Staggering through the heat haze of the salt flats like a cowboy from an old Western movie whose horse had died long ago, I spotted the white dome of the aid station.
Well, I hoped it was the aid station and not a mirage, but typically mirages don’t sing happy birthday, do they? I’d planned on doing something memorable for my 40th birthday. I didn’t count on not being able to remember it, but that’s what happens when you run 250km in the heat of Chile’s Atacama Desert – a place so inhospitable that they use it to test the Mars rovers.
The Atacama Crossing race was the hardest of the events; with altitude and heat combining to literally cook you. The sun not only beat down, but reflected up off the salt plains, which crunched like coral under foot. With long stretches of no shelter, you ran first thing in the morning when it was cool, tried to survive the midday heat, and if still out in the evening,
