Into the Mountains of Mongolia

Back in the early months of 2018, we signed up for a little known Spartan endurance event, called the Agoge, in Mongolia. After devoting all of our free time to training for the past 9 months, it was time to head out on our adventure.

Planes, Trains, & Automobiles!

(but in reverse)

Car from Wexford -> Harrisburg Train from Harrisburg -> NYC

a selfie of a cellfie

Traveling for almost 24 hours, we await our 2am flight from JFK > Beijing, China

Blessed by a gorgeous sunset over Philly as we made our way to NYC.

Boarded, sleepy, and ready for take off!

Landed to a gorgeous sunrise in Beijing.

Now we wait for our final flight to Mongolia!

We were lucky enough to be upgraded to fancy seats that totally lay down into a bed, making our 14 hour flight a total breeze.

WHY DON’T ALL PLANES HAVE THESE?!

Our first look at Mongolia

After 3 days of non-stop travel, we we’re anxious to get out and explore the capital city.

Exploring a bit more of the city before heading back to the hotel for our intro meeting and gear check! its about to get real!

The AGOGE

Our Agoge started with a 4:00am call time in the hotel lobby. Gear check was completed and our packs were confiscated the night before; so as we arrived in the lobby Friday morning we were instructed to grab our packs. After our group of 32 was ready to roll, we boarded 1930 Soviet Military vehicles for a NINE AND A HALF HOUR DRIVE, with our heavy packs on our laps, occasional stops for road side PT, runs, and other fun (not) with the Krypteia.

There are no roads once you get out into the countryside of Mongolia, it is all dirt paths with a variety of different livestock roaming and feeding along the way. After a long, rough, 9 hours of lost bumpers, getting stuck in the mud, flat tires, and more, one of the cars broke down and wouldn’t be able to be quickly fixed. This meant that our event stated…NOW!

Our first task was to hop out of the van, throw your (30-60lb) pack on, and start running. For how long? Stop asking, keeping running. Oh, and run faster.

We kept running past gers, through a herd of not-so-happy-to-see-us Long Horn Steers, across a few small rivers (can you say wet boots?!), and finally up a dirt path to a Buddhist Monastery. After being sorted into teams, receiving our next module and some good old fashion verbal abuse, having all of our food taken from us, and lots of burpees, we were allowed to enter the monastery; where we were blessed by a buddhist monk. Pretty freaking cool.

Our next module was for the teams to race each other to a lake, where the Krypteia would be setting up their Basecamp. One team got the “harder, faster” route, while the other team had a “easier, longer” route. Both routes were hand drawn on scroll paper maps that had very little detail and were not drawn to scale. My altitude sickness was really starting to get in the way at this point, so I was switch from the more difficult mountain route, and assigned to the longer path, with a more gradual elevation change. I will spare you the details of our team making it to basecamp, but by the time we arrived it was the middle of the night and I had run over 32 miles.

When your driver for 9 hours doesn’t speak any english, you speak the universal language of smiles and selfies

After some unplanned medical mishaps, we we not able to carry on into the early morning of day 2. However, this meant we got some sleep (even if half of it was outside in the freezing cold, on a tarp, while the frost covered every inch of us).

After a few hours of shut eye we were joined by some Mongolian Wrestlers who demonstrated and taught the participants their traditional style of wrestling.

Since we were no longer competing in the event, but were over 9 hours from civilization, we spent the rest of our 60+ hours helping staff and participants however we could.

Although this lake is beyond beautiful, it proved to be the toughest test of the Agoge. Participants were instructed to make a “poncho raft” out of their tarps & packs, and swim from one end of this lake to the other (after 48 hours of no sleep, barely any food, & limited pond filtered water). This was a FREEZING cold lake, and like a 300m swim in boots, oh and don’t forget the high winds!

Very long story short- multiple participants got hypothermia and went into shock quickly after exiting the water. They had no access to dry towels and potentially no dry clothes if they didn’t water proof their poncho raft perfectly. We had a very very close call where we could’ve lost one participant to hypothermia and shock. Thankfully our amazing make-shift medical team pulled together flawlessly with limited resources and he was able to pull through.

Our make shift medical tent- a grass floor ger

Back to the event! Mongolian history is filled with stories of insane archers. We were lucky enough to watch these masters in action.

A few flaming arrows shot by the master, as the sun goes down on our second day in the mountains of Khentii.

A harsh, yet extremely beautiful place

quick pic with the Shaman and the off to bed for us, and back out for more running for the

As a storm & a sunset roll in, a local Shaman prepares for this evening ceremony.

Shamanism is the religion of the local people of Mongolia. During this ceremony we made offerings of food, drink, and other goods to our ancient ancestors. In return we asked for their blessings of good health and fortune for our families and loved ones