Blue Planet Run, Part 3

Posted September 1st, 2007

Moscow to Mongolia, Siberia, the Gobi Desert, and China

This summer, Dot Helling, of Montpelier, has been a member of a relay team that is literally running around the world to raise public awareness and funds to provide safe drinking water for everyone. Dot is contacting us monthly to give Vermont Sports readers an update of the team’s progress and her personal impressions. Here is her third installment.
Russia is big, no question about it. The Blue Planet Run team took almost a month to run from the Russian border through Moscow to the Mongolian border, almost all of it on a straight repetitive road. Initially, we were on Auto Route MR7, with whizzing semi trailers and lots of pollution. It became imminently clear that we were taking our lives in our hands every mile. So the course was re-routed onto less traveled roadways; more scenic, more in touch with the locals.
As we moved toward the Ural Mountains and Siberia, and crossed from Europe into Asia, the landscape became more rural. Our ten-mile runs were demarcated only by the occasional kilometer markers or the parked team van. The mosquito, deer and horse fly populations erupted to the point where those running the “bug shifts” compared our experience to what it must be like in a Chinese torture chamber, certainly worse than anything seen on reality TV. But eventually these things recede and are replaced by great experiences like eating pizza with a cold Mongolian beer.
Our journey across Siberia, some 1,700 kilometers, was highlighted by a few larger towns, including Tyumen, Omsk, Novosibirsk, and Irkutsk. We counted down the days it took to reach the shores of Lake Baikal and then the Mongolian border, anticipating a much desired change in the survival patterns we had developed while running across Siberia. The Russian roads are roughly paved, and we generally followed the Trans-Siberian Railway corridor, the longest railway in the world. Many areas were reminiscent of Vermont, verdantly green with rich farmland, prolific wildflowers and cattle. The houses, no matter how dilapidated, almost always had pretty windows with colorful painted frames, crisp white lace curtains and potted flowers. Water sources were abundant although unsafe to drink and sketchy to swim in.
The team remains relatively intact. A few suffered injuries along the way, and some bouts with food poisoning, but everyone has survived. An alternate runner who joined us in Belarus has filled in for runners needing some time off. The team of doctors is superlative. The pilot crews work round the clock for our safety. Run services struggled all through Russia to get laundry done and to secure bug-free beds and showers, as well as nutritious meals. Since leaving Russia, the logistics have become much smoother.
As we travel around the world, and I refer to my world map, the magnitude of what we are accomplishing continues to awe me. Running ten miles every day on pavement with a set time goal is hard on the body. Stretching and massage are almost a necessity, especially to an older runner like me. So is sleep and nutrition, with the greatest test being how to ensure that you get what you need. I am so grateful for this opportunity to participate in this global event, but even more so in the larger race for life. And in this venue, that larger race is about safe water, which is so essential to our being, and so essential to our ability to stay hydrated and keep running.
Mongolia offered us a warm welcome with beautiful scenery and delicious food. The Gobi Desert was a challenge, very hot and dry during the day and cooling down considerably at night.
Our night runs were surreal as there is no sense of time and distance in the desert. The Gobi makes up more than half of Mongolia and is wild terrain. The most difficult aspect of being in the Gobi was riding in the small four-wheel-drive vans for hours over miserably bumpy and sandy desert roads. When we crossed over into northern China, the roads became smoother as it became hilly, winding and green again.
The running was beautiful until we reached Beijing, by far the most polluted and busiest place I have ever been. Here we dodged and weaved amongst the sea of people, rickshaws, bikes and vehicles, running past incredible historic places such as Tiananmen Square and the portrait of Chairman Mao above the Gate to Heavenly Peace. My team took an independent trip to the Great Wall at Badaling, and huffed and puffed our way to the top, completely amazed at the steepness of it, its massiveness and the construction which dates back several thousand years. The Wall is more than 1,000 miles long.
China was friendly to us but very exasperating because of the congestion and communication problems. When we flew into Japan we were greeted by an even friendlier society, which is very polite and ordered. Our Japanese runner, Taeko, is a celebrity here, and so our team was welcomed with great enthusiasm. I had the honor of passing the baton to her for the final leg of our Asia journey, just before we climbed on the plane to fly home to the United States. I was born in Japan which made this extremely special.
We flew from Japan to San Francisco and will spend the month of August zigzagging across America and up into Toronto before heading past Niagara Falls towards the finish line in New York City on September 4. Keep up with our journey and my personal blogs at www.blueplanetrun.org. Water is life. Pass it on!