10 Days of Chaotic Travel (behind the scenes of our life)

I know it doesn't really look like it now, but the next week is about to be one of the most chaotic of our entire lives and we want to take you along for the journey. That is without a doubt the closest I've ever been to missing a flight without actually missing it.

The saga continues.

One week from today, I am going to be running Marathon de Sable, which has earned the nickname the hardest foot race in the world. It's six marathons in six days through the Sahara desert. This video is going to be documenting the crazy week leading up to the race.

Today did not go as expected.

It's going to be random. It's going to be jam packed. So let me give you a high level overview of what to expect. I have to get myself from Vancouver here to Morocco, where I'm standing now. But along the way, I make a brief stop in Tenerife to run another race to get me into a bigger race later this year. All the while, Kara's back in Tennessee throwing a retirement party for dad. And then eventually we're both going to meet up here in Marrakesh. I'm going to get all my stuff ready for MDs and then we're going to make the 10 hour journey out into the desert to the start line of MDs. We are packing a lot into one week and we thought it would be fun to give you a little glimpse behind the scenes of the chaos leading up to the biggest physical challenge of my entire life. Here we go.

Good. Very early morning from the Vancouver airport. Sixteen hours ago, I was heli skiing and for some reason, whole body's a little sore. This morning.

From here, I'm about to hop on my first three flights that are going to take me to Tenerife and this is home sweet home for the next four and a half hours. En route to Newark.

I found this flight with points using Daily Drop Pro. It should have cost over 600,000 points, but I was able to redeem 115,009 points and less than $70 in taxes and fees. Getting business class from Vancouver to New York and then business class all the way across the Atlantic from New York to Dublin. And then the final flight was included as well in that price. But it's an economy.

4 hours, 23 minutes. Thanks for joining us and we hope you enjoy your flight with us. All right, now that we're up in the air, I wanted to give you a quick tour around Air Canada's business class seat on a 780. It is a 1, 21 configuration. The seat Overall is super comfy, but there's definitely a lack of privacy. Can make eye contact with the neighbor over here to my left which makes filming all of this a bit more awkward. Over on the right hand side seat you have an armrest that moves up and down. Over here on the left hand side of the seat we have a nice big shelf. Half that shelf opens up and inside you've got the remote for the tv. But the TV is also touchscreen so you don't have to use it if you don't want to. There is an outlet and then underneath that you have your touchscreen seat controls, reading light and potentially the most comfortable pair of headphones that I've ever been given on a flight. Overall, super comfy for a four and a half hour flight to New York.

Just put that over to the side for breakfast. I went with the chia pudding and that came with a side of cheese and bread. Nice and light. Good fuel for the race.

Simple but really, really.

Thank you for choosing Air Canada. We hope you had a friendly life. Thank you and good afternoon. Welcome to New York. Wow. I ended up working most of the flight organizing all the footage from the heli ski trip and it was just so fun getting to relive all of that through the footage.

Now I have a three hour layover here in New York before boarding my next flight to Dublin. So time to find a lounge.

So the Polaris lounge has a fan fancy sit down dining room and I think I'm close enough to this race in Tenerife that I can consider this car bloating. Plus this whole travel day is pretty much guilt free because I'm about to run six marathons in six days. I think the more calories I can put in my body the better. Speaking of calories.

Thank you.

All right, on the way home for the next seven hours once they're born this evening, our flight time scheduled for 5 hours 53 minutes. The flight tonight is going to be less than six hours over the Atlantic. Thankfully I ate in the lounge and even though everything on the menu sounds great, on this rare occasion I'm going to skip dinner, try to get a little bit of sleep, which thankfully they've given me plenty of stuff for blanket, memory foam, pillow, regular pillow and another blanket with a therabody amenity kit. Most importantly the eye mask.

All right, see you in five hours.

From all of us here at United and our Star alliance.

Have a great.

Day everyone and a great rest of your week.

My body thinks it's 12am like the middle of the night. How to stay awake for the next seven hours during this layover.

All right, I'm about to board my third and final flight to Tenerife. It's four and a half hours in Aer lingus business class. Don't think I'll review this one and just see you when I get there.

27 hours after leaving Vancouver, I've officially made it to Tenerife. Did not realize how far south we were coming. This flight was actually longer than my flight from Vancouver to New York. That's me with the heavy tag.

Tag was not lying.

The taxi lot is like waiting for a ride at Disney. This is madness. On the bright side, it feels amazing in Tenerife. Couldn't be much different than where I just came from. 30 minutes later.

I made it.

I somehow managed to get eight hours of solid sleep my first night in Europe, which is basically a miracle. So what I'm about to do is a terrible idea. I should be resting and getting ready for marathon de sables, but there's a big race that I want to get into later this year, and in order to get into that race, I have to run this one. So we're gonna make it happen.

In one of the most beautiful places in the world. Check out the view I woke up to this morning. Those are the mountains I'm gonna be running in tonight. We've got some surfers down here. And then I'm gonna head over to these white tents in just a minute to pick up my RA.

All right. Got my bib. And the race starts at 5:30 tonight, which feels super weird. I don't think I've ever run a race that doesn't start first thing in the morning. But how about Tenerife? This place is absolutely stunning. Could not ask for a more beautiful place to be running my first race of the year. This race is only 15 miles, but there's over 4, 000ft of vertical elevation in the race. To put that in perspective, the Leadville 100 felt like I was pretty much just running up and down mountains the whole time. And there was 15,000ft of vert in that race. So this short race has almost a third of the amount of vertical elevation that the entire Leadville 100 race had. And if these roads are any indication, it's going to be steep. Cinco, Cuatro. Cres. Dos.

All right, Here we go. 15 miles. 4,000 vertical feet, and an hour and a half until it gets started.

While Nate is running his brains out, I am back in Nashville, Tennessee, planning My dad's retirement party with my sister and my family and our friends. We're officially at the party. We're just waiting for the retired man to get here. We're decorated. It's going to be awesome. And no one deserves it more than my dad. So this was my dad's first car. This was his last car. How beautiful are these cookies? All thanks to my friend Allison.

That's. That's my one. It's been straight up. The 5 1/2 hour cutoff time on 15 miles is starting to make more sense. No legs talking. Everyone's just breathing hard.

All right. Finally got flat mile 2, half marathon to go. And a traffic jam in the jungle. Literally posting an Instagram during the race. We're going so slow. Still not easy as sweat rolls off my nose. Here we go. Here we go. All three.

All four.

That thing. Better than a floaty downhill run.

This trail is going to get tricky in the dark. I don't think there's been a flat part of this trail. It's either up or down. Super muddy.

Are they wet? I think. I guess they're dry. It's. Guys.

That'S five and five of the craziest miles of terrain I've ever done in my entire life.

It's like being on a never ending Stairmaster. I guess that's the point of those. They don't end, but you know what I mean. At 6, we just climbed up a massive mountain and now we're running back down the backside. It's a bit like a slip and slide. Wow, that was crazy. Seven crazy miles. That's mile eight. A little over halfway. Celebrating with my only caffeine.

That's a good pick me up. I don't think you can see anything. I spilled a bunch of gel stuff on my camera. But that was nine. Six more.

Good morning.

Have a little bit of a problem. Y' all know I'm a chronic overstuffer. Usually have to sit on top of my suitcase to close it. And that is no different today.

But somehow I have to pack all of my stuff in addition to.

All of Nate's stuff and fly it across the world. Yeah. Should have started packing sooner. My dad's retirement party was so much fun. Congratulations again, daddy. I love you. But today I'm leaving Tennessee and I'm going to reunite with Nate. What an exciting week. Okay, so how did I end up with all of Nate's stuff? That is because Nate is one of those last minute everything people. He started ordering things that he needed for his race. That begins in four days last week, meaning he had to send everything to me here in Tennessee because he was heli skiing in Canada and I get to carry it all the way to Morocco. I've got his shoes that he's running MDs in this entire jug of powdered butter. I don't even know what half this stuff is, honestly. Sunscreen, emergency blankets, veggie stock, a whole box of honey stuff and butter, medical ointment, whatever. These are more food. All of his instant dinners and a whole box of gels. All right, I think I'm gonna try to fit everything into one of these old duffel bags that my mom said I could pack and then just donate to someone. Surely I can fit everything in one of those real quick.

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Look, I got it all to fit in this one tiny bag. I'm so proud of myself. Lap 12, 11:15.

Don't embarrass me.

Almost one more to go.

It's not gonna b. Here it is.

Oh, man. Today did not go as expected.

Where do I even start?

So this is just one of those terrible travel day stories. I'll start with the original plan. I was supposed to fly from Nashville to Newark. Was gonna land here at 8:30. I was gonna have a couple hour layover and then take off at 11 for Dublin. I was gonna have another layover and then finally take my final flight to Marrakesh to reunite with Nate. That's not what happened. We board the flight. We're almost there. Pilot comes on, and he's like, we're just gonna circle the airport for about 20 to 30 minutes. We can't land because it's like. I think he said it was raining too hard. So we're circling. 30 minutes go by. He comes back on. He's like, we're just gonna go over to our neighbors in Pittsburgh real quick. We're gonna land there, fill up with fuel, and then we'll come back here and land it. EWR So I was pretty confused by that. Pretty sure I was gonna miss my flight to Dublin if we go to Pittsburgh first. But what made it so funny is pretty much half the plane. Everyone I was surrounded by came from this cheerleading competition that Nashville has every year at the Opryland Hotel. I grew up doing this competition every single year. So in a way, it was kind of sweet and cute, but, man, cheer. Mom's from New Jersey. They got an attitude. You only know as much as you know so.

And they were mad, and they complained for the next three hours. Oh, my gosh. Four hours. Five hours. I was on that plane for five hours.

So we land, we fill up with fuel forever. They had suspended drinks and snack services on the flight because of the turbulence that we never had. So I hadn't eaten. We finally took off. We landed in Newark. But then I realized my suitcase was checked all the way to Marrakesh. So now that I didn't get on that flight, is my bag still just going to Marrakesh? Do I need to get my bag a baggage claim? The answer is no. My bag did not come out. A baggage claim. The lady told me that it's just gonna go on my next flight with me. Hopefully in the morning. Everything goes smoothly from here. I'm gonna go back to the airport, My bag's gonna get on my plane with me, and I have a whole new flight itinerary to get to Marrakesh.

Wish me luck. I've got to go to sleep. All right. Thanks for being my therapy.

Good night.

Let's see. Madrid. I am embark for anyone who cares. My quads are completely wrecked. Hopefully they recover in the next few days.

All right, first flight of the day is three hours to Madrid.

Two and a half hours later, I have landed in Madrid, and I believe Kara should be. Yeah. Starting her day in New York right now.

Morning.

I kid you not. My flight is already delayed 45 minutes. Hopefully that's all, though. I'm just gonna look at it as 45 more minutes in the Polaris lounge. Well, scratch that. Not going to the Polaris lounge. Apparently, my new flight doesn't give me access to that womp.

Womp.

Still gonna be a great day. I'm now going to the United Club, which isn't as good, but I'm sure it's lovely. Oh, that's a wellness robot.

Thank you.

Thank you. Have a good day.

Check out this buffet. Breakfast, sandwiches and breakfast burritos.

I forgot to share the most exciting part about this mess.

This. This is all I've made. For instance, instead of trying to squeeze it in my checked bag, or instead of bringing a second checked bag so I didn't have to deal with it, I decided to bring it in the carry on just in case, because if he doesn't have the stuff, he can't do this race. And look what happened. It is heavy and annoying. So May. Yeah, Me.

Great lounge. Oh, forgot a fork.

The saga continues.

News.

I just landed in Toronto, and my checked luggage is still at Newark.

Somehow, I just knew this was gonna happen. I know it sounds like I'm being really dramatic right now, but for some reason, for the first time ever, I accidentally put my seizure medication in my checked bag. I always have it with me, my carry on, but it's just such a hectic week that I wasn't thinking, and it got checked, and now I'm in Toronto. I'm about to take off for Zurich and then to Marrakech, and then Nate and I were supposed to get on a bus that takes us to the middle of the desert so he can start his race in a couple of days. And I only have a couple more days of my medication with me. And then if my bike doesn't get here, it'll be what's gonna happen.

I think I'm also just really tired. Hopefully it'll come before we're in the middle of the desert and none of this will be a big deal. I guess the other positive thing is.

Still lugging this around. My gosh, what a mess. Guess I'm just gonna go to the lounge, take some deep breaths and hope for.

I'm sorry this is so depressing. I'm really trying to hold it together.

Please keep clear and hold on for.

Departure train to Gibson and S. All right.

Getting an extra run in today. My gate closes in seven minutes, and the sign says I have seven minutes to get there. Oh, quads are still sore. I need to take the sweatshirt off, but I don't have time.

Oh, my gosh. This is one of the closest I've ever cut it. I didn't realize my gate was in a completely different terminal and I had to go through passport control.

You're the last one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm on the bus that is without a doubt the closest I've ever been to missing a flight without actually missing it.

On this, the bus ride to the plane, I met the guy who currently holds the record for the oldest MDS finisher. He was 76 last year when he finished, and this year he's 77 and going back to do it again, which is just epic. I hope my body holds up that long.

Oh, wow. Big bathroom. Okay, I'm a total mess earlier. I'm only a small mess now. About two hours into this seven and a half north leg to Zurich.

But we're.

Before we took off, I posted a little call for help on Instagram just because I didn't know what else to do. And I've been overwhelmed by the response. I've been chatting with doctors trying to help me get medicine abroad, airline workers trying to help me get my bags. Every time I read a message, I just get emotional again. I feel so thankful that I have this tool for help that I know not everybody gets to have. But I'm feeling pretty good. I have some options, starting with my layover and. Sorry, this is all just assuming my mag doesn't get here in the next couple of days. I feel like I should mention another reason I'm extra emotional. Besides, it's that time of the month is I'm currently in the middle of my longest streak ever of not having an aura just like that anesthesia that I have. So I've been feeling really good about that and feeling like finally maybe it's under control. And so I can think that I can mess that up by this dumb mistake I made. It just makes they really sound.

Whoops. That's gross.

We'll move on from that for now. Some bright sides. I just watched a beautiful nature documentary about a family of eagles. There are also some baby foxes and everything. This time, that made me happy. And I'm flying Swiss Air business class for the first time. Had a lovely meal. I seen.

It's going to say great, but I don't know about Reagan is great. It's great because it's business class. That's all. It could be picky, but not really.

In the mood to do that. Okay.

The headphones aren't that great. The sound only came out of one side. Not a lot of storage. And the seating floor plan is pretty open, so there's very little privacy. You actually allowed them in the middle. You guys have way more space than the people on the outside aisles. Humidity can also. So we have all the usual. Earplugs, toothpaste.

Yes.

We're on down. Cast it. All right.

I think I need to try to rest.

Which one? Come in.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Made it to Marrakech. Marathon de Sables is starting to feel a little more real.

Thank goodness. If this bag would not have made it, the trip would have been ruined.

We almost hit somebody.

Okay. Thank you so much.

Wow. Fancy.

I'm on a mission.

I have one hour until my flight departs, which means I have much less than an hour until my flight boards. I need to find a pharmacy inside security and see if they have my drug. This is my only option besides United getting my bag to me, which just is not looking promising at the moment.

Oh, this is nuts. I just stamped into Switzerland when I didn't have to just to get to the B gates, and then I have to get back over to the E gates. Like leave Switzerland again. Oh, I do not have time for this. Oh, my gosh. I found it.

Hi.

Is there a pharmacist? Do you have this seizure medication?

No, I can check for that.

Okay. I think we don't even have this substance. I have a backup substance of this. Do you know if you have this one?

Yeah.

Abandon it. What a rush. I finally stopped sweating from sprinting back into Switzerland and walking directly onto the plane. The timing was nuts. So that pharmacy mission wasn't a total success, but it wasn't a total failure either. As you heard, they did not have my drug in stock. However, they had a different seizure medication in stock and I bought all that she had, which was Val two weeks worse. It's kind of like a if all else fails option B kind of thing. I've never taken this different drug before. I would rather not try a totally different drug in a foreign country. Also, I don't think I've mentioned that I have enough of my own medication to get me through the next two and a half days. So there is a chance that my bag can come just in time. All of this will just be a nice lesson learned. I obviously did not pack my medication in my checked bag on purpose. It was a total accident, but it will never happen again. Thank you for listening to my bathroom therapy Round two. As you can see, I'm in a much better place and this is my last flight. I'm finally gonna reunite with Native Americans. But there's a lot I have have.

To do before that.

Wow.

Morocco is so cool.

Finally, Marash. Oh my gosh. I just had the most. Oh, what's the right word? Unproductive time filing a claim for my bag. Now I need to get a taxi. I can't believe I'm here. Yay. Yay yay. You're my taxi driver.

Yeah.

Okay, great. How are you?

Thank you.

What's your name?

My name Abiju.

Nice to meet you. Kara.

Nice to meet you.

I just realized that I left my parents house on Monday at 3 in the afternoon. It is now 6am on Wednesday. Wednesday at my parents house. And if I've done my math correctly, I've been traveling for 39 hours straight. Now I just need my bags.

Thank you. All good. Have a good day.

Finally. Finally.

Oh my gosh. Take your stupid bag. I don't want it anymore.

I'm glad that you have this bag though.

I never want to see it ever again. How heavy is it? Oh, I've been lugging that around for 39 hours.

Guess who has to run through the desert with this for six days on his back?

I've been training for you. Your hair is so curly.

That's crazy, isn't it?

I love it.

Okay, time to pack for MDs.

Oh, it's just torture all the things I've been lugging around.

All right, there's more.

Oh, that one's done. Sorry, that wasn't even going MDs.

Oh gosh, I'm glad you're back. Getting it lost.

Starting this process feels very overwhelming. Running. This is going to be the first time that I've attempted to put everything I need for the race in the backpack. It just didn't all come soon enough. I know I should have done it before. Check this out. I got Velcro sewed around the shoes, and then these gaiters, like, they attach over the shoe like this. And that keeps all the sand out. Never been tested. Oh, where to start?

Kara has actually been asleep while I've been doing this. But I think I have all of my food sorted. So it's basically six full days. And it was too much brain power to try to come up with different meals on different days. So I'm just planning on eating the same thing every single day. Protein oatmeal for breakfast. This is basically a bunch of bars, gels, and powders. This is everything that I'll eat while I'm actually out running. And then this is my big 800 calorie meal every night. So that is one day's worth of food. And then I have the exact same same thing six days in a row. And then each day is about 2800 calories, which is not near enough when I'm running a marathon. But you also have to balance the amount of calories that you want to intake with the amount of weight that you want to carry on your back. So I would love to probably carry 4,000 calories a day. Like, I think my body could eat that when I'm running a marathon every day. But at the same time, I just can't afford that much weight on my back. So this is going to be like a. A running challenge and then also like a calorie restricting challenge. I assume I'm gonna lose a lot of weight during this. Okay. This is how seriously I'm taking weight. I'm transferring all of my overnight oats into smaller plastic bags to cut down on the packaging weight. And also I'll be able to throw some water in here with the overnight oats. Zip it up, and then I'll just eat straight out of this bag in the mornings.

All right. Breakfast. I packed all my food. This is just food. I don't know how I'm gonna fit anything else in here. This is 17,840 calories. Nice. I think this is the highest calories per gram of weight. Powdered butter. One tablespoon of this has 60 calories. So I put in a cup of this, which is. Gave me an extra thousand calories. All right. That is everything. It does all fit. It's way bigger than expected.

It's not bad. It sits decent. It's quite big, and it really, like, pushes in my back now that I have it all stuffed. I cannot believe this is the first time I've put everything in this bag.

You are crazy, right?

Here, try it on.

My bag is so sore with traveling.

I don't even want to.

Want to. Oh, my gosh, that is heavy. You're crazy.

It looks pretty good, though.

It does look good.

Oh, here's another option.

Brushing my teeth.

Yeah, but what if I need you?

Don't ask me anymore.

Readjusting the living together.

Have to remember what compromise is like.

I've gone to brush my teeth twice by the time they're like, will you help me or something.

This. This is everything that I need for an entire week to run six marathons in the desert. It's a big relief that it all fits.

Late.

All right, we are on the move again. From here, we have another six hour bus ride further into the desert. This is it. So we've just been handed our road books. We knew coming into this that we were going to be running 250km, but up until this point, we haven't known the course. We're not running exactly a marathon. Each day it changes. All right, day one, 32 kilometers. Day two, 40, 32. The long day. Day four, 82 kilometers in one day.

I know what I'm doing on this bus ride.

All right.

Here we go.

Hopefully home for the next six hours. The travel ultra marathon continues. Starting to feel very, very real right now.

I can tell you're a little nervous.

Starting to size up all the other people on the bus. Not because I want to beat it, but just like, okay, if you signed up for this and you think you can finish, we look similar and maybe I can too.

Hey, she made it. Hey, look, we just got some cat animals to welcome us.

This is it.

Thank you. It's still going. It never stops.

It was worth the 10 days of travel. And we are officially at the start line of MDs.

All right, that tent is about to be home for the next eight, maybe nine nights. I haven't even wrapped my head around exactly how long we're gonna be out here. Wow.

This place is absolutely nuts. Nate and I were swept off our feet when we got here. I went straight to the media tent, started uploading our video for this weekend with their wi fi. This is my home for the week. I will be sharing this tent with three new friends. They gave me all this stuff. Two T shirts so I can change my shirt for the first time. Wow, this is awesome. And it's going down so Fast.

Oh, my gosh. I'm in disbelief that these are in my hand right now. I actually have my seizure medication here at camp. I have enough to last me the whole time we're here. Even if the only way I get my suitcase is by flying to Dublin and getting it myself. I have enough. I woke up this morning, there's a guy called Ferdinand, and he is a magician. Somehow he got a doctor from France to pick this up for me. And then he came all the way to the desert. I think he was coming anyway, but the fact that that this worked out is just blowing my mind, and I'm so thankful. Speaking of my bag, still no updates. It's still sitting in Dublin. It's supposed to fly out this afternoon and land in Maresh. I'm very far from Marrakech, and we'll see what happens.

Okay. I know we still haven't found Kara's bag yet, but this is the longest video we've ever filmed. I don't think I've ever filmed for 10 days straight and put it all into one video. So we'll end it here, show you some highlights from the race next week, hopefully get you excited to watch the next video. What have I gotten myself into? Cyclops. It continues.

I don't even know what to say. It still doesn't feel real that my bag made it all the way to the middle of the Sahara. I have no idea how it got here. The airline told me we don't deliver things like, it will go to the airport and then you have to pick it up. Ferdinand. Ferdinand makes miracles happen. Ferdinand makes dreams come true. This thing showed up to the middle of the desert at about 9:30 last night. And he just casually tapped me on the shoulder and said, look over there. And he was just here.

I might have to switch to a carry on bag. And I will never make the mistake of accidentally checking my medication again. This has been a crazy week.

Okay.

I love you.