08/18/2026
The Aug 9-14, 2026 MEGA ticked every box I’d been searching for. I just didn’t manage to tick every one myself.
I came here with one goal: finish the course. I didn’t.
This was my first endurance race. I expected the competition to change things, but it didn’t. I was still playing my own game, eating, moving and solving problems as they appeared, just with others drifting in and out of the day.
Early on I crashed and snapped my GPS mount. Navigation then meant pulling it from my pocket at every intersection. Somewhere in that process I missed a 30km loop that returned to the same point. When I next checked, I was back on course. Nothing looked wrong.
Hours later, the numbers stopped making sense. The race director told me to continue, but my goal was already gone. I still had around 20 hours ahead, pushing towards a finish that could no longer give me what I wanted. Although I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I stopped there, so I kept going.
That mistake meant I was the only to attempt the Wheeler stage before organisers cancelled it due to incoming weather. It also added back more distance and vert than I’d missed. Nearly 4,000m up, somewhere between exhaustion and lucidity, I climbed alone with a fox following me for close to an hour. Then the mountain changed its mind. Minutes after reaching the top, hail swallowed everything. Descending wasn’t an option. I wedged myself between two rocks, wrapped myself in an emergency blanket and waited 30-40 minutes for it to pass.
Weather at altitude was what scared me most coming into this. I’m now grateful I met that fear. When it became real, I stayed calm and made decisions rather than reacting to it. The navigation mistake is harder to make peace with. It was avoidable, and there’s no reframing the fact I didn’t complete the course I came to complete.
But perhaps failure and progress aren’t opposites. This was by far the hardest ride I’ve attempted, yet I’ve left more confident than I arrived. The boundaries I thought were out there have moved a little further away. I didn’t find what I came searching for. Maybe that’s useful too.
For now, some rest, then it’s time to reach a little higher.
