No 510 – Jenny Tough – Pt2

In part one Jenny tells us of her project to run solo and unsupported across a mountain range on every continent where indigenous mountain people live isolated from the outside, urban world and details some of the stories from her Kyrgyzstan and Moroccan journeys.

Part two deals with two other ranges each of which present their own unique challenges.

In the Bolivian Andes, where the first road network was originally stamped out by Inca message runners, she often took shelter from mountain storms in Quechua and Aymara pueblos, where she was always welcomed despite the constant danger warnings against the region.

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Running solo and unsupported comes with obvious logistical as well as physical challenges, and travelling in this way forces her dependence on the small communities inhabiting these remote regions. Running is also a common language – all people around the world do it – and has always helped her build an instant rapport with the people along the way.

Battling with fear inside her head for most of it. Running through some of the largest drugs routes in the world presented endless challenges of the mind, especially when each village told bad stories of the next.

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Her next landscape was in New Zealand – South Island Mountains. Jenny thought this would be more of a holiday even though the landscape is epic, somehow she thought the route would offer an easier run. However as she found out, Kiwis are the best at understatements. When they say ‘its a bit of a scramble’ they might actually mean ‘it is almost sheer’.

As Jenny right says the mountains always punish the over confident.