Four Days and Eight Million Years
Matt Hart Jul 2218 min read
“What are you here for?”
“I’m running a race.”
“Why weren’t you here last week, for Comrades?”
I contemplate telling the customs officer that my friend recently
won the storied South African ultra-marathon, but the sheer
improbability of this could land me in a poorly lit room with a
strangers finger in my butt.
“Ah, it’s too much road for me.”
I have just landed in Johannesburg, South Africa, after three
flights and 35 hours. We have apparently traveled through time
to get here — as it’s eight hours ahead of Boulder, Colorado,
where I began my journey — but I appear to be the only one
astonished by this fact.
Africa, where running began — where it all began. Well, it’s
anyone’s guess on the first single-celled organism, but likely
where our species came into existence. The oldest human,
homosapien sapien, remains were found North East of here in
the Rift Valley, human bones that have been dated to be
195,000 years old.
There are few rewards for putting pen to paper these days, but
one of them is definitely the odd offer to participate in a special
race in a unique place. I’ve been invited to the continent-oforigin as a “two-for”, an athlete who will add to the
competitiveness of the race and a journalist who will write of
adventure in a far-off land. My confidence is equally low for
both and I haven’t even met the competition yet.
Another flight and I arrive in Cape Town where I die in hotel
bed. I have just barely closed my eyes when the scribe-handler —
a wonderful, gregarious man named Roland Vorwerk —
resuscitates me with a text message. Vorwerk is the Marketing
Manager for Boundless Southern Africa, who market the
country’s treasures. He’s in the lobby. It’s 3:30am the day before
our four-day, 150km (93-mile) race through the/Ai-/Ais
Richtersveld Transfrontier Park.
At the van, in the dark hotel parking lot, I meet two journalist,
two photographers, and the competition — Bernard Rukadza. I
recognize Rukadza from the race’s press release that featured
his picture and read, “one of the top trail runners on the South
African scene and the current ProNutro AfricanX Trail Run
Champion.” Adding, “Bernard’s toughest competition will most
likely come from American ultra-trail runner Matt Hart.”
Dubious.
Rukadza is a South African citizen by way of Zimbabwe and as
far as I can tell he’s the evolutionary zenith of the endurance
running hypothesis. This is the idea that humans evolved
certain traits, advantageous to long distance running, in order to
adapt to our changing environment and emerge as the last
standing species of the Homo genus. His long legs, which
chimps and early hominids lack, allow for large running strides,
and are part of the puzzle. Chris McDougall had it backwards, as
Harvard Paleoanthropologist Daniel E. Lieberman puts it, “It’s
not that we were born to run, it’s more like we ran to be born.”
As we drive the seven hours from Cape Town to the starting line
in Sendelingsdrift, I remind my van-mates how we know the age
of fossilized bones. It’s called carbon dating. We’re carbon based
organisms and every living thing has the same carbon-12 to
carbon-14 ratio as the atmosphere. When we die however, we
stop taking in the unstable carbon-14, and it starts to decay —
about half of them every 5,730 years. So, when scientists want
to know how old a fossilized bone is, they test the ratio between
the carbon-12 and the carbon-14, which tells them it’s age. No
one in the van is actually listening.
/Ai-/Ais Richtersveld Transfrontier Park is like nowhere I’ve
ever been. Rattling along a dirt road into the park I see every
shade of brown. Two billion year old rock has been pushed up to
form barren mountains in an arid desert. In the local Nama
language “AI — AIS”, means hot, very hot. Winter temperatures
in the Richtersveld Park get only as low as freezing level, with
summertime highs over 125 degrees fahrenheit. Fog is a more
reliable and predictable source of moisture than actual rainfall.
Thankfully, we are here in June, solidly in the South African
winter. In 2003, Namibian and South African heads of state
signed a treaty establishing the shared park. The main park
building overlooks the Orange River and a stones throw away,
on the other side, is Namibia.
Of all the species we’ve identified on Earth, 99 percent of them
have gone extinct. Getting out of the van in Sendelingsdrift, it
looks like mass extinction has recently taken place in the
Ricthersveld. I check in and fight the urge to lay down in my
tent. I want to explore. I head out towards the river.
Approaching the cliff’s edge to the river I notice action in the
trees. I’m quickly face-to-face with a vervet monkey. I don’t
generally have anthropomorphic tendencies, but the changing
facial expressions of this male vervet can only be interpreted in
one way — we share common ancestry. We are in fact one of
three remaining species of African apes. We share 90 percent of
our DNA with these long lost cousins, all of which seem to be
controlling this curious vervet’s face as he attempts to figure out
what I’m doing. It’s thought that we first diverged from the
chimp five to eight million years ago — branching off into our
own subset of the ape family called hominins.
A changing climate gave a food procuring advantage to those
early hominins who could stand, reach, and carry. Bipedalism
also made our predecessors four-times more energy efficient
than their quadruped ape cousins, making them more likely to
survive and thus pass on their upright genes. Then, as Darwin
hypothesized, our use of tools and our control over fire ignited
our brain growth, over time leading to cognitive advances and
language.
Although there are eleven languages spoken in South Africa, it’s
Oscar Pistorius’ English that dominates the South African air
and it’s Oscar Pistorius’ murder trial that dominates the
airwaves and the local conversation. That, and professional
contrarian and professor of physiology Tim Noakes’ high-fat,
low carb diet, which one of the local journalists tells me,
“everyone is on.”
At first blush the Richtersveld is a place where things go to die,
sad, dehydrated deaths of misery. It’s beauty is hidden by
survival of the fittest. In the 3,800 mile expanse of the park
there’s astonishing biodiversity. There are 2,700 species of
plants, 560 of which are endemic to the park. All of which seem
to be hiding on the mountainsides, where the rainfall is higher.
Chief among them is the stem succulent called pachypodium
namaquanum, or the “halfmens.” They look like cartoon hybrid
human palm tree, or a motionless version of the balloon airman outside your local car wash.
We meet, mingle, and are treated to a local Nama tribe
traditional dance. Then it’s off to bed, our first night in the tent
city that the race organization will now set up for us each night
along the race course. One of the things that drew me to this
race was the terrain — rugged, mostly off-trail, nearly-100 mile
loop through the folded, fractured, uplifted, and heavily eroded
landscape. The anticipation makes for a fitful night of sleep.
Race morning we line up at 7:55 a.m. under an inflated starting
arch that reads, “An Extraordinary Desert Journey.” Everyone is
excited to get started. I shake hands with Rukadza and we
commiserate over our lack of confidence in navigating the
course with our G.P.S. units. None of the race course is marked,
but we were all given route files to follow on our devices. I chose
thewrist-top unit that I run with every day. Rukadza has a larger
handheld G.P.S. that shows him contours, terrain, and much
more of the route ahead. His problem is that until last night’s
30-minute tutorial, he’d never used one. I used to use these
things called paper maps and so I figure if I get into trouble I
can couple those with some basic geometry to figure out my
location.
Race director Owen Middleton counts us down and we run into
the desolate landscape. With my watch’s guiding arrow telling
me we should be some unknowable distance to the North, I
instantly regret my wrist-top decision. The pace is race-casual,
but a group of about four of us pull away from the other 56
runners in this inaugural event. We all stare at the circuit board
arm extensions, expecting guidance and reassurance. None of us
marvel at the fact that this little piece of plastic and silicon is
sending invisible signals to space, that, when returned, then tell
us exactly where we are on this rotating off-kilter 196.9 million
square-mile orb.
From the dirt road we drop off trail into a landscape of small
green vegetation on rock piles. Light brown and white rocks
held in place by small shrubs. We run toward the biggest
mountains in sight, the ‘Vyf Susters’, or Five Sisters, strung in a
North-South line of perfect Hersey Kisses that our route
traverses around. They are gorgeous rock piles of a few
thousand feet in elevation. The pace quickens over the low
vegetation and uneven terrain to an eight minute mile, leaving
Rukadza and I alone with our electronic prophets. Working
together for the next few miles we take turns at the lead
navigating. It’s here that I realize I might have an advantage
when we go off trail.
The ground vegetation gives way to a dirt road as we approach
the first aid station. “You can go faster if you want,” says
Rukadza. I don’t want. We run past a halfmen who’s standing in
judgement. I know what he’s thinking, you can’t hold his pace.
At the aid I stop just to fill one bottle and browse the aid station
table, it takes 40 seconds. When I turn and look up, Rukadza is
gone. Not only did he not stop, when he reached the smooth dirt
road, he accelerated. He’s a 2:26 marathoner. I am okay at
bushwhacking. It’s here that I realize I have a distinct
disadvantage on the roads.
The 4x4 road gets a bit rougher then pitches up. My slow speed
allows the local water starved nats, called midges, to eagerly
greet me. Edward Abbey once wrote lovingly about similar bugs
in Alaska saying, “they probe for entrance into into an eye,
nostril, ear, mouth, vagina, pizzle, rectum, or wound.” I’m a
killing machine, but as quickly as one dies, two more take up the
chase. Mass murder seems justified. I put my head down and
hope to see Rukadza again before the finish line. The top of the
3,000 foot ascent at ‘Helskloof Pass’, (Hell’s Valley Pass), comes
quick, but I’m disheartened that I can’t catch Rukadza, or even a
glimpse.
I hammer the last five miles of gradual downhill to the finish
line at ‘Die Koei’, all the while attempting to calm my ego. I
finish eight minutes behind Rukadza on this 23-mile day. He
says he thought about waiting for me. Prone to taking things
personally after having my ego destroyed I initially think,what a
terrible thing to say. But then I realize, like the little Catalonian,
he would have preferred to run with someone, and he is in fact a
much better runner than I am. I just need a minute to take that
all in.
Dinner is far better than I would have guessed, and even my
neurotic endurance athlete needs are easily met. I have seconds.
Ear plugs and an eye mask are my coup de grâce and sleep
comes easy tonight as the pitter patter of rain drones out the
horrible snorers among our numbers.
Awaken by a panicked voice telling us we must get up and
report to the main tent immediately, I initially think this is a
joke or a mistake. I put my earplugs in and try to fall back
asleep — but they persist. It’s 3:30 a.m. in the morning and the
anomalous rain has not subsided since I dozed off. Stepping out
of my tent into a river, we are rightfully being evacuated.
Almost a years worth of rain has fallen on us in one single night.
The desert ground gulped as much as it could handle, the rest
we are left to deal with. Almost everyone helps to varying
degrees. My disbelief and sheer exhaustion seem to paralyze me.
Far better people decide to actively help move everything,
despite the impending day’s race. With camp moved to higher
ground and the crisis averted the breakfast crew starts cooking,
unfazed.
With an extra layer and numb hands we run away from the
godforsaken campground and into the unknown of day two. The
race start is now staggered by your previous day’s finish time
and our pack of front-runners starts out a little faster than the
day before. The road snakes the low ground as a creek bed
would. Although I haven’t done my homework on the route, I
feel good so I immediately assume the lead. The next eight miles
is an embarrassment as I’m frequently outsmarted by those who
read the map and know what a tangent is, leaving me repeatedly
sprinting to catch up.
I eventually fall in right behind Rukadza. His speed and my
suffering allow us to shed the rest of the field. About six miles
into the 22-mile day he begins his gradual departure. Our route
takes us off trail and off camber. I claw at shrubs and liberate
rocks on my ascent, using every muscle to gain the saddle. We
are in the middle of nowhere in a park that is rarely visited. I’m
certain our race director, Owen Middleton, is the only human to
have set foot on this piece of ground before me. My number is
torn off my shorts in a free speed glory fall through some angry
shrubs. As quick as I was covering the terrain I figure I’d have to
catch Rukadza at some point. The descent to the trail and
eventual finish line is long and extremely rocky. The animal trail
we come out on disappears frequently. I run out of water and
pushed hard the last handful of miles. Still, Rukadza arrived five
minutes before me. This is an improvement over yesterday, I
think.
Taking in the scene post-race I can tell we are now deep in the
South African backcountry. Against my better judgement I
follow other racers to the highest point near camp in my
jammies to see the sunset. There is one visible road that
disappears into the mountains, no buildings, no civilization, no
noise, no lights, just miles and miles of peaceful untouched
mountain desert.
Back home I have no relationship with the night sky. Far from
the bright lights of modernity the white splash above is
unavoidable, like a painter whipped his brush at a black canvas.
I unzip my tent and lay on my cot to consider our galaxy. The
Milky Way is so prominent in the middle of the Richtersveld
that I wonder if it’s the first time I’ve ever seen it. There are an
estimated 200–300 billion stars in our galaxy. We can see a
mere 0.000003 percent of them.
The current best guess on how many galaxies there are in the
observable universe is at least one hundred billion. Laying here
on my cot I conclude that I am small, unimportant. A thought I
come back to often. Why not chase a dream then? I resolve to
run harder tomorrow and suffer a bit more. I decide I’ll start
writing that book the second I get home. I’ll be exactly who I
am, no pretense. What is there to lose? Failure really doesn’t
matter.
An existential crisis in the making, I fall asleep before I decide to
sell everything I own and live off the grid.
Our tent configuration is different each night and tonight I’ve
got three snoring beasts within ear shot. Even with soft
polyurethane foam jammed into my ears they wake me
frequently. I contemplate jumping on the snorer behind me and
suffocating him with his tent. Reflecting before I act I conclude
it’s not his fault. Snoring is involuntary. It doesn’t make you a
bad person, it’s just a deviated airway and some decreased
muscle tone.
But I hate them, each and every one of them, each and every
night for keeping me awake. No one will hold me accountable
for midge murder, but the ramification for inter-species
homicide are far greater.
It doesn’t seem worth it.
In the morning all is forgiven. I don’t even want to know who I
would have slaughtered in their sleep a few hours ago. Today
starts out with a bit of trepidation, as we anticipate navigating
up the granite gullies to the Tatasberg mountains and a boulder
section we’ve heard a human could get lost in for weeks. The
staggered start means it’s just Rukadza and I starting 30minutes later than the previous group. He’s so much faster than
me on the smooth Ganukouriep riverbed that I have to follow
his navigation lead. There is no time to slow down and read the
map, breathing is the precedent.
Although impressive to you and I, Rukadza’s speed is the
slowest of the 56 mammalian species in the park. Humans are
terrible sprinters when compared to quadrupeds. Usain Bolt is
as fast as Homosapien sapeins get, clocking top speeds of 27
miles per hour during a 100 meter sprint. Let loose in your
backyard however, Bolt couldn’t even catch your cat, which can
easily sprint 30 mph. Cheetahs hold the title of fastest land
animal, reaching speeds of 62 mph, more than twice the speed
of our species’ genetically superior anomalies.
If Rukadza can’t sprint fast enough to catch his dinner, how did
our species not starve itself to extinction? The human advantage
could have come from bipedalism leading to the ability to run.
Rukadza’s body is custom built for long distance running. The
need to run long distances to scavenge and hunt fundamentally
changed how we evolved, and the bodies we occupy today.
Our shoulders are decoupled from our heads and necks which
allow our bodies to rotate while running, leaving our head facing
forward and relatively stable. Apes feet are suited for climbing
trees. A human intermediate, the Australopithecus, stood up
and walked, but lacked our achilles tendons and the sprung
arches of our feet. These structures, and our calf muscles, are
key components in our ability to store and return energy as a
biological spring.
When we look around the animal kingdom and attempt to figure
out why we are shaped as we are, the endurance running
hypothesis is compelling. We are one of the only mammals who
can easily run long distances in the heat. Simply being bipedal,
walking and running upright, decreases how much our bodies
are exposed to direct solar radiation, lowering our temperature
compared to those on all-fours. We also have a great deal of
surface area for cooling and are the only mammals with millions
of sweat glands, which cool the body through evaporation. Our
big butts, which apes lack, keep us upright and save us from face
planting while running. And the surface area of our hips, knees
and ankles allow for improved shock absorption, dissipating the
ground reaction forces. Our unique noses even evolved for
vigorous outdoor activity, allowing in air but not debris.
With all this in mind Lieberman has suggested we were able to
strive and survive because we evolved for endurance running
and persistence hunting.
“First, humans can run long distances at speeds that require
quadrupeds to switch from a trot to a gallop. Second, running
humans cool by sweating, but four-legged animals cool by
panting, which they cannot do while galloping. Therefore, even
though zebras and wildebeest can gallop much faster than any
sprinting human, we can hunt and kill these swifter creatures
by forcing them to gallop in the heat for a long period of time,
eventually causing them to overheat and collapse.”
A cheetah, for example, can only manage about 1.5 miles before
it overheats.
The Tatasberg boulders are as advertised, and improbable.
Rocks the size of refrigerators, cars, and even houses are
disorganized in front of me. Moving fast and frantic I frequently
have to reverse a dead-end, climb back out, and choose another
route. From the top of the Tatasberg mountains it’s a hot six
mile, 3,000 foot descent to the Orange River. Taking just one
water bottle was a bad idea as I’ve been out now for over two
hours and it’s approaching 100 degrees. Where is my
evolutionary advantage I wonder? This is another example of
the improbability of existence — the thin line. Although our
species is well suited for the hot weather running, there is
enough genetic variation among us that some of us simply aren’t
as good. I walk. I dream of water. I pout.
The plants of the Richtersveld have it figured out. For many of
them the life cycle is short enough that they never have to
endure the highest temperatures of the summer. One even lives,
grows large, and dies in just four days. Others put their seeds
directly into the ground themselves. The environment is so
harsh that if you want to live you must do things quickly. The
Richtersveld Wildrun is the same; move quickly through the
heat, conserve water, and protect yourself or perish.
I stumble to the finish line at the riverside campground of De
Hoop in third place today. A whopping 42 minutes behind
Rukadza, and five minutes behind South African Filippo Faralla.
Faralla joins Rukadza and I at the late start and we run the dry
riverbed out of camp. Together we cover a few miles before
Faralla decided better of it. It took me a few more miles still, but
eventually Rukadza disappears from sight. When I arrived at the
first aid station on Lizard Pass, the volunteers yell, “Alright, first
place!” I laugh, “Nope.” As I pass more runners it becomes
obvious that Rukadza must have made a navigation error. I pick
up the effort as the trail disapears and instantly get a off course.
I’m not lost, I just didn’t take the best route and waste some
time. I catch the two women competing for first place on the
climb to Halfmens Ridge. An interesting story in itself, as the
slightly faster of the duo has no idea how to navigate and isn’t
even attempting it. She’s fast enough to simply follow.
With Rukadza now hungrily hunting me, I make frantic
ignorant decisions. The sandstone and shattered shale bands
are a dark blood red and I wonder how much of my own
Rukadza will make me give to reach the finish-line first. Without
consulting the map I drop off the Halfmens ridge to the West,
much too early. The halfmen on the ridge shake their heads in
disappointment.
The girls disappear to their more manageable route. I’m left to
descend this nasty, rocky, steep, gully to who-knows-where. I
stop to contemplate and pull out the map for the first time in the
race. I’m descending the wrong gully, but it goes. Replacing the
map in my front pocket I hear rockfall — it’s Rukadza just a
couple hundred feet above me. I give a hoot, because, after-all
this is extremely fun, and set to losing him.
I traverse over a rib and into the next drainage. After many
miles of descent I pop out just a mile from where we started four
days and 93 miles ago. Sendelingsdrift is close, but there is the
possibility that Rukadza’s route got him to the dirt road and the
finish-line much faster than my traverse. With white quartzite
crunching under foot I push myself through the Crystal Fields.
The ground potpourri is otherworldly, black dolerite, pink
quartzite, grey shale peppered with red oxide soil. I somehow
make it to the finish-line first. When Rukadza arrives just
minutes later he’s covered in sweat streaks and the effort he put
in to catching me is obvious. This is comforting.
Sharing so many days of hard running in a unique environment
with the same people gives you a level of intimacy that isn’t
possible during single day races. Lasting friendships and
memories are made. Our final finish-line leaves me satiated,
happy, unpretentious… evolved.
More:
Videos from Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, and Day 4.
Wendy Drake’s piece for Competitor Magazine.
References:
Daniele E. Lieberman The Story of the Human Body (New York:
Pantheon Books, 2013).
Neil Shubin Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-BillionYear History of the Human Body (New York: Pantheon Books,
2008)
European Journal of Applied Physiology and Occupational
Physiology
June 1986, Volume 55, Issue 3, pp 259–266
The energetics of endurance running
P. E. di Prampero, G. Atchou, J. -C. Brückner, C. Moia
Nature magazine 432, 345–352 (18 November 2004) |
doi:10.1038/nature03052; Received 25 July 2004; Accepted 23
September 2004: Endurance running and the evolution of
Homo: Dennis M. Bramble1 & Daniel E. Lieberman
Census 2011: Census in brief. Pretoria: Statistics South Africa.
2012. ISBN 9780621413885. Retrieved 12 January 2013.
Scientific American magazine; Why do people snore?; Feb 2,
2004
Lynn A. D’Andrea, a sleep specialist at the University of
Michigan Medical School, explains.
Discover Magazine; Ten things you don’t know about the Milky
Way Galaxy; Phil Plait; March 12, 2008
Smithsonian Institute; Species Extinction;
Science Daily; How running made us human: Endurance
running let us evolve to look the way we do
Date:November 24, 2004; Source: University Of Utah
The Best of Outside: The First 20 Years Paperback (September
1, 1998) Edward Abbey; story