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ULTRA

AFTER THE DUNE-UP

written by SUJIT chandra KUMAR
photographed by frank stutzke

“Susanne and seven others pedalled 100km on their bikes
across the Hajar mountains and ran another 100km
through the Sharqiyah desert”

Susanne Beisenherz, the ultra triathlon world champion from Germany, had a question for me when I caught up with her on the last day of McDonald’s Dune-Up, the extreme sports event that concluded recently in Oman. “Do you think we are crazy?” the charming and wiry athlete asked rather innocently. It took me a full minute as I mulled over her question. She and seven others had pedalled 100km on their bikes across the Hajar mountains and ran another 100km through the Sharqiyah desert. The Al Raha camp, the finishing point, was still a good 20km away and the athletes were clearly looking forward to a nice shower and some well-earned rest after their six days of adventure in the desert.

If they simply wanted to have a good time, they could have booked into a six-star hotel in Muscat, had a short tour of the desert in air-conditioned 4WDs, clicked some pictures of the camels and guzzled down refreshment. Why did they instead punish their
bodies by cycling in the mountains for a day and running under the scorching sun for three days? There were no simple answers to that question but I knew and let her know that this way, it would become an unforgettable experience of their life.

Susanne might have been the most accomplished athlete in the group, comprising of seven Germans and an Englishman, but she never tried to win or outrun the others. Dune-Up was not a race but a celebration of sports, where you progress shoulder to shoulder towards a common goal. She was often seen reducing her pace to offer a word of encouragement to whoever was lagging behind. Blisters and extreme heat made one or two of them opt for short breaks but the event was all about completing rather than competing. Susanne holds nine world records and was once Deca Ironman, which means that she won ten Ironman competitions on ten successive days in Mexico in 2006 (the Ironman competition involves swimming 3.8km, cycling for 180km and running 42.2km). But she is in that phase of her career when she wants to enjoy the experience to the hilt rather than bother too much about winning.

“It was a new experience for everyone and the chemistry among the participants was just right. Normally, I go for speed but here we ran as a group,” she said. “I was wondering if it (the six-day event) would get boring but it never did. The dry heat was incredible and the landscape was lovely and offered a lot of variety. The sand sank under our feet and the dunes were shockingly high.”

In all, we were a group of 25 including eight athletes, three journalists, two doctors, drivers and other support staff. We started on December 6 from Muscat in half a dozen 4WDs, driving along Barka, Nakhal and al Awabi. Our first stop was at a tiny resort in Wadi Bani Auf and the mountain cycling started early on the second day from there. Showing great attitude was ‘Muscle’ Martin Mair, who simply lifted his bicycle and walked whenever the climb became too steep for his comfort.

The event was all about marrying nature and sport. While most of us thankfully curled up in the comfort of our tents in the cold nights, Martin was spotted sleeping in the rough, with just a sleeping bag for protection. It wasn’t as though the athletes were
challenging nature by pushing their endurance levels. It was just that they wanted to soak in as much of the environs as possible.

The shoes they wore were specially designed, with an additional layer of canvas sheet to prevent sand from getting in through the small pores. This was thanks to a brainwave of Martin Trier, the chief organiser, who had lost five of his toenails during the first Dune-Up that was held in Tunisia a year ago. The athletes found the redesigned footwear a big help, yet one or two of them developed blisters. Even as the athletes were stretching the limits of their stamina and staying power, the drivers of the cars – actually, people belonging to various professions in Germany who were doubling as drivers – were fighting their own little battles with the dunes. Often, a vehicle would get stuck in the sand and another one would be used to try to pull it out of the mess, only for the drivers to realise that the second one was also now stuck in the sand.

One disappointment was that the four runners from Oman, who were supposed to take part, pulled out at the last minute. But the organisers, Martin Trier and his sister Stefanie Trier, are determined to make the Dune-Up a much bigger event in the years to come. “Our sponsors have expressed an interest in conducting trials in different Gulf nations before selecting participants for the next Dune-Up event in Oman,” said Stefanie. “Of course, organising such a large-scale event would be much more complex.”