Gobi March 2017 - Gear List
I just got back from the Gobi March and writing up my race report … it got so long that I broke it up into the race and the gear, so here’s the gear.
You can find the whole race report here (NOTE TO SELF: UPDATE)
Mandatory Gear
For the Gobi March, this was the required list (other races are obviously different, but probably a lot of similarities here).
Backpack - Mark and I both carried the Ultimate Direction 25L Fastpack, which turned out to be fantastic. Angela carried the slightly larger UD 35L Fastpack, which was also great. Raidlight and WAA also make excellent packs (all of these packs are basically a cross between a large vest and a very small pack, keeping all the weight as close to your body and as distributed as possible)…unfortunately they are both made for typical ultra-marathoner body types and the hip belts rode about 6-8" above my waist. The 25L pack turned out to be just a little bit too small to fit all our gear the first night (meaning I spent the first day with extra stuff hanging off the back and bouncing more than I would have liked), but after eating the first 1-2 days of food everything fit well. The 35L pack that Angela wore had more space (obviously) as well as very small hip belt (unclear that it carried much load, but the 25L don’t have it at all), but only had one really functional water bottle holder on the front (the 25L has one on each strap, allowing you to carry 1.5L of water within reach as you’re running). Angela is a camel and only drank something like 8oz of water the whole race, so this didn’t matter to her, but I would have struggled with only one bottle in reach (on the long march when the temperatures were high, I ended up drinking almost 20L of water in a single day). That said the 25L didn’t have enough room for food and electrolytes on the front straps (the 35L did by way of the marginally-functional (too small) second waterbottle holder being converted to hold food). If/when I do this again, I’ll be trying out a couple more packs to find a way to hold 1.5L of water *and* food up front…maybe a front pack like Raidlight has (a couple liters of storage on your stomach between the straps).
Sleeping Bag - I used the existing Mountain Hardwear Ultralamina 32 bag that I had, which was rated down to 32*F (I rarely get cold so this was easy for me and already overkill, others brought warmer–and therefore heavier–bags, but I never even zipped mine up let alone slept in my warm clothes, so I could have gotten away with a 50*F bag easily). I could have gotten a slightly lighter bag (probably saved 100-200g in weight) but decided I wasn’t competitive anyway and I’d spend my $500 elsewhere. The lightest bags turn out to be convertible down jackets + a bag for your legs, if you really want to save weight.
Drybag - Sea-to-Summit makes amazing gear (my little backpack I’ve recommended before is a great example), and their dry bags are no exception. We were required to carry a 35L dry bag to keep clothes & sleeping bag dry, which seems funny in a desert race, but it came in really handy during the first four days (all of which rained!). They make an UltraSil lightweight bag, and for another $5 you can get the UltraSil Nano that’s 10g lighter (why not?). I also added a second 6L compression drybag for my warm clothes since I had to hang them outside my bag for the first day to fit.
Headlamp - On this recommendation I got the Black Diamond Ion lights (55g with batteries) for both my primary and backup headlamps, and they worked great. There’s an even lighter Petzl e-Lite that Mark & Angela carried but I didn’t learn about it in time. Important that this works well because we both started and finished the long march (day 6) in the dark, although barely!
Backup light - same as above
Red flashing light - when you’re on the course at night or in low-visibility, you wear a little blinking red light on the back of your pack…I went to REI and found the lightest one I could (15g) and it was great.
Multi tool / knife - Unclear exactly why you need this, but it will always come in handy somehow…whether to cut tape, or food bags, or in our case, to perform some emergency mid-course surgery on Angela’s shoes where they were rubbing. I bought a 48g Leatherman Micra, thinking it was slightly heavier than the Swisscard that Angela carried but would be more useful if we actually needed it. United had other plans, though, and lost my bag that I checked it in (because obviously you’re not supposed to carry on knives) and I was forced to replace it with a $2 folding knife in Hami (an experience all its own, below). Many competitors did manage to carry these on all the way to the race and did fine (no comment), although ironically almost everyone lost them at security on the way back :(
Whistle - if you get lost on the course, I guess…i had a random plastic safety whistle from backpacking I carried.
Mirror - for signaling, although most people found themselves looking in it at some point wondering how we’d gotten so dirty. Coughlan’s Featherweight Mirror was the lightest I could find, some people broke them in half to make it even lighter but it was already only 20g.
Bivvy sac - SOL makes a very light (108g) emergency bivvy that thankfully no one ever used, but a nice thing to have outdoors anyway. I’d always had a heavier/bigger one before but this cut 300g off and was well worth it. Remember, light pack means lighter food means better chances of a finish.
Compass - how we were supposed to use this without a map evaded all of us, but we dutifully brought the lightest, most useless compasses we could find. Some got them attached to thermometers, which was at least interesting to look at!
Eating utensil - super light but durable plastic camping spoon is all you need. Carry two if you’re likely to lose or misplace things, although you can always borrow if you have to.
Sunscreen - I just grabbed the smallest tube I could find (min 2oz required) but barely used it (because I was covered from the sun head-to-toe).
Lip balm - this was more useful (it’s hard to cover your lips and still breathe well running!), anything with high SPF.
Medication - they ask you to bring whatever you need…I don’t take anything so it was just some Advil + Tylenol, which none of us ended up using.
Blister kit - paper tape to cover popped blisters, elastic tape (to keep the paper tape on), safety pins (to pop blisters / drill holes in toenails), alcohol wipes (before you pop or drill), and SecondSkin (amazing when you’ve got a small blister or about-to-be-blister). Turns out the medical team carries all of this and better, but you want your own so you’re independent unless it’s really bad (happily I barely had to use mine, let alone theirs).
Compression bandage - in case you twist an ankle or knee, no one I knew needed one.
Safety pins - to pin your race bibs on…on the back of your pack it’s easy, on the front it’s more annoying (you don’t want to attach it to your shirt because it might chafe under the pack straps, but if you put it on the pack you have to unpin it each time you take the pack off). I ended up landing on attaching it to the lower of the two sternum straps on the front so it would come off when I unclipped the pack…it didn’t look elegant, but it made the pack easier to handle.
Alcohol Gel - use this all the time … you’re running through animal dung, polluted streams, living with 100 other dirty people, using pit toilets, and generally have a compromised immune system. Everyone I knew who got sick regretted it massively; the rest of us that compusively santized felt great. Even so, 2oz was more than enough for a week.
Toilet tissue - duh. Camping core-less paper was light and great. I took two 150-sheet roles and went through the first one at the end of day 4, so two was right.
Wet wipes - to supplement the toilet paper but also for “showers” and santizing your utensil…I brought 5x10packs and had a few extra but others in my tent were more than happy to use them. Extra here was a nice thing.
Warm top - I brought an old Mountain Hardwear fleece that turned out to be plenty for me (I never wore it on the course, but often wore it with shorts in camp at night)…Mark and Angela both brought nice lightweight down jackets that they were really happy to have (worth it if you get easily cold).
Waterproof jacket - I got an Outdoor Research Helium 2 jacket that was super light at 180g and was really happy with it, until Angela showed me up with an Arc'teryx Norvan SL at 120g :). But we definitely wore these a lot on day 2, so it was worth having…also part of my backup warmth plan if I’d actually ever been cold.
Poncho - kind of a silly duplicate requirement with the rain jacket, none of us ever used them, but they’re light…get the cheapo amusement park kind that are really light.
Warm hat - my amazing Suffer Better hat was a huge hit in camp the few times I was cold enough to wear it, and super comfy.
Gloves - Mark caught the last-minute requirement that we had to have 2x pairs of full-fingered gloves, which was kind of silly (I never wore any of them, most of us didn’t), but I took a very lightweight pair of wool liners + a nice pair of Mountain Hardwear synthetic running gloves…at least they were light. Next time I might sleight-of-hand my sun gloves (below, priceless) as one of these pairs.
Flags & patches - required for their marketing purposes on all your tops…actually neat to have the flags on everyone to start conversations (“oh, you’re from the the Faroe Islands? That’s cool”), but mostly served as a way to make fun of each other’s sewing skills. I used a Speedy Stitcher sewing awl to do everything quick and dirty and the whole process took me 20min. (we all used some medical-grade double-sided tape that mom found to attach them to our rain jackets so as not to make it not-waterproof by sewing…some of the more competitive people silk-screened them on, which was both lighter and less stiff, but permanent and more expensive). Angela carefully sewed hers on along the seams of her down jacket, etc…Mark made his sewing look difficult enough on the train that the conductor took pity on him and did it for him. :)
Hydration system - you needed enough bottles to carry 2.5L, although for the vast majority of the course you really only carried 750mL to 1.5L at a time (less weight and enough aid stations). But on the long march during the heat of the day, everyone left every aid station with the full 2.5L, and many of us (myself included), used all of it. I ended up with two Rough Country bottles with straws (the bottles are fine, but the straws are killer for low-energy drinking, I will race with these from now on!) and a soft Platypus bladder for the extra water as needed. Note that Camelbaks are useable here, but a huge pain to refill at checkpoints because you have to take your pack off, take it out (hard if the pack is full, etc)…I used to use these all the time for long races, but never again having experienced the difference.
Food - will cover this more below, but they required us to carry a minimum of 14,000 calories for the week.
Electrolytes - again, will cover this below, but they required enough for “30 hours of running at recommended dose” but really, you needed what you needed.
Socks - at least two pairs, which is all I brought. In hindsight this would have been a nice luxury (5 pairs) with low weight-cost. I did however love my socks, which Ryan Pfeffer originally turned me on to, double-layered, crew-length (for less sand and dirt) Wright Socks. So good to prevent blisters. A decent number of people were wearing toe socks to help prevent blisters, which I’ve never tried but want to one of these days.
Shorts & tights - you have to bring two pairs, although most of us only wore one set the whole race (don’t ask about the smell). I absolutely loved my CWX Endurance compression tights – I chose to wear full-length for sun protection, and it worked fine, although I think if I did it again I might try compresssion shorts since my legs tend to avoid burning much anyway. I carried a pair of 2XU compression shorts as well (I like compression to prevent chafing).
Running shirt - you only had to have one, long-sleeve, which is what I did with an Under Armour and wore all week (yuck). But long-sleeve prevented some nasty sunburns (one of our tent-mates went home with some serious ones), and kept you cool in the sun. White only, for sure (Mark had a white and a black, and the heat difference was incredible). Doing this again I think I would switch to the RaidLight top that Ben (a tent-mate) wore as it was even lighter and cooler than mine.
Hat with neck cover - the oft-maligned Legionnaire hat, it was a godsend during the sunny days to protect your neck and face. Angela and I both wore Outdoor Research’s with the detectable curtain, and it was great. A little warm when the air was still, but the best option I found.
Running shoes - the subject of much discussion before and during the race, and a very personal choice. I wore literally the same pair of shoes that I did for my 100mi race last fall, a blue set of Brooks PureGrit 4s, and they continued to perform admirably. Angela and Mark both wore Saucony Peregrine 7s…they worked great for Angela, albeit with the aforementioned surgery to cut out part of the heal on the Long March to stop the rubbing on her Achilles; they didn’t work that well for Mark, whose feet were pretty torn up by the end of day 3.
Sunglasses - I took one pair, my trusty Smith Optics (thanks Lindsey!)…Angela found an even lighter set (surprise!) and actually carried two pairs, which turned out to be really smart when Ben lost his at the end of day 2 (happily one of the docs found them that night, as I don’t think you could race without sunglasses). Take a backup pair, at least somewhere in your group.
Optional Gear
After all the mandatory gear, there were a few things many of us added to make life better or increase our odds (at least, that was the plan).
Sleeping pad - I originally took my lightweight backpacking Thermarest Neo pad, but once again, United decided that was too easy. Thankfully Angela had a good friend in Shanghai who had done this race a few years ago, and generously loaned me his imitation Thermarest (as well as some other gear that went missing). I could have saved another 100g by switching to a foam pad (like the old Ridgerests, although now made by Thermarest as well) but it was much bulkier and required attachment to the bottom of the pack which I was worried would bounce…a lot of the top competitors did it and were ok with it, though. Angela found an even lighter Thermarest, but every time she moved it sounded as if someone was opening a bag of chips next to a speakerphone… :/
Compression shirt - I also tend to wear two layers of shirts on long runs (to prevent chafing under my arms because of the shoulder sleeve I wear from my motorcycle wreck), so I wore an Under Armour compression shirt that worked great (and also prevented my pack from chafing, etc).
Trekking poles - we got mixed advice on this, and Mark and I decided to carry poles while Angela didn’t. We both had the Black Diamond Endurance Carbon Z poles (super light and comfy), although once again, mine got United’d so I used a pair of Luke’s (which happily made it in my carry-on to the race before being confiscated on the return flight … airport security is as much theater in China as it is in the US). In hindsight, I’m not sure I would take these – my shoulders were more tired after using them the first two days, and when I stopped on day 3 (didn’t use them for the rest of the race) my shoulders felt better without a noticeable worsening of my legs. In a group (eg 3-4 people doing it together) I might choose to bring 1-2 poles next time for emergencies (someone hurts a knee or ankle) but not solo, probably…although the carbon poles are super light.
Sun gloves - these were a lifesaver. Both Angela and I wore Outdoor Research sun gloves the whole time and avoided annoying back-of-hand burns, as well as kept our hands a little warmer when it got cold and rainy. Definitely a good call.
Sand gaiters - Angela & I wore low Rough Country sand gaiters velcroed to our shoes for the whole race…they are supposed to be better at preventing sand and debris from entering your shoes (esp through the toe mesh) than typical trail-running rock gaiters, and I think that’s true, but they only worked in little bits of sand. Mark had higher Rough Country gaiters also vecroed on, which worked, but I think if I were doing a big sand race again I’d use the high gaiters sewn directly to the shoes (this is what our tent-mate Richard did), or lower RaidLight sand gaiters with a zipper like Ben had, also sewn in. The Velcro was both a hassle and failed too easily, and once your shoes have Velcro strips on them you’re not going to use them without gaiters anyway (they look dumb, sure, but more importantly they actually attract a ton of debris … although they do mean you don’t need to tie your shoe laces!)
Body glide - duh. Use it everywhere. Feet, legs, armpits, everywhere.
Kindle - our most extravagant luxury, both Mark & I brought these. Great for reading at night and during the rest day, although honestly I enjoyed our tent so much I could have easily done without it.
Buff - absolutely a must-have during the sand storm at the end, otherwise just a nice-to-have given we were already carrying a warm hat (my most common use is as a hat, when you twist it in the middle and fold over half to make a beanie)
Flip flops - really nice to have in camp. We thought we’d cross rivers in them to keep shoes and socks dry, but in the end you’re sweaty and tired (and sometimes rain-drenched) enough that you just go through if you can’t find rocks to hop on (which you almost always can). So the barefoot-style Merrills I had packed and United had lost were not a big loss, and I got a cheap set of local sandals that worked great. The most popular were the Hami Hotel slippers from the night before the race, which worked great, were light, and had some amusing cachet.
Towel - I got a small 8x10" pack towel from REI thinking it would be really useful, but in the end almost never used it. Good idea, but wouldn’t take it next time. Just use your shirt. :)
Toothbrush + toothpaste - nice to have to feel a little better, although honestly I forgot many mornings or nights, or didn’t want to put my shoes on to go outside…so I probably only brushed once a day. Light though, especially if you swipe an extra-mini toothpaste tube from an airline kit (one is enough, contrary to Mark’s beliefs!)
Warm long sleeve top - thinking it might get really cold I added a second warm top (that was very light) from Craft, which I really like…but literally never took it out of my bag, even on the coldest days / nights. Next time, ditch it.
Camp shorts + shirt - these were critical. I thought about bringing very light track-style pants instead but United lost those too, so I was stuck with shorts, and that was a good thing. Being able to get out of compression and into something dry and loose every afternoon was great. Also the shirt smelled a lot less than my race top. :)
Paracord - just in case something went wrong, I threw in two paracord bracelets. Didn’t need it, but nice and light…next time I’d just take one.
Duct tape - likewise, to supplement the blister tape. Used it for kit repairs…get the really little SOL mini-rolls to save weight and space.
Camp cup - I didn’t bring one, hearing that they gave you water bottles every night you could cut up, but they switched to using large 5gal+ containers this year so I had to improvise. Next time I’d just add 5g for a collapsible mug for oatmeal, coffee, and the like.
Face hydration mask - no one in our tent brought these, but some people did (it was definitely a cultural/nationality difference), and it caused a lot of private amusement in our tent … needless to say these were more frequently found in the 15kg packs near the back of the race. :) I would recommend against it, but you do you!
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