Special to The Wall Street Journal
By Kimi Puntillo
Sipping a premier cru Sauterne in France, last September, two miles into the Marathon du Médoc, a race that combines wine tasting and running, convinced me that it was one of my favorite marathons in the world. That decision was not made lightly. After completing eighteen marathons on seven continents, the average road race doesn't motivate me to lace up my sneakers; a love of travel, adventure, and just plain fun figures into selecting a starting line.
Running had never appealed to me until ten years ago when I trained for my first 42 kilometer race, the New York City Marathon in 1995. Finding a hobby that enabled me to eat more, sleep less and increase my energy while approaching 40 years-old was seductive enough, then a new incentive emerged. Two years later, I competed in Antarctica, a place that fascinated me since childhood, and afterwards traveled to other exotic locales where I never imagined marathons existed.
Running all around the world, here are five of my favorite marathons. Some will push you to your physical limit, others provide a spectacular setting, and all are worth the trip to watch even if you don’t run:
Marathon du Médoc, Pauillac, France
It’s nicknamed “Le Marathon le Plus Long du Monde" (The Longest Marathon in the World) not because it's difficult, but because runners don't want the hedonism to end.
Fifty-nine châteaux in the world famous Médoc wine region open their vineyards to runners and host wine tasting tables along the course. Racing became secondary as I stood in line with other runners politely waiting for pours from legendary vitners such as Lafite-Rothschild, a premier cru, the highest classification in the province.
There was no compulsion about enjoying the spoils. “It’s morning and I don't see anyone spitting,” says Peter Darbyshire, a participant this year and Managing Director of Thierry’s wine services, an English importer with £80 million in sales last year.
Nourishment during the race has a French flair with offerings of chocolate, cheese and pâté. Twenty-two thousand freshly shucked oysters await those who make it to kilometer 37; anticipating this gourmet respite kept me inspired for hours. Beef is barbequed two kilometers further up the road and a pâté, cheese and cracker bar greets everyone before the finish.
Concerns about time are considered gauche, especially when most of the runners are weighted down by costumes. This year, I passed 50 men from Le Mans in straw hats and Victorian bathing suits taking turns carrying a beach cabana on a stretcher. Peering into Red Cross tents usually reserved for competitors suffering pulled hamstrings and blisters I spied stretchers packed with runners receiving mid-race massages.
Those who are compelled to cross the finish line are given a generous post-race package - a bottle of wine, a gym bag to carry it in, a rose and a kiss.
Race information:
This popular race is usually sold out by February. Twenty percent of the 8,000 race slots are reserved for runners who aren't French.
Although you can find tour operators that package the trip, it’s easy and economical to plan it yourself. Register on the website at www.marathondumédoc.com. The entry fee is 65 Euros for French nationals and 80 Euros for international entries. A medical clearance from your doctor is required.
The town of Pauillac has very limited hotels, so many runners stay in Bordeaux, about an hour away. I highly recommend the following properties:
Accommodations:
Cordeillan-Bages
A Relais & Châteaux property and one of the few places to stay in Pauillac. The rooms are simple and elegant with a sense of privacy that felt like I was staying at a private châteaux.
Route des Châteaux, Pauillac
Tel: 33-5-56-59-24-24
www.cordeillanbages.com
Doubles: 142-275 Euros, Suites: 300-425 Euros
Les Sources de Caudalie
This luxury hotel and spa specializing in vinothérapie, treatments using the skins and seeds of grapes, is worth the hour ride to the race start. Runners can enjoy a post-race “merlot wrap,” “wine barrel bath” or “crushed cabernet scrub” with the very same organic grapes that hang from the vines of Châteaux Smith Haut Lafitte outside the hotel. My tour of the property included the spa, dining rooms and the main hotel, which were painstakingly designed by the châteaux’s owners to combine history, grand architecture and elegance, as are the rooms, each one unique in its interior and ambience.
Chemin de Smith Haut Lafitte
Bordeaux-Martillac
Tel: 33-5-57-83-83-83
www.sources-caudalie.com
Doubles: 230-265 Euros, Suites: 380-500 Euros (in September, high season)
Treatments: 50-150 Euros. Packages available combining spa treatments, meals and lodging.
Great Wall Marathon, Jin Shan Lin, China
Nothing captures the romance of running like wearing down your sneakers on 1,000 years of history on the Great Wall of China. I couldn’t take three strides without mastering stone steps in different shapes and sizes, 60,000 in all, on this world wonder built during the Ming dynasty to keep out pillaging nomads.
The course is never flat, constantly scaling the rolling countryside and required my strict focus to conquer the ancient architecture. A range of fancy footwork was necessary to gain ground on everything from wide stone walkways with small steps every ten feet to climbing stairs up narrow passageways, pressing myself against the stone wall corridor so runners in the opposite direction could pass on the three-loop course.
Inside connecting lookout towers I mounted steps as tall as my knees, shimmied across ledges that avoided stone pits and crawled up stick ladders through windows, making me feel like a kid on a jungle gym. It was the only race that I’ve ever run where it was mandatory to pay attention to what was under my feet for the entire marathon, leaving me exhilarated for hours after the race.
Cross-training to master the never ending stair climbs is a good idea, and I was glad that I spent time every other running day on weight machines at the gym. The competitive field is mostly German and finishing times range from two and a half to six and a half hours. The slower you run the bigger the crowd that welcomes you at the finish since everybody travels back on the same bus for the two and a half hour trip drive back to the hotel. While I waited for the last runner to finish, I had a massage on the Great Wall provided by the hotel masseuse who accompanied us to the race – a likely once in a lifetime experience.
Water stops are provided on terraces where volunteers sit under beach umbrellas to relieve themselves from the eighty degree Fahrenheit sun and record names of runners to ensure that they’ve completed each loop. Care had to be taken as centuries of decay often left small stones and dust as the only foothold on this section of history located 100 miles northeast of Beijing. Full-time German architect and part-time Race Organizer, Wichard Holscher, provides blueprints of the course and potential foot hazards at a pre-race briefing. Holscher coordinates this race as a hobby and has been holding it every year since 1996, save 2003 due to the SARS outbreak in China. The beauty and grace of the wall, gently snaking across green rolling hills, stretching 4,000 miles to the west, is like running in a beautiful picture. It’s one of the few races I’m tempted to run more than once as opposed to experiencing a new course.
Although other Great Wall marathons exist, this is the only one I know of that's entirely run on the Wall, and that’s worth selecting this race above the others.
Race information:
The Great Wall Marathon will be held September 2, 2006. Only 100 participants can be accommodated to avoid unnecessary erosion on the Great Wall. Packages range from one to two-weeks long with hotel accommodations at the three-star hotel Swisssino in Beijing. Add-on tours of Shanghai and Xian are also available.
Race Organizer and travel agent:
Wichart Holscher
Eisvogelweg 10 d-81827
Munich, Germany
Wichart.Hoelscher@t-online.de
Tel: 149-89-430-3143. Fax: 149-89-437-37564.
Race Organizer does not currently have a web site.
US Agent:
Ingrid Honzak
118 West First Street
Dayton, Ohio 45402
ihonzak@woh.rr.com
937-223-6600
Cost: 1,700 Euros includes airfare from Munich, two weeks of hotel including most meals, pasta party and city tours. Other points of departure are available for an additional cost.
Everest Marathon, Gorak Shep, Nepal
Surrounded by the world's highest peaks, snowcapped and touching the sky, running at the base of Mount Everest was like running in heaven. At an altitude of 17,000 feet, it’s arguably the toughest marathon in the world.
Plan to double your average marathon time, because your metabolism is already stressed providing enough oxygen from thin air to the body, let alone meeting the demands of a 26.2 mile race up and down trails 700 feet steep. That literally means you’ll be running all day. Tears streamed down my face closing in on the finish line after nine hours of trail running, half of it in hiking boots, due to threatening weather.
Pray for clear skies because there are no updated weather reports and getting stranded in a whiteout on a course in the Himalayas can be fatal. The unmarked trail begins just shy of base camp, Mount Everest, requiring running on ledges carved into mountainsides, climbing boulders and following a dirt path that’s easily lost if it’s covered in snow. We started our race in a snowstorm which luckily tapered off.
Only a few teahouses exist approximately every six miles along the picturesque trail where medical assistance and water is also available. We were required to run with a backpack stuffed with emergency gear and water, more critical than ever on this high altitude race.
Acclimatizing is essential. Before even starting the marathon, we trekked for three-weeks to the starting line. Due to the current political problems in Nepal, the journey now starts further up the trail, in Lukla, so the trek lasts two weeks.
A duffel bag balanced on the head of a sherpa requires minimum packing. A 12-kilo-per-person weight limit must include camping equipment and personal gear, and accommodates not much more than one change of clothes. Sleeping and eating is done in tents. A compensation for the modest lifestyle is the unparalleled views of the Himalayan mountain range by day and blankets of stars at night, glowing brighter because of high altitudes.
Food consists mostly of rice, beans and tasteless custard for dessert. The best place to bathe is in cold, glacial rivers. Living on one change of clothes and forgoing most material items for a month is an experience that cleanses the soul, as is being in the presence of the world's highest mountain.
A post-race hot shower can be had at local tea houses that pour boiling water from a pot on a stove into plumbing that flows to a spigot in a cold, cement basement. If you want to break ranks there is one luxury hotel with hot showers and sit down toilets an hour's climb from the finish line at Namche Bazaar, the village where the race ends.
Race information:
The November race, sold out this year, is next scheduled for 2007. Entries are restricted to 75 people selected from applications by Race Organizer Diana Penny Sherpani and are based on athletic experience and previous marathon times. Participants must pass a medical exam two days before the race to screen for altitude sickness. Loved ones can come too, see Mount Everest and volunteer to man water stops along the course. Participants, mostly British, are expected to raise money for the Everest Marathon Fund, aiding medical and educational needs in rural Nepal. Ten years of racing has raised more than £352,000 British Pounds.
Race Organizer:
Diana Penny Sherpani
Bufo Adventures
3 Elm Grove
Windermere, Great Britain
Tel: 44-1539-445-445
http://everestmarathon.org.uk
Cost for 25 days trip from London, including airfare to Nepal £2,100. You can make you own arrangement to Nepal and exclude airfare for £1,500 pounds. High-altitude camping equipment is required and a list of necessities is included with race registration information.
A second marathon was recently organized by a local group. The Tenzing-Hillary Everest Marathon is held on May 29th, the anniversary of the first successful climb of the world's highest peak. Details can be found at www.everestmarathon.com.
Antarctica Marathon
Getting to the bottom of the world requires almost a week of travel, first to Buenos Argentina, then a flight to Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world. From there we boarded Russian ice breakers for a three-day sail across Drake’s Passage, the most turbulent body of water on the planet. Race day found me bundled up for a Zodiac ride to the starting line on King George's Island off the Antarctica Peninsula. Once ashore, I faced a race course ascending Collins glacier, a 600-foot climb streaked with serrated ice while heading off 45 mile per hour winds. Closer to the shore, the course included a lot of mud, which when I ran in 1997, caused the female front runner to run out of her sneaker that got stuck in the muck.
Challenges included crossing calf-deep, icy-cold glacier streams with make-shift bridges of narrow wood planks not wider than a sneaker. Predatory birds called skuas have been known to buzz runners, causing more than a few competitors to stray a little off the two and a half loop course that changes each year, depending on weather conditions.
We stayed aboard a ship anchored off the coast because there are no hotels, restaurants or stores on Antarctica. One year, seas were so rough competitors couldn't disembark and were forced to run more than 500 times around their ship to be able to say “I ran a marathon in Antarctica.”
I had only run the New York City marathon twice before experiencing the extreme running conditions at the bottom of the world. That also meant going from hundreds of thousands of spectators lining the streets to passing a couple of parka clad researchers from the Chilean scientific outpost waving a bottle of vodka and offering me a cigarette.
Water stops consisted of filling your own bottles, labeling them with your name, and trying to find them in a cardboard box dropped at intervals along the course. My recommendation would be to bring bright, unusually colored containers, preferably flagged at the mouth piece with a ribbon or some other distinguishing mark so you can pick yours out in a hurry.
The February race takes place during the continent's summer where daytime temperatures average 38 degrees Fahrenheit and the sun doesn't set until midnight. The two-week package includes tours of the Antarctic oceans, including a hot spring where you can take a dip in your bathing suit. I also visited so many penguin rooks that I felt like part of the documentary, "March of the Penguins."
Race Information:
Race Organizer:
Marathon Tours and Travel
108 Main Street
Charlestown, Massachusetts
Tel: 1-617-242-7845
www.marathontours.com
The next race, February 2007 is sold out, but reservations are currently accepted for February 2008. Packages for the two-week trip from the U.S. start at $5,100 dollars. Add-on airfare from other international locations is available at additional cost. Another tour operator is currently trying to organize an Antarctica marathon run on the mainland.
Mt. Kilimanjaro Marathon, Moshi, Tanzania
In the town of Moshi, Tanzania, in the shadow of snowcapped Mount Kilimanjaro, I ran with locals who sped past the field in bare feet. After all, Africa is home to the world’s greatest long-distance runners.
Scenery along the course included small chapels with gospel music wafting in the air -- one runner stopped by church mid-race to listen to the choir sing. We ran by the town market filled with local spectators on the four-loop mostly flat route, which unfortunately included passing a bus depot filled with exhaust and temperatures of 85 degrees Fahrenheit. During the race, they ran out of water, forcing me off course to visit a local bar to order a club soda.
The running field was comprised of mostly Americans who greatly varied in their athletic prowess. The hotel in Moshi left much to be desired although the race start and finish is right outside the front door. Running numbers comprised of first names in magic marker on torn pieces of fabric and there was no start or finish clock at the race.
Hearty souls, including myself, continued the challenge after the marathon by climbing the highest mountain in Africa. With 48 hours of rest, we traded in our sneakers for hiking boots for a five-day excursion climbing 5,895 meters, above a layer of clouds, to stand atop Uhuru peak, the highest point on Mount Kilimanjaro, conquering one of the seven summits.
Now, the 12-day trip reverses the itinerary, with the Mount Kilimanjaro climb before the race. I'd suggest taking a slow-paced approach to the marathon - those who climbed before the marathon the year I ran, 1998, were more susceptible to dehydration and exhaustion.
Race Information:
Race Organizer:
Marie Frances
Mount Kilimanjaro Marathon
8120 Harbor Dr.
Las Vegas, Nevada
Tel: 1-702-952-9940
mariefrancis@mtkilimanjaromarathon.com
www.mtkilimanjaromarathon.com
The 12-day all inclusive package, for the climb and the marathon, starts at $4,200 for flights from the U.S. You can join the group in Tanzania by arrangements with the Race Organizer. There was no pre-screening required for the marathon or the climb.