8 kilometres before Bali to….. Fuguei Cape!!!!!
Last night we drank and made merriment watching Barcelona take on Man U and talking about girls and football til five in the morning. Kyle’s company was as vibrant and Californified as ever, his energy coming at a great time. As one of Neil’s most bestest friends, Neil was glad he’d had the chance to run with Sir Hollywood yesterday. In the morning, Kyle asks us how we’re feeling about being here on Day Thirty, the horizon so close now it’s magnified, the finish line right there, the twenty-nine previous days that brought Neil here, running each centimetre around the coast of this island, stretching off into the past with the haziness of some surreal dream. Are we excited, Kyle asks, how do we feel? We both deny excitement. We both feel like it’s just another day. The excitement, we expect, will come later on. From experience, we are well aware that any given day can throw up unpredictable challenges. Why should Day Thirty be any different?
Kyle returns to Taipei and we set off back to yesterday’s finish line. In the daylight, I don’t know what was so terrifying. The first six kilometres, though by the sea, is through construction works on the Expressway. Heavy trucks are everywhere, the road’s uneven and scaffolding surrounds us. Following the first break, I manage to lose Neil. He is running so quickly that the perfection of my timing is thrown out completely. I wait for him at the 12km mark for some time oblivious to the fact that he has already run past me. By the time I catch him up he’s run a further five kilometres. I ask, “What happened!? You’re running so fast!” Neil tells me, without a hint of irony at all, that his legs, quite simply, feel “brand new”.
Continuing on we’re in high spirits. On the outskirts of Taipei, in Hongshulin now, the traffic’s fast, the neon lights shine brightly and the streets are busy. Neil whizzes through the buzzing streets and we meet briefly at the break points remarking on this and that. Occasionally, we ponder the fact that today’s our final day, but we know there’s no way to prepare for the fact that tomorrow we won’t be doing this. Neil spots a Subway sandwich shop and sends me back to pick him up something to eat. As he runs on, he stays in the motorcycle lanes in which he normally runs. Our proximity to this junction makes it impossible for him to have read the sign above: Keelung. He veers off to the right. I get the Sub, read the sign, and drive off up the hill… in the left hand lane. Basically, we are following two different roads. Had anyone ever really thought that the finally day would go without a hitch?
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After some time, I haven’t seen Neil and he hasn’t seen me. Thankfully, our phones are fully charged and in credit and after a lot of confusion we realise that Neil has run into Danshui, on Highway 2, and I have headed towards Keelung, on the other Highway 2. Yes, it’s true, there are two Highway 2s. Neil’s thirsty and annoyed. We know Fuguei was around 50 kilometres from our start point. There’s no way he wants to be adding unnecessary miles to the day’s run. It could even risk his chances of finishing tonight and we would, after all, find ourselves doing this again tomorrow. Nothing would prepare us for that, either. As luck had it, turning back to find Neil I found a junction for the 2b part of the road and hoped that meant the two Highway 2s could meet again. I find Neil and he’s appeased by the knowledge that the last five kilometres haven’t been run in vain. In fact, I tell him, his route has bypassed a pretty giant mountain. Though we have to take the motorbike back the way Neil came to re-measure the distance, we’re just thankful that, this time, everything has turned out ok. Neil carries on along the 2b until we meet the 2a. All’s back on track.
Kevin arrives to join us again at Fuguei Cape, as he did thirty days ago. He turns up as I wait for Neil at the 42.2km mark, the one Neil’s looked forward to, the one that marks the completion of this challenge, the final marathon, the last marathon of the thirty marathons in this thirty day’s marathon that this whole month has been leading toward, that each step has lead toward. Neil’s joyous to have completed the task he set himself and we stop a while to celebrate and congratulate the Marathon Man. Every single step run, every kilometre covered, every marathon completed by midnight. It’s impossible for us to appreciate the size of the achievement. Looking back is a blur. Someone may as well have picked us up at Fuguei twenty-nine days ago and dropped us here, seven kilometres to the west, now. After a while, Neil’s ready to continue. Finishing back where he started is a kind of supplementary challenge, a fine circular closure to the month we dubbed marathon mad. And so we go on, through the dark, deserted countryside and incongruously passed Frank’s Texan Barbecue (yes, we don’t know either). Neil runs into Fuguei and Kevin and I dismount our trusty bikes to join Neil on the last 800 metres of his journey, from the car park to the light house. Beers in hand, we jog up there to that final point, that point where all of this began and where it will now be laid to rest. The rocks below us flicker beneath the panning spotlight of the lighthouse and the sound of the sea surrounds us, Taiwan, everything.
And, I don’t know really how to say this, but it was not as we expected. In thirty days, I have not seen Neil this flat, this deflated, this underwhelmed. We open our beers and sit there, the only people around, at Taiwan’s most northerly point. But there is nothing to say. Finally, Neil explains his mood and it comes from sheer disappointment. The knowledge that he’s run three UltraMartahons and felt fantastic, the signs that his body has adapted to the rigour and is now feeling at its best ever, the fact that he could keep on going… I think the stopping came as more of a shock to Neil than any one of us could have ever predicted. Kevin makes brave attempts to put the whole thing into perspective for Neil, to explain to him how great his achievement this month has been. But Neil’s desire to push his body to its limits is unfulfilled. I seriously think he’d have felt more elated had he been forced to crawl on broken legs to the lighthouse tonight.
But perspective was perhaps what was lacking as we sat there. And an undeniable sense of sadness at that the adventure was finally over. As we drove away, as we began to leave the story behind, Neil’s mood began to change and everything looked a little clearer. The next morning, at Kevin’s place in Keelung, Neil looked up the definition of an UltraMarathon on the internet as he reflected on one of the real highlights of the month: those peole that ran their first marathons with him. Tommy, Kiwi Chris, Spencer, French Chris, Ross, John, Tim, Wes, Kevin, Colin, Celts Steve, Andy, Hsinchu Steve and Michael- I hope you never underestimate how important you were to this challenge. We cracked open the champagne that would have gone to waste had we opened it last night and listened to Neil, happy once more, as he told of some ideas brewing for his next adventure. Months long stints of UltraMarathons covering thousands and thousands of miles: the Trans-American, the Saharan, the Russian, who knows? I told Neil there and then that should he ever need a sidekick for another hair-brained, crazed, mad and unpredictable adventure, I would more than happily be by his side. So, stay tuned to hear what’s next. Knowing Neil, it won’t be anything you or I could even dream of.
