Great things are done when men and mountains meet.
- William Blake
Make friends with pain, and you will never be alone.
- Ken Chlouber, creator of the Leadville 100 trail race
The Starting Gun
In a pandemic year of shutdowns and cancelled events, people everywhere were forced to look for new things to do. Millions discovered the playground of the outdoors, for good and bad. Athletes in particular had to get creative. With in-person races (including the Olympics) cancelled or postponed indefinitely, many turned to setting ambitious personal goals. Cue virtual races, backyard marathons, invite-only time trials, and a record number of FKTs. I was happy to see the flexibility and perseverance of so many athletes under such disappointing circumstances. Watching the athletic landscape change over the course of 2020, though, got me thinking about feats in general—what it takes to accomplish one and about the drive that makes people push themselves to the edge. What does it take to do something no one has done before? What happens in its aftermath? The following is a triptych of adventure and athleticism, three stories that happened prior to the pandemic that may offer some insights into those questions.
Part I – Setting the Pace
October 2019, Vienna. When Eliud Kipchoge rounded the final bend and saw the clock, he knew he had done it. His pacers dropped away and he beat his chest as the crowd cheered him through the last steps, crossing the finish line in one hour, fifty nine minutes, forty seconds. It was the fastest marathon ever run and the first to be run in under two hours, a mark that has eluded the elite runners for decades.
Running a marathon is a monumental physical feat. It requires 3,000 calories, 50,000 steps, precise management of heat, hydration, and nutrition, and a relentless mental struggle against the body’s screams to stop, a state that has been described as “delicious agony”. Still, the best make it look effortless, like they’re on wheels. For many amateurs, running a three hour marathon is a lifetime achievement. To do it in two (Kipchoge’s pace was 4:34/mile!) was nothing short of mind-boggling.
Kipchoge’s run didn’t count as a world record, though, for several reasons. First, it was organized as a closed course time trial—just Kipchoge racing the clock—not a sanctioned race. Second, the rules were bent to optimize absolutely everything: the location was flat and low elevation with minimal turns, the date and time were selected to be cool with low humidity and no wind, and a fleet of 41 pacemakers, guided by lasers from a pace car, shuffled in and out of a windbreaking V formation ahead of Kipchoge to minimize air resistance. Kipchoge currently holds the marathon world record, a 2:01:39 he ran in Berlin in 2018. Despite the lack of additional accolade for his effort, it was a watershed moment for the sport. He proved that under the best of conditions, a sub-two hour marathon is physically possible.
Of all the conditions surrounding the event, though, it was Kipchoge’s shoes that got the most attention. He wore a version of Nike’s Vaporfly 4%, so called because the company claims it will make runners 4% faster compared to the next best shoe. The shoes have a carbon plate in the midsole sole that transfers slightly more energy per stride. More energy transferred is less wasted, and even a small amount of savings can make a difference in a race as long as the marathon, where efficiency is key. And it’s true—the Vaporflys work. Independent studies have shown that the shoes are in fact faster (roughly by the amount claimed by Nike) than non-carbon plated shoes.
When they were released, purists cried that the Vaporflys gave Nike athletes an unfair advantage and wanted them banned. They act too much like a spring, they said, propelling the runner forward in a way the body would not do on its own. In a sport loved for its simplicity, such controversies muddy the waters, introduce doubt. Records may fall, but how much of it was due to the runner and how much to the shoes? Would Kipchoge have broken the two hour barrier without the Vaporflys? How much technology is too much? These debates aren’t new. The introduction of lightweight composite materials in cycling led to the sport’s governing body setting strict geometric and weight standards for bike frames. In swimming, full-body speed suits, which contributed to a wave of shattered records at the 2008 Olympics, are now banned. Following Kipchoge’s run, American marathoner Sarah Hall tweeted, “Wanting limits to shoe technology doesn’t make you ‘anti-innovation’. Innovation is awesome—until it creates a quantum leap in the sport.” After much deliberation (and vigorous lobbying, no doubt), the IAAF set some guidelines for shoe stack height and construction, but none strict enough to outlaw the Vaporflys, a decision that dawned a new era, a “revolution” in distance running.
The counterargument is that Kipchoge, the world’s number one ranked marathoner, could have done it on his own. It is not lost on the running world that he and the rest of the top tier hail from one place in the world, east Africa. Kipchoge belongs to the Kalenjin people of western Kenya, who have produced some of the greatest distance runners of the modern era. Of the Olympic and World Marathon Majors winners from the past 20 years, the majority are Kalenjin. It has been called “the greatest concentration of elite athletic talent ever in any sport, anywhere in the world”.
The fact that one people have come to so dominate distance running is a product of several factors, the first being geographic and genetic. The Kalenjin are descended from lowland ancestors, but now reside in the highlands of western Kenya. They have bodies that are optimized for hot climates, with skinny arms and ankles efficient for shedding heat. Living and training at high altitude, though, means their bodies use oxygen more efficiently, providing a supercharging effect at sea-level marathons.
The other reasons are cultural. Life in the highlands is simple and cars are scarce, so running is an accepted form of transportation. Schoolchildren, most of whom grow up without shoes, commonly run several miles each day to school and back. An agricultural people, the Kalenjin eat a healthy, plant-based diet rich in roots and grains, ideal for both endurance and longevity. Young people are initiated into adulthood with grisly and painful initiation rites, fostering mental toughness for the long slog that is a marathon. Finally, having so many world champions come from such a small region has created potent cultural prestige around running, inspiring everyone from farmers to bartenders to take up the pursuit. Running is viewed by many as a ticket out of poverty for both themselves and their often large extended families. In short, distance running rewards the mental and physical traits that the Kalenjin have in abundance—large lungs and cardiovascular system, light limbs, and high pain tolerance. Motor over chassis. Kipchoge is all motor.
One consequence of the carbon shoe revolution is the overall raising of the stakes. Today, the neon-colored Vaporflys are ubiquitous on elites and amateurs alike. To not wear them puts you at a disadvantage. All of Nike’s major competitors have since come out with their own carbon-plated shoes, and it has been interesting to watch how that has played out, especially when it comes to sponsorships. Some athletes, bound by contracts to wear a certain brand’s shoe, have risked penalties or termination by wearing a competitor’s shoe (usually Vaporflys), usually obscuring the logo with a marker or tape. Others have negotiated their contracts with shoe technology in mind, testing each one and accepting an offer from the best performer. In addition to the footrace itself, there is a race of technology going on behind the scenes, with companies spending enormous amounts on R&D to build the perfect marathon shoe.
What does a world record mean in the post-Vaporfly era? Has distance running been forever changed? What role should technology play in pushing the limits of athletic performance? When the first official sub-two hour marathon is run, will the runner's shoes matter? Kipchoge is certainly the person best positioned to do it, although at age 36, he is nearly at the end of his career. So if not him, there will be others. They will probably be Kalenjin, and they will probably be wearing Vaporflys.
Part II – Miracle Miles
From a young age, Colin O’Brady seemed destined for success. He was born in Portland, Oregon, where he was a youth swimming champion. He was recruited to compete for Yale, where he was nationally-ranked and received a degree in economics. On a post-college trip to Thailand, however, he suffered an accident that resulted in severe burns to his legs. His injuries were devastating, and he was told he may never walk again. In the wake of that event, though, he dedicated himself to recovery to prove wrong the doctors and physical therapists. He got a job as a commodities trader in Chicago and not only learned to walk again, but began training for endurance sports. He entered the Chicago Triathlon and won. He was so good, in fact, that he became a professional triathlete, traveling the world with team USA. Later, he shifted his focus to the outdoors, setting a speed record on the Three Poles Challenge, Seven Summits, and Explorer’s Grand Slam, as well as a speed record for the 50 U.S. state high points (a blistering 21 days!). It was the ultimate comeback story.
In 2018, O’Brady set his sights on a new objective: a daring, human-powered crossing of Antarctica. He planned to traverse the continent on foot, alone and unsupported, via the South Pole. O’Brady would have to pull in a sled behind him all the gear and food he would need along the roughly 921-mile route, affixed by a harness to his waist as he shuffled on skis (his sled ended up weighing a whopping 375 pounds). In his social media feeds and in a widely-viewed interview on The Joe Rogan Experience, O’Brady detailed his training regimen, the calorie-dense “Colin bars” that were specially formulated for him (high in fat so they wouldn’t freeze), and the indomitable mindset needed to battle snow squalls, discomfort, and loneliness across the across the vast white expanse and perpetual daylight of the Austral summer.
But better yet, it would be a race! British captain Louis Rudd was planning a parallel expedition and it turned out that the two would be arriving in Antarctica and starting at the same time. News outlets like The New York Times ran stories tracking the “Race to the Bottom of the World”. It had everything—danger, adventure, national pride, a charismatic hero and a rough-around-the-edges underdog.
In December 2018, O’Brady and Rudd set off, making what daily progress they could and pinging their satellite beacons every evening so the world could follow their progress. O’Brady even kept his Instagram updated with photos and commentary about how things were going. At first it was neck and neck, but by day six, O’Brady pulled ahead and never looked back. Covering an average of 17 miles per day and finishing with a sleepless 40-hour push to the end, the journey took him a total of 54 days. Rudd arrived at the finish two days later. Thus, O’Brady claimed the mantle of the first solo unsupported crossing of Antarctica. Upon return, he promptly wrote a book titled “The Impossible First” that documented the expedition and his life experience overcoming adversity to achieve ambitious goals. He hit the talk show circuit and began giving lectures as a motivational speaker.
Almost before the cheers died down, though, controversy arose. Prominent members of the adventure and outdoor communities voiced skepticism about many of O’Brady’s claims. One article in particular, by Aaron Teasdale of National Geographic, was an unapologetic takedown of O’Brady’s hero myth. The “impossible first”, it turned out, was neither impossible nor a first. Point by point, Teasdale laid out O’Brady’s claims versus the actual reality of what he did, the result swiftly robbing the accomplishment of its luster. Teasdale also spoke to people on some of O’Brady’s previous expeditions, who described a history of misrepresentation, arrogance, and verbal abuse that is at odds with his cheerful and carefully curated public persona. A close analysis of his expedition revealed several flaws.
First, O’Brady took a shortened route. Antarctica is covered in ice thousands of feet thick that extends hundreds of miles out to sea. He and Rudd, however, crossed the continental land surface only, not the ice shelves. At the edge of the continent, though, the two are indistinguishable—there is just snow in every direction. O’Brady’s journey, then, effectively both began and ended far inland, approximately 900 miles shorter than the total traversable surface. At the endpoint, too, he did not see the sea. His GPS simply told him he had arrived, so he stopped to take a photo and retrieve a cache of food and supplies.
Second, the route O’Brady followed coincided with the South Pole Traverse (SPoT) vehicle road for about a third of his trip. The “road” is a cleared surface driven by snow-cats and other equipment to and from McMurdo station, on the coast, to the South Pole. It is level, plowed, and marked by orange flags along its length. Following the SPoT road meant that O’Brady did not have to break trail through the ubiquitous jagged windblown ice ridges known as “sastrugi”, navigate obstacles such as crevasses, or monitor his direction with a compass. Needless to say, mention of the flagged highway did not show up in his Instagram feed (although an inadvertent photo did). O’Brady also stopped at the South Pole station when he arrived at the halfway mark, but because he was attempting an “unsupported” crossing, could not accept aid, which would have consisted of food or stepping inside the heated structures. Instead, he stayed outside to chat with the crew. Hardly the desolate solitude that he would have people believe.
Third, a solo unsupported crossing was already completed in 1997 by Norway’s Borge Ousland, widely considered the greatest polar explorer of the modern era. Ousland crossed the full distance of the continent, from sea to sea (1,864 miles), charting a new course over rough terrain. On a few occasions, he used a kite to take advantage of the wind to help propel him, but hauled his sled manually the rest of the way (for a far greater distance than O’Brady’s entire route). Ousland and O’Brady both completed unsupported crossings, but in a splitting of hairs, O’Brady claims the first “unassisted” crossing, saying that his feat is different for lack of kite and should therefore be considered a separate category. According to the history of Antarctic exploration, though, it isn’t. Convention does not count the use of passive aids such as kites as assistance. It’s not that no one had done it O’Brady’s way because they thought the feat was impossible, but simply because it wasn’t worth doing. If you’re alone and unsupported, why wouldn’t you use wind?
Last, Rudd wasn’t racing. Yes, they were both setting out to complete the first unsupported, unassisted crossing, but their coincident start had more to do with the logistics of polar travel than any planned head-to-head competition. Their schedules just happened to line up. O’Brady’s decision to wait for Rudd at the finish, too, which he played off as generous sportsmanship, was actually a result of their prior agreement to split the cost of the return flight, saving them both a considerable amount of money. Portraying it otherwise seemed an egregious attempt by O’Brady to squeeze every marketable ounce out of the trip, casting himself not only as a success, but also as a winner.
O’Brady asked for Teasdale’s article to be retracted and has reappeared on JRE to defend himself, but the Antarctic explorers' community uniformly stand behind Teasdale’s interpretation of events. They argue that O’Brady consistently exaggerated the danger and remoteness of his crossing. His claim that rescue was impossible in the region where he was traveling, for example, is not true. A call from his satellite phone would have summoned a plane within hours. Also, they say, he misrepresented the nature of his accomplishment, calling it variously “contrived” and a first “only in a very limited sense”. Antarctic explorer Damien Gildea said, “O’Brady and Rudd’s trips are not progression, they are regression, because they avoided the very challenges inherent to the feat they claim to have achieved.” Never in the run-up to his expedition did O’Brady mention Ousland, and only subsequently, when pressed, did he acknowledge the Norwegian’s prior expedition.
No one is disputing the difficulty of what O’Brady did. Sledging food and gear overland while battling the elements is no small task, especially for that many days in a row. It was a remarkable achievement. But it was the manner in which he portrayed that achievement that was so disappointing. He sought the rewards of fame at the expense of a true account of events. He played on the world’s ignorance of the nuances of Antarctic exploration to portray himself in the best possible light. He cherry-picked the history of prior expeditions for his book. When interviewers and media outlets, relying on his account, mischaracterized the nature of his accomplishment, he didn’t correct them. Maybe he truly didn’t consider that the story he was telling was disingenuous. With his considerable income as a motivational speaker on the line, however, I have my doubts. His narrative had become the truth, must remain the truth.
Rudd, on the other hand, has been much more straightforward. He has been open in acknowledging the historical context of his attempt, even mentioning his encounter with tourists skiing along the SPoT road. He has been reluctant to criticize O’Brady, though, preferring to focus on his own story.
We are, regrettably, all too accustomed to being let down by our heroes (Armstrong, Woods, and Bonds come to mind). Still, I can’t help but feel embarrassed by O’Brady’s gall, by that particularly American brand of greed and fame-seeking that would lead someone to intentionally mislead people. “The history of exploration is basically predicated on taking a man or woman’s word for what they did,” explains David Roberts, an American adventure writer and one of the first to publicly criticize O'Brady. “But then people like this come along and by violating the code they make everybody subject to skepticism and doubt.”
Part III – Heartbreak Hill
In 1924, a full twenty-nine years before Hilary and Tenzing, the British climber George Mallory and his partner Andrew “Sandy” Irvine were on the cusp of history. The pair were ascending the northeast ridge of Mount Everest above the famed “first step”, some 800 feet from the summit, when, according to a team member spotting from lower on the mountain, they disappeared upward into the clouds. They were not seen again.
What became of Mallory and Irvine remains the subject of fierce speculation and debate. The part of the mountain they were traversing is extremely hazardous—a narrow spine-like ridge with sheer drops of thousands of feet on either side. There are three “steps”, or vertical faces that require technical rock/ice climbing, that must be ascended along the ridge before the path to the summit is clear. A thick snow squall (the cloud that obscured the spotter’s view) had just moved in, making visibility and navigation extremely difficult and every move treacherous. Plus, they were well into the “death zone”, above 26,000 feet, where low atmospheric oxygen levels encumber breathing and clear thinking. Most likely, one of them took a misstep, and, since they were roped together, both tumbled down. But the question remains—on which part of the journey? Did they make it to the top? Were they actually the first? It is Everest’s most enduring mystery.
Famed alpinist Conrad Anker led a 1999 expedition to search for the bodies of Mallory and Irvine or any sign of their fate. The team had heard rumors that in 1975, a Chinese climber had spotted “an English dead” off the secured route, below a geologic formation known as the Yellow Band. At that time, the only deaths that high on the mountain were Mallory and Irvine. In a stroke of luck, the team did find Mallory’s body, roughly a thousand feet down the north face in a shallow crevice. He was face down in the ice in a self-arrest position, altimeter and wristwatch broken but intact, well-preserved in the perpetually subzero conditions. There were tantalizing clues. “Mallory’s green-tinted goggles were found in his pocket”, writes Mark Synnott. “Did that mean he was descending at night, when he wouldn’t need them? His wristwatch had stopped between one and two, but was that a.m. or p.m.? Mallory had made it known that if he made it to the summit, he would leave his wife’s picture on top. There was no picture of her on his body.” They did not find Irvine.
In 2019, a team from National Geographic made another trip, this time searching a crevice below the Yellow Band where, based on the location of Mallory and one of Irvine’s ice axes that had been found on the ridge a decade after their expedition, they thought Irvine was likely to be found. Again, no luck. Even if Irvine’s body had been in the area at one time, it could have been swept away by an avalanche or storm, falling far into the valley below. The two may have been roped together, but no longer.
The allure of Everest is both obvious and hard to pin down. Salman Rushdie has called the Himalaya “land’s attempt to metamorphose into sky”. To stand on the world’s tallest peak, the pinnacle of the physical world, is to be momentarily superior to all other mortals, challenging the gods themselves. For climbers, it is often the culmination of a lifelong ambition. Some seek to confront the power of the mountain, pitting their skills against the worst it can deal out. Others simply wish to stand in awe of its grandeur, to be completely at its mercy, to experience an alien world indifferent to the needs or sufferings of mankind. The mountain makes no accommodation, expects none in return. It is completely unforgiving. To pass there and return to tell the tale puts one among a select few in the world, those who have cheated death. There’s a certain kind of person that will sign up for that no matter the odds. It was Mallory, after all, when questioned why he would repeatedly risk his life to summit Everest, who famously responded, “because it’s there”.
High-altitude climbing used to be the domain of highly trained professionals and large, sponsored expeditions, usually to stake a claim or bolster national pride. Now, virtually anyone can purchase a guided trip up Everest, granted you have a baseline (yes, high) level of fitness and few tens of thousands of dollars you’re willing to part with. Private expedition companies take amateur climbers (doctors, dentists, and weekend warriors) up the world’s most famous mountain, with increasingly controversial outcomes. Sherpas, the ethnic locals, create the route, setting fixed lines, ladders, and hauling gear and other luxuries to high camps. They guide and support clients’ expeditions along the way, coordinating and facilitating their success.
The large sums of money invested by clients sometimes leads to bad judgment, though, or overly risky behavior, getting them in trouble. For example, a climber may refuse advice from a Sherpa to descend, especially when close to the summit. Having planned for years for a once in a lifetime trip, they don’t want to leave without bagging it. They push too hard, use up too much oxygen, and become too weak to continue, forcing Sherpas to risk their own lives assisting or rescuing them.
The mountain routinely shatters the dreams and lives of those who come within its shadow. A quick-moving storm high on the mountain, recounted in Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, killed eight people in 1996. The devastating 2015 earthquake in Nepal triggered an avalanche that killed 22 people at base camp. 2019 was an especially deadly season, the result of too many inexperienced climbers and, some say, the Nepali government’s push to extract as much money from climbing permits as possible. When deaths do occur, the victims are usually left in place. It is just not feasible or safe to attempt to retrieve bodies from such high altitudes. Often, they are not far from the trail, leaving other climbers to walk by or step over them sometimes for years to come, like landmarks. A total of about 300 have died on Everest in the past six decades, and 100 or so of them remain on the mountain. With warmer temperatures brought on by climate change, more of those long-interred bodies are being found as they emerge from the ice. But still no Irvine.
Everest base camp has long been described as a circus, with its sprawling zoo of tents, private outfitters, nations, and cliques, but it is crowding on the mountain itself that has recently become a risk. A photo from last year of congestion on the summit approach quickly went viral. In such bottlenecks, climbers must squeeze past each other while attached to a single fixed rope in a kind of reverse leapfrog. Progress slows to a crawl (or completely), leaving everyone at the mercy of the elements and their oxygen gauge. Should a storm arise, all would be severely exposed, stranded on the same ridges where Mallory and Irvine lost their lives.
One piece of evidence that could put the question to rest is one that has never been recovered—Irvine’s camera. He was carrying a Vest Pocket Kodak, and, had the pair made it to the summit, would surely have taken a photo (luckily we don’t have to worry about fakery from their time). Mallory and Irvine’s expedition was remarkable for their other equipment though, wearing layers of silk, wool, and gabardine, leather boots, and outfitted with first-generation oxygen tanks and masks. It was tinkering with and improving the oxygen system, in fact, that earned Irvine a spot on the expedition despite his young age and relative inexperience. The fact that the pair made it that far one hundred years ago, without the today’s synthetic materials and technology, is extraordinary in its own right.
Surely, more expeditions will be launched to search for Irvine and his camera, but there’s no telling whether anything will turn up. It may be one of those questions that remains unanswered, a page of the history book that will forever be blank. We don’t deal well with that. The question gnaws at us. We want to know. We want, if only for a fleeting moment, to be measured by the mountains, and see, in their ardent and breaking light, what is revealed.
The Home Stretch
Three stories, each pushing the human body to the limits of exertion and endurance. Should there be an asterisk next to them in the record books? Where do we draw the line with new technologies? What place do fairness and transparency have in the making and telling of history? Who gets to tell it?
Accomplishing any difficult feat, of course, takes more than just physical ability. It takes planning, a supportive team, the right equipment, cooperation of the weather, and sometimes plain old good luck. The reason we are captivated by those who attempt them, though, seems to me more primal in origin. Challenges offer transformation. We seek to pit ourselves against uncertainty and fear, to push the limits, and if all goes well, emerge on the other side as a new kind of person. To find within us a new source of strength and resilience and the confidence of knowing that we are enough. That we can do it. That we can persevere. Regardless of ability, that's something we can all relate to.
I certainly feel transformed from who I was one year ago. Covid has changed our relationship with so much of the world. Finally getting across the finish line of the pandemic will bring mixed feelings, though—the kind of post-race afterglow that leaves you both coursing with adrenaline and satisfyingly exhausted. It has been a hard journey. Let’s hope our next adventure is one we choose.
For more: I could have picked so many things to write about. Here are a few more that caught my eye over the past year that also deserve some recognition:
- Alenka Artnik's freediving world record
- Emily Harrington's free climb of Golden Gate on El Capitan
- Karel Sabbe's FKT of the Appalachian Trail
- Jim Walmsley 100K American record
Excellent