, in the middle of nowhere. Stuffed more food than I thought possible down my throat, loading like there’s not tomorrow and then, foolishly, could not sleep due to overeating. RACE DAY: the county authorities had brought out the works to celebrate our departure, Uyghur horsemen, dancing girls in ethnic dress – a cultural display that exceeded my expectations. Many of the volunteers are local students who want to improve their English, and they are so so sweet.

THE RACE: we were starting out on salt flats – brilliant, I thought, FLAT. What they didn’t mention was that the salt flats were not dry, and that they were all sticky, a bit like QUICKSAND. At the beginning, I tried to keep clean, not too muddy. By the end, people had lost their shoes, fallen on their faces in the mud, most of us had been buried at least up to their thighs in mud. I nearly cried, but decided that actually, it was hilariously insane. It remained amusing for the first 10-15km, but after a while, I must say, it got rather tedious. The next 20km were beautiful, breathtaking, knackering. We’re only allowed 10 lines: I survived and am happy.

Love u all!

just found don on the salt flats am adding it into lu’s post..

Racing the Planet which is the official site of the Gobi March has live updates/breaking news/ photo galleries/ and email messages so that when you use the online form, the messages are collected and given to the marchers in the evenings… it even lists our team members by name and Sunbeam under ‘Charities’ under the ‘Competitors’ menu item drop down.

To access all of these goodies go to:
http://www.racingtheplanet.com/gobimarch/live/2006/index.asp

Click around from there … news, daily updates, email, image gallery, even a video gallery all just a mouse click away. To email: click on the ‘emailcompetit@r’ text/link in the upper right corner… or click on this link:
http://www.racingtheplanet.com/gobimarch/live/2006/competitor-email.shtml

(I am going to add this information to the main Sunbeam Gobi March page so that it will be easily found … and probably repost this here in June when this page gets moved to the archive… but if i forget …. it can then be found on the left menu under May.. or by going to Sunbeam.org)

Six day’s food, is it too much??? The Ans  is Yes, so i plan to take away 1/3 of them..

Simple Kits??

TEST

I’ve been paranoid about weight the whole time (the whole of my life) and I’ve finally put my backpack together.  The food thing has bothered me because we are supposed to take a minimum of 2,000 calories per day, or 1 lb of food. This seems to me, the eating machine, to be very little, even under normal circumstances.  So instead of going hungry, I have approximately 2,500 calories per day, about 1lb 2 oz      

Sample daily diet - doesn’t seem like much          

All bagged up, this is my total food intake for 7 days.  Actually, I lie.  I’m going to prepare a special treats bag with chocolate coated coffee beans (for the long day of 90km when we have to walk through the night - I’m going to be wired and flying). 

What else am I taking apart from food? 

 my ultra-lite windproof jacket

 My basic kit

hygiene bag -definitely a concern (there’s not much hygiene kit, is there?)

 my “technical kit”

 This is everything.

I’m sorry that I have not published a photo of my warm kit, I know you all got excited about my leggings.  However, I need my sleep tonight and this blogging lark is not as simpleas it looks.  I’m sure you’ll all get the pleasure of lots of pics from the March eventually.

Just want to say thank you to everyone for their support, both monetary and “spiritually” - I have been going even more insane than usual with all of this - and am so grateful to all those around me, with words of encouragement and all the frills.

Love you all.  Peace in the desert, dudes.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Ok - here goes.  THANK YOU ALL FOR ALL YOUR KIND AND GENEROUS DONATIONS !!! Sunbeam’s kids will be beaming!!!

Thanks to Jeff Sayed for HK$500, Sue Kendall for HK$2,000, Tessa Watkins US$30, Jimmy Lam HK$200, Jacqui Bradley HK$1,000, Una Irons HK$5200, Sonja & Richard Cole US$50, Rose Chan HK$200, Jarrad Brownlee HK$100 per day so we’ll count that as HK$700, Jack McFerran HK$500, Chad Tendler US$50, David Allison HK$200, Ashling Geh HK$500, Simon Jackson GBP50, Auntie Ellen US$500 (and more coming!), Claire Pearson HK$100, Robin King and Jo USD60, Nikki Ng USD50, Philip Sohmen HK$500, Laura Hepburn HK$100, Dawson HK$1,000, Sharon Cooper US$65, Vicky & Ollie Jerome USD150, Valerie Law USD30, Christina Lee HK$100, Sky Canaves HK$300, Lisa Li HK$200, Winnie Choy HK$500, Steven Sieker HK$500, Grace Kwok HK$500

We’ve raised HK$90,726 - Gosh this is so exciting!!!

So I’m not nearly as organised as the others, but finally I’ve sewn on my patches… You can see my sexy sexy hat in the picture, but I still can’t bring myself to photograph my leggings for the public!