Chile’s Atacama Desert.
Earth’s driest non-polar desert.
Average amount of rain in a year? Less than a millimeter, with decades between infrequent rains in certain areas.
The daytime high is thirty degrees Celsius, while the nighttime low is below zero.
NASA frequently uses this area to practice and recreate their landings on Mars because it is so arid and lifeless.
Putting together a Parkrun seems like a challenging task in and of itself, but where do you even start when planning a 310-mile nonstop ultra-marathon?
The solution is straightforward if your race is The Speed Project and your name is Nils Arend.
You don’t.
at late November, 4 a.m. is observed at the coastal city of Iquique, Chile.
Just 50 meters from the Pacific Ocean, 90 runners from all over the world are warming up in an abandoned skatepark on the shore.
Apart from numerous stray dogs, the streets are empty. It is eerily silent, save for the hum of the drones carrying cameras buzzing overhead and the tense energy of the short-shorted runners loitering about.
till one voice gets louder than the others.
It’s the man with the softly spoken German-American fusion accent that’s drawn everyone in.
More significant, though, is to depart here on foot and run to the ‘finish line’ in San Pedro de Atacama, which is around 500 kilometers away and 2,400 meters above sea level, by running beside the main highway over the Atacama Desert.
Similar to the American iteration of The Speed Project (TSP) that originated in Los Angeles and led to the rise in prominence for its organizer, Arend, this race lacks a website, rules, defined course, or cash award.
Additionally, there is no formal entrance, just like LA-LV.
Arend’s WhatsApp is used for introductions and invitations, and the event itself is completely unfunded and unapproved.
Perhaps unsupported, but most definitely not unnoticed.
The 90 runners—split into 15 groups of six—include former Olympians, a well-known American TV host, William Goodge, dubbed the “real-life Forrest Gump” because he was the fastest British person to cross America, and Daniela Andrade, a former women’s international football player who has run the entire length of Chile on her own.
The TSP organizers offered the runners no assistance as they departed the “start line,” which was an utterly arbitrary location on one edge of the skate park where Arend chose to stand when he stepped out of his pickup truck a little while ago.
Running and other sports, like ultra-distance cycling, are not new to unsupported racing.
For instance, The Trans Continental (TCR) is a renowned 4,000-kilometer solo race over Europe that is both harsh and breathtaking, and where accepting any form of assistance entails disqualification.
When the runners left the “start line,” which was an entirely arbitrary spot on one edge of the skate park where Arend chose to stand when he got out of his pickup vehicle a little while ago, the TSP organizers offered them no support.
Unsupported racing is nothing new for sports like ultra-distance cycling and running.
For example, there is the famed Trans Continental (TCR), a 4,000-kilometer solo race across Europe that is notoriously tough and breathtaking, with the disqualification for accepting any kind of aid.
There is just one resupply option on the TSP Atacama course, or what passes for it in the absence of an official route.
Consequently, each of the teams that have been assembled has two cars in tow.
These trucks, which are mostly flat-bed models similar to those in the US, are loaded with enough food, fuel, and most importantly, water to last six runners and their support crew for a single, protracted trek across a terrain like the moon.
Each six-person squad must have one runner moving at all times beside the one road that crosses this extremely hostile terrain.
Roberto Mandje is a prominent figure in the race as the team’s captain and top runner.
Mandje is an Olympic track and field athlete, competing for Equatorial Guinea in Athens 2004.
Mandje competed in races at the World Cross Country Championships and the World Trail Racing Championships later in his professional career.
However, the 1500m in particular was his first passion on the track.
Which is fortunate because little and often was the team’s policy, as it was for the majority of the other 14 teams.
Essentially, the preferred strategy for the quickest 500-kilometer time was regularly switching out runners and dividing the course into segments of two or three kilometers apiece.
repeatedly.
for about two days.
Each leg sounded quite doable in theory. One-half of a Parkrun, roughly.
However, as Mandje attests, The Speed Project took a serious turn in the middle of the night—without sleep and after a full day of running.
Mandje was a professional 1500m racer who used elaborate warm-down regimens and ice baths to recuperate.
Parts of the TSP route had to be walked while he was recuperating in Chile, eating cold pizza while caged up in the back of a pick-up vehicle.
“What made it really, really challenging is you’re running short intervals and then getting into a van, getting stiff, getting tired, then in another hour you’re jumping back out to run again,” Mandje explains.
“It starts to wear you down after two days, especially those overnight legs when you’re out there thinking about things and getting tired.”
The hardest part was a 30-kilometer section that I just encountered on day two. I had to begin each leg as if I were shuffle walking or speed walking every time I got out of the car.
It was also the point in the journey where you could smell the finish line because you were so far from the beginning, but you also knew there was still a long distance and a lot of climbing ahead.
“But hitting a rough patch was part of the beauty of it.”
Mandje’s personal problem preceded the race’s larger dilemma by a long shot.
This had to do with the powerful arm of the law and was far more dangerous than leg pain.
Two things were non-negotiable the day before The Speed Project began.
First, a trip to the grocery store to get a mountain of nachos, sixty baguettes, and almost one hundred liters of water, among other things.
The second was to go to an unrecorded pre-race briefing where Arend was quick to highlight some Speed Project ground rules, just after he’d insisted that all cameras and recording devices be turned off.
“We do our best to communicate the level of risks everybody takes by participating, and we do our best to prepare,” Arend continues. And for the same reason—or at least a part of the reason—we select the participants rather than holding a drawing to choose the field.
“It’s obvious that this is a risky situation.
“Hopefully, nothing negative has happened, but we are aware that there is a chance and we try to let people know about it. You can reduce the danger by acting in specific ways.”
He made a concerted effort to convey the necessity for all teams to prioritize safety.
And then, in a minor inconsistency, he outlined what could be the most important principles for the campaign.
Unofficial: without a route, markings for the route, and any sort of “official event” designation.
The party line is that we’re “just a group of friends running from Iquique to San Pedro de Atacama” if the cops pull us over. There is nothing to view here.
The second hard line, and possibly the most important thing he believes in?
that the way to personal development is to embrace discomfort. It is your right to question that authority and the accepted methods of doing things in both life and running.
Most significantly, The Speed Project is not prohibited by law.
Towards the end of the first day of the race, however, the local police pleaded otherwise.
The teams’ differences weren’t that great for the majority of the first few hours.
However, everything began to fall apart after a protracted, precipitous ascent away from the beach over a jet black road dusted with brilliant white salt from neighboring lithium mines.
With the teams dispersed at dusk, rumors began to circulate like wildfire.
Talk of racers being threatened with handcuffs by the increasingly enraged local police was rife in the race WhatsApp group.
Taking place on the sole primary route in the area, competitors found themselves in close proximity to massive mining vehicles.
Drivers didn’t appear to mind during the day, but things were different at night. Arend’s party line about a “few mates running to San Pedro” was beginning to wear thin on them and the police.
And the runners’ anxieties were too.
Just before midnight, a hastily called meeting was held. Where else than at a truck stop?
Arend gently outlined the situation and reaffirmed the TSP’s unapproved, unsupported, and not illegal ethos—all the while acknowledging the teams’ concerns and giving them the final say in the matter.
A few teams decided to give up. Most people, including Mandje’s group, decided to continue racing.
It was a pivotal time for Arend.
In Hamburg’s red-light district, Arend had organized a rave night in a borrowed brothel before discovering marathon running in his mid-20s.
He acknowledges that the near-terminal intervention of the Chilean police has effectively insured that this first edition of TSP Atacama will also be the last – on the 2023 ‘course’ – but he is unfazed by run-ins with the authorities.
“I don’t think there will be another like this because of the situation with the cops,” he continues. “We managed to get away with it this time. They wouldn’t likely allow us to get away with doing another one like that. Thus, you must adapt.
We had to respond quickly to the situation, use our creativity, and make some difficult choices at that very moment. I adore that location.
“I was not concerned in the slightest about the authority issue we encountered. This was a fortunate development.
For some, there was a small dose of reality check.
“What’s frequently overlooked with TSP is that it’s not simply a hip term; this is actually sanctioned. That has certain repercussions, which I did my best to explain.”
For Mandje, the repercussions were transformative.
His team ended nine hours and forty-six minutes behind the victors, the Belgrade Urban Running Team, who crossed the finish line in thirty-four hours and fifty minutes.
Twelve of the fifteen teams who began the race made it to the finish line, a 30-foot white cross located outside of San Pedro, the popular Atacaman tourist town.
It’s quite the contrast for a man who made his career in four-minute races to finish over six hours behind schedule.
For Mandje, though, that was the goal.
The clock eventually lost all of its meaning.
“The Speed Project was completely different to the Olympics when you have heats, semi-finals and finals and you’re putting all your eggs in one basket in terms of racing by yourself,” according to him.
“Going into a relatively new environment with the distance and adding the challenge of running with a team you’ve never really run with before was one of the major pulls for me.
“Just getting up and jogging, whether it’s during the day in the heat or at night in the cold, puts a lot of strain on your body.
“There are numerous chances to experience mental exhaustion in addition to the physical effects of being in a car and becoming uncomfortable.
That, together with the sobering realization that there are still 160k more to go.
All in all, I would jump at the chance to do it again. Connecting with running, a sport that has given me so much throughout my life, in a fresh and unique way was such a great experience.”
Arend is eager to investigate juxtapositions, and Mandje’s story—from racing at the Greatest Show on Earth to an unofficial Atacaman ultra—embodies these.
To some extent, TSP can be understood as an elite group of ninety carefully selected runners from around the globe competing in a race that is partly utilized as a promotional tool by major outdoor and running companies.
However, the race’s unofficial and unfunded status also draws participants who are looking for something bigger than a race—a more global experience.
It’s a challenge among friends that may change lives and occasionally put lives in danger (when the enormous trucks were speeding by at over 80 mph).
After completing the task and winning the race, participants celebrated with a wild pool party that lasted well into the night, which may have been expected given Arend’s history in the Hamburg rave scene.
In front of the tallest active volcano on the planet, runners dressed like DJs, and finishers were welcomed to the stage to play paper, scissors, rock in exchange for an instant souvenir tattoo.
During a peaceful break from the chaos, Arend spoke about his relief that everyone returned safely as well as his thoughts on The Speed Project’s appeal and camaraderie in the increasingly sterile world of professional sports.
He states, “There are two ways a story can go down,” then offers an interesting comparison.
“You’re traveling from point A to point B on a train in the dead of winter, and everything is going as planned.
“You just go from point A to point B, staying in your own space and without interacting with anyone.
However, if, on the same trip, the train breaks down and the heating malfunctions and it’s winter, you will instantly make a lot of new friends and the experience will be very different.
“Ultimately, what we are doing with TSP Atacama is breaking the heater.”
Or cranking it up, as I propose. “Ha, yeah, or turning it up.”