![]() ![]() I heard the marshal counting down to the start of the race. It looked up, right into my eyes, and I couldn’t look away. It was standing by my feet, apparently transfixed by the bright yellow gaiters on my shoes (gaiters are pieces of fabric that trail runners wear around their ankles to keep debris from getting into their trainers). Clever dog, I thought, but I won’t be feeding you.Īt the start line next morning I looked down and saw the dog again. Getting ultra-marathon runners to part with any of their food is no mean feat - they need every calorie they can get. ![]() It was walking between the chairs, getting up on its hind legs and charming people into giving it bits of food. And then I saw a small dog, sandy-coloured with great dark eyes and a funny-looking moustache and beard. I joined them to boil some water for a packet meal - dehydrated chilli con carne. And I was going to run across it.Īfter dark, the other runners were sitting round a fire, chatting about how tough the first stretch had been. It was the end of the first day of an ultra-marathon a seven-day, 155-mile run in some of the most forbidding territory anywhere on Earth - freezing peaks, incessant wind and that desolate, lifeless scrubland known as the Gobi desert. When I fell in love with a stray dog in China, during one of the most gruelling endurance events in the world (Dion Leonard is pictured with his dog Gobi) ![]()
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