As temperatures dropped toward freezing and rain pelted the trail, runners in China's Yellow River Stone Forest 100k knew they were in danger.
Yan Daixiang squinted through dense, freezing fog as she struggled to make out her surroundings. Runners were scattered everywhere—off the trail, in ravines, on the other side of the mountain—dotting the hillside in brightly colored. It was hard to tell loose clothing and people apart. People trudged in every direction, struggling against freezing wind and rain. Others huddled around bushes or boulders.
Yan was lucky; she had brought warmer clothes with her. She donned long pants and a jacket, and decided to keep moving. The third checkpoint seemed unreachable, and the second was even farther behind her. Terror and dread began rushing in. Yan was pinned.arrived in China’s Jingtai county a day before the race, on May 21st, to sunshine and blue skies. She was excited; she had traveled from her home in the southwestern city Chengdu, a 10-hour drive away, and this was her first time visiting the Gansu Province’s deserts.
The morning of the race, Yan woke at 6 a.m. to blue skies. Temperatures were in the mid-50s. She threw on long pants, gloves, and arm warmers, and then packed her bag with fuel—electrolyte tablets, energy gels, Snickers bars, and a liter of water. By 7 a.m., the sun was still shining, and wisps of stratus clouds hung in the sky. Temperatures were hovering just under 60 degrees.
In April, to prepare for what he expected to be scalding desert temperatures, he ran during early afternoons, for up to two hours, until he felt hints of heatstroke. By the time the race rolled around, he felt prepared for heat, and he was hoping to finish with prize money. The night before the race, as wind banged at his hotel room windows, he thought little of it.
By the race’s start, the edge of the cold front was just starting to descend on the course—perfectly timed to meet runners head-on as they climbed to CP3. Heat and pressure differentials across the front’s edge were causing strong winds, and by 8 a.m., gusts were reaching 25 mph. Temperatures began dropping steadily. But these changes had only just begun at higher elevations; their extremes hadn’t yet moved down into the lower parts of the Yellow River Valley, where the race began.
“We were just circling ourselves without any sense of direction,” Yan says. Whenever they paused, she could feel her heart racing. Her breathing increased. She started to lose feeling in her feet and hands. She was certain that she was about to freeze to death. Two more runners showed up at around 2:30 p.m., 45 minutes after Yan had reached the cave, and reported that athletes were lying on the ground all over the course. “Almost all of the runners are either in hiding or dropped out,” one of them told Yan. They’d checked some for pulses, often without finding any. Another runner they passed was cramping on the ground, but they couldn’t carry him over.
“Mentally, I was still just carrying on in the race,” Zhang recalls of recovering in the cave. Eventually, though, runners calmed him down, and convinced him to drop out. “Then I realized it was a matter of life or death. I was so muddled.”
日本 最新ニュース, 日本 見出し
Similar News:他のニュース ソースから収集した、これに似たニュース記事を読むこともできます。
Taiwan tensions raise fears of U.S.-China conflict in AsiaChina seeks to bring the strategically and symbolically important island back under its control, and the U.S. sees Taiwan in the context of broader challenges from China.
続きを読む »
EU, China agree to hold summit, Michel says after Xi callEuropean Council President Charles Michel said on Friday after a call with Chinese President Xi Jinping that the European Union and China would hold a summit soon.
続きを読む »
Microsoft shutting down LinkedIn in ChinaMicrosoft says it is shutting down its LinkedIn service in China later this year following tighter government censorship rules.
続きを読む »
Olympic Committee Won’t Confront China Over Human Rights Despite Calls For Beijing 2022 BoycottIOC vice president John Coates insisted that pressing China on human rights issues was outside the committee’s remit.
続きを読む »
Here's how much 10 big banks have cut their China growth forecastsMajor investment banks cut their predictions for China's 2021 GDP, warning that power cuts and a slump in the property market may drag down growth.
続きを読む »
LinkedIn is shutting down its China platform because of a 'challenging operating environment'LinkedIn will shut down the local version of its service in China, marking a significant retreat for one of the few large US tech firms still operating in the country.
続きを読む »