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I wrote this post just before we set off for a 525-kilometer journey across Namibia... but I never hit publish. So, I'm going to leave it as is, and we'll include Expedition Africa in our final month recap, where it rightfully belongs. --- As I finish this post, we are heading to bed on the eve of Expedition Africa, a six-day race across the deserts and sand dunes of Namibia. The race begins on the last day of our sixth month of traveling, so you’ll have to forgive the early update. It was either that or wait until the post-race fog lifts… about halfway through month seven. As we enter our final month of roaming, we find ourselves spending time reflecting on the lessons from the trip and how we want to hold onto them during our reentry. But that’s a story for another day. For now, here is month six, by the numbers…
 
Abby
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WonderThe theme of the opening ceremony at Expedition Africa’s swan song here in Namibia was Emotions. For the EA community, better described as a family, this final edition of the iconic event is an exciting but bittersweet chapter in the race’s long history. Heidi, of course, shared some of those emotions in welcoming us, and local racer Dani van Aswegan built upon the theme himself in a touching speech. Add in a dose of time-traveling, globe-trotting Jose Pires (seriously, he is everywhere, at every race across the planet. All the time. He must be in kahoots with Miss Granger…) and the night proved to be a moving one. Capped off by Stephan’s outstanding humor. Plenty of emotions all around. For Rootstock Racing…well, let’s rewind and recall how we got here. Several months before departing on our grand adventure, Heidi…
…OK, so Heidi pings us on WhatsApp to ask us about our future plans. When she finds out we are planning to travel internationally for much of the year, she cheers. “OK!” she says…Heidi prefers to send voice messages; we enjoy hearing from her when she does… “Here’s what you’re going to do! You’re going to travel, see the world, and you’re going to come down to southern Africa and end up in Namibia. I’ll take the kids, and you will do the race!” We laughed…and accepted. It didn’t feel like an offer. It felt more like a command, one that felt too good to pass up. Admittedly, as race directors of a multi-day expedition race ourselves, I really can’t fathom making such an offer. Directing such events is plenty challenging enough. Watching someone’s two little kids on top of it?! We know Heidi, and we trusted she wouldn’t make the offer if she had any doubt she and her team could pull it off. But still. We signed up and went to work on building a team. Ultimately, we ended up signing up with long time friend, colleague, and sometimes teammate, Michael Garrison and friend and up-and-coming US adventure racers, Matt Cymanski. We haven’t raced with Matt before, and he has yet to compete in a multi-day race, but we know he is stronger than just about anyone racing, and we figured he might be interested in the experience to learn about expedition racing without worrying too much about the physical side of preparing since… Well. Let’s be honest, a seven-month international trip with two kids isn’t exactly how we normally train for big races like this. Over the course of the trip, we would sorely miss:
We knew we wouldn’t be able to train to our standards, maybe to any standards, and we had some frank conversations with Matt and Mike ahead of time about this. They seemed on board and ready to carry more of the weight, slow down, essentially wipe out any real expectations, and go with the flow. Ask them afterwards if this was a wise decision…  Different Country. Same Race-Food Shopping... AcceptanceWell, the trip, while it has been amazing, has gone more or less as we expected. Meaning, training proved to be just about impossible. The combination of travel and parenting has been one thing; we have been busy, tired, and on with the kids most of the days. When we haven’t been “ON,” we have often been working, booking hotel rooms, planning the next stage of the trip, or simply exhausted. In reality, the environments we have been in have proven much more challenging to train in as well. I’m sure we could have done more here and there, but congestion and sometimes unpleasant conditions in the streets, crowded cities, and considerable air pollution simply didn’t allow two travel-worn asthmatics to even entertain getting out for a run. Not to mention some places with unique obstacles…like leopards. On some occasions when we did manage to find some time and energy, environmental conditions like extreme heat and humidity in southeast Asia would knock us out, sometimes for days (mostly me). Biking, forget about it…  Shake Out "Run" TerrorSo, when we finally arrived in Windhoek, capital of Namibia, we were excited and grateful to finally be here, and we were, to put it bluntly, feeling rather terrified. We are well equipped for a few things that we DO think will give us a chance to reach the finish line: we have been walking and hiking a fair bit: roughly 1200 miles or so over the last six months. We have been carrying Simon around for probably 80-90 percent of those miles, and when one of us carries him, the other is usually carrying a loaded day pack. We have also lugged full travelers’ backpacks through three continents and 12 countries, moving countless times over the last 180-ish days. That’s something. But we have been on bikes maybe five times since we departed in November, and only once…to be fair for a one week stretch…did we have access to decent bikes for some more quality and longer rides. The rest of the bikes we have used conjure images of the Kansas-bound Wicked Witch biking around with a basket over the handlebars… So, yeah. Terrified. We are fully counting on four things to MAYBE give us a shot to finish this thing: experience, navigation and strategy, efficiency, and teamwork. How we are going to convince our atrophied, shriveled up muscles that they can keep going for 500km, I’m not really sure. But we’ll see. RegretAs we drove into Windhoek from the airport, I made a comment in retrospect imbued with magical, superstitious power that metaphorical knocks-on-wood in the moment failed to adequately counter. “You know,” I mused, “We’ve made it almost six months, through Morocco, southeast Asia, Nepal, and Eastern Africa without any real GI issues. Without any real issues at all related to travel or misfortune, actually. It feels like (and here, I knocked on invisible wood. A lot), we might just make it. Somewhere, the AR Gods turned their attention to Namibia, zoning in on our tiny white car as it rolled past troupes of baboons and a small group of giraffes into Windhoek. They watched our merry little band as we settled into a small apartment and headed to the local mall for two days of eating and movies…Imaginary Friends, it’s good, even if the critics didn’t like it. They took stock of our relaxed…and relaxing…nature, and they laughed. “Hold my beer,” one of them must have said. And then he proceeded to smite us. We had arrived a few days before the rest of the racers would, so we had some time to kill. It was the second evening when the first shoe fell. After a salad…I haven’t eaten salad for six months…at a seafood restaurant at the mall, I finally succumbed. Mind you, it could have been worse. I’ve had worse, but for the first time on the trip, someone went down with legitimate food poisoning. Six days later, I’m largely better, but things still feel off enough that I’m not quite myself. The next morning, Abby woke up feeling…a bit off. No GI issues for her or the kids (guess I should have eaten sushi at the mall seafood joint?!), but the hints of a cold started up, and she’s been on a Magic Kingdom level roller coaster since. Not too low, but no full high either. Zoe was next. Mike was in the process of arriving, and she and I went out for a short “run.” (seriously, running isn’t exactly what my body does anymore after this trip) A mile in (and almost done), she rolled her ankle on an invisible rock. Not necessarily anything that would impact the race, but the omens were starting to pile up. I mused to the AR Gods who I clearly had offended, hoping that we had paid sufficiently for naivety. Simon? Still standing, seemed fine…though, he was letting out the occasional, random dry cough. Huh. We didn’t think too much of it, had a nice day catching up with Mike, and went to bed. 3:00AM. I stir, hearing Abby calling for me. I sit up and hear a gasping from the bed next to ours and see Abby holding Simon. He’s surprisingly calm since he’s barely breathing, and occasionally, he barks through his restricted throat. I suit up, load him into the car, and we head to the Emergency Room. Abby and I stay in touch. The experience is pleasant enough, and Simon is diagnosed with croup. The doctors are kind, they administer a couple of vials of medicine through a nebulizer, and they release us an hour later with a scrip for five drugs in the morning. We head back to the room and collapse for another couple of hours of fitful rest before I drive to the airport to pick up Matt and Frank (a racer from Switzerland) the next morning. Not exactly what we needed to get ourselves on track physically and medically. Thankfully, things have been quiet since. Zoe’s ankle is fine. Simon has slept soundly since, his cough improving. Abby and I have slowly improved, though with the race start now less than 20 hours away, we are not fully healed. In reality, I don’t REALLY think either of us feels terrified, but we are resigned to knowing that we are in for something unlike anything we have ever attempted before, without the quiet, peaceful, restful pre-week we had hoped for.  First Hospital Visit of the Trip. Not so Bad. But the Timing was Awful ExcitementIt’s not all fear and doubting. We are excited. First and foremost, we are excited for what we hope will be a great team experience. Unless we order Mike and Matt to leave us for the hyenas in the desert, we expect it will be a special journey and accomplishment if we can work together to reach the finish line. But seriously, it might be easier to just lie down in the dunes and succumb… While there is sadness surrounding the reality that this is the last Expedition Africa, we are so fortunate to be here, finally. I had the pleasure of participating in Heidi and Stephan’s magical Expedition India several years ago, and I have no doubt that this one will be special as well. We have already enjoyed being part of the pre-race festivities and amazing southern African AR community. It’s a different community for us, but it’s familiar in all the right ways to our US community back home. It’s been amazing how seamless it has been, after six months of globetrotting, to step right back into this world. And then there is Namibia. Race aside, and everything else, this will surely be an incredible capstone to our travels. It’s not the grand finale (that comes with Simon’s birthday in Istanbul at the end of June), but it feels like the first of the “Lasts,” and it’s a big one. The country is already impressing us with its desert beauty, and we have enjoyed our time in Windhoek, though we admittedly haven’t done anything except rest and prepare…and cope. Ultimately, there is absolutely nothing comparable to expedition racing to see a new place, a new country, and we are excited and fortunate to experience this considering the nature of our trip has not exactly been conducive to preparing for such an adventure. And so, we are heading toward dinner and sleep here in Namibia. In the morning, we jump on a 4AM bus, and we will hopefully be able to doze for a few hours more. We’ll roll into a currently unknown location near the Atlantic coast, and we will disembark at the start line of Expedition Africa: Namibia. We’ll give the kids hugs and kisses, likely with some tears, and we’ll say goodbye. We’ll get maps for the first of eight stages, and when the race finally commences, we expect to hit the cold Atlantic waters for an exciting 33km sea kayak to kickstart the race. From there, we expect to head into the legendary dunes of Namibia. And after that? Who knows, but as Doc Brown once said: “Roads? Where we’re headed, we don’t need…roads.” Love that guy’s enthusiasm for adventure… Here goes nothing. BrentAnd now for something completely different...
Haircut#1. We found ourselves in Marrakech. The family was making comments. I was out and about by myself one afternoon, and I walked by a barber on my way back to the apartment. I passed him by, but something brought me to a halt. I walked back, parked myself in the young man's chair and told him "Zero."
Haircut #2. Southeast Asia is hot...things were getting a bit uncomfortable. No one seemed concern by my hair this time around, but the barber beckoned like a siren, promising a bit of relief from the steamy weather. I answered.
Haircut#3. This one hurts. Literally. Last day in Nepal. Kathmandu. I drag the kids out in search of a barber. Might be my last chance for a cheap Zero before we head to Athens.
Hairut#4. Race week. Need to clean up for the cameras. I also expect it's going be a hot, hot week in the Nambian desert. I'm also convinced I must be faster after a haircut. You know, body shaving? Leg shaving? Head and beard shaving must save me quite a bit of energy over the course of 6 days of racing...
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