Christian Schiester is a man on the run. By June 2010, the Austrian marathon athlete will have crossed four deserts around the globe. We chased him down to reveal what makes him seek the heat.
“Physicians have a hard time with me,” says Christian Schiester, 42, with a sigh, “that’s why I stopped consulting them. The last few doctors, who performed a check up on me, suggested I calm down, stop my self exploitation immediately and get a real life.”
A shocking confession, considering Christian’s aerodynamic frame, sinewy physique and a resting pulse rate of 31bpm. He seems to be cocooned by an aura of blazing solar energy. Imagine Johnny the Flame, but more talkative. Everything about him is pointed, sharpened and designed to move only in one direction: Straight ahead. The slanted bird-of-prey-nose; the hooded, yet piercing disks of his eyes; the clever fingers darting through the air, illustrating profoundly anchored points of view and bittersweet anecdotes from a time, when destiny treated him less kindly. Much less.
At age 20, the sole thing that Christian sported was a voluminous beer belly and a tarry habit of two packs between morning and night. After nightfall it used to be another one, if he went on the pub mile with his fellow-Styrian drinking companions. Sounds like juvenile fun, after all? “No, not really. I felt displaced in Life, basically I wanted to get out of my sorry self. I figured, the easiest way would be to destroy it. I was the cynical wobbly kid, hiding from every possible reason to live behind his 12th pint, telling everyone about kicks I had never experienced, and places I had never been to. You just couldn’t shut me up – I was a hyperactive dreamer, bound for the nightmare of physical ruin.” During his weekdays, working lazy shifts as a back room clerk at the post office, he collected files and pounds.
One day he couldn’t even put his socks on without having to sit down. If he dropped a pencil, he’d rather open the drawer for a new one, instead of picking it up. Hitting 200 pounds, his doc advised him to change his lifestyle or die from a heart attack. Christian started running – and hasn’t stopped since.
His first attempt at long distance took him to a telephone booth in the suburbs of his hometown, only to ring up his dad in order to be retrieved back to comfort by car. But Christian kept on trying. He participated in a 7-mile public fun run and caved in at mile 5. Becoming sly in the game of tricking his body, his next goal became a 5 mile-public run.
He succeeded in crossing the finishing line of that one as the third-to-last of the field, but much to his dismay was overtaken on the last yards by a 72-year old competitor. A year later, he ran the New York City Marathon under three hours and won his first half-marathon the same year. His first of many national titles. “Torture your body or it will torture you!” had become his guiding motto.
Schiester set it to the test in 2003, during the famed 6-day-„Marathon de Sables“ in the Moroccan Sahara, which he finished in 12th position, tortured by diarrhea and the slippery ground of finely grained sand, which led him to move about “like Pinocchio”. What he took back from that Planet-Dune-Dangerzone, was the ‘duck walk’, a technique, he copied from Italian runner Marco Olmo, and the profound knowledge that he would rather fall flat on his face and die trying than give up.
“In the Sahara I realised for the first time, that the vast natural environment activates and stimulates my senses in an archaic and animalistic way. I began drawing on extra energy resources, an additional battery. It is really quite amazing! Like turning into an alert, self sufficient beast.” At the Race Across the Himalayas one year later, Schiester could be seen smoking again: a pipe filled with cherry tobacco – a rare pleasure and a personal reward for not only winning the 100-miles-run, spanning 9 miles in altitude within 14 hours and 43 seconds, but for setting a new record in the event’s history. His physical achievement can be likened to jogging up and down the Empire State Building from the underground garage to the pole 512 times in a row! I
n 2006, Christian Schiester, who claims to have drank 12,000 cans of Red Bull since 1992, continued running down his dream under yet another set of circumstances: After the sands of Northern Africa and the heights of the mighty Himalayas, he delved down into the green hell of the 15-miles-Amazonian Jungle Marathon in Brazil. Coming in third with a delay of 107 minutes to British winner Jamie Lowe, Christian’s soles were consisting of 50% blisters and he found himself utterly disoriented from a loud drone inside his skull, possibly resulting from the sweltering 56° heat.
Amidst the happily bathing Indio-families, a screaming Austrian could be witnessed plunging into the cooling river. A bewildering sight for everyone around, except for Christian, who is used to displaying extreme emotions and just doesn’t give a flying F, what anybody thinks about him, when in competition mode.
Despite the torture, magical impressions always remain from his global excursions: “Snakes and spiders escaped from under our sneakers and yellow-greenish jaguars’ eyes were watching from out the reeds at night”, Christian reminisces. “Often, and in paralyzing situations of everyday life, like traffic jams or waiting in line at the supermarket, images ascend from my subconscious – like that one gigantic tree, rising like a dark, ivory clad dome on a lonely glade, that I came by during the jungle run in a trance, all on my own. The memory makes my spirit rise immediately.”
After his feet had heeled, Schiester once more retreated to training in the mountains around his native Mautern, where he resides with his girlfriend and their two kids, who are definitely proud of their blade-running father. His next project would take him to a place of complete white-out and to his most outstanding victory so far: The Antarctic Ultra Race in December 2007. “Never have I experienced anything as terrible and frightening as the Ultra Race!” he confides, “it certainly was the longest day of my life: 63 frozen miles in 20 very, very lonely hours.”
Equipped by Red Bull with a NASA-inspired suit, complete with temperature sensitive microchips, warning Schiester of partial freezing, special spike-boots plus astronaut’s food staying soft to the bite at -60°, the Austrian ice ninja became the coolest running athlete of the world. What he remembers most, when thinking back to the Antarctic? “A huge, white bird, the size of an albatross, soaring above my head for miles, almost guiding me into finish. But I couldn’t swear now, that he really existed. It might as well have been a desperate striving of the soul for other forms of life or just a hallucination from exhaustion ...”
Asked, if he is prone to being a lone shaper, Christian smiles delightedly and admits, “Yes, in a way. I see myself as a survivalist. I feel comfortable in the knowledge that where ever I find myself, I could escape and run home on my two feet, even if it would take me days or weeks. I am fortunate that my body can transport my spirit to exceptional places. That makes the difference between me and most of my contemporaries.”
At the moment of writing, Schiester, the contemporary survivalist is stricken with the mundane ailment of a common flu which doesn’t prevent him from training. To the contrary: “An influenza doesn’t last long with me. It is bound to be burned out by increasing my body temperature. I just run the evil bacteria out of my system,” he says, blowing his nose furiously and examining the contents of his kleenex with utmost, almost ideological contempt.
Christian’s current project is a stunning quartet of desert marathons, each covering 155 miles, the Four Deserts Cup. In March he was plowing the sands of Chile’s Atacama in duck style, finishing in sixth position after a detour of 13 miles. In October he will be in the Sahara again, this time on its Egyptian side. April 2010 will see him in the Australian Outback and June of the same year will take him to the reddish sands of the great Gobi in China.
Having crossed the Sinai desert from east to west, last December (“as a warm-up”), has given Christian enough confidence and some invaluable tips from the local Bedouins, who accompanied his small five-headed expedition group. Looking like some high-tech-nomad himself in the breathtaking footage he brought back from the holy peninsula, he now praises the nutritional values of brown millet and dates.
He also tested several kinds of backpacks and socks and has settled on a waterproof type of running shoe that repels water and thus – vicious blister inducing sand. It seems like he has taken the best preparations available for the Four Deserts Cup. Still: Is he scared, of what might await him in the great white open? “I have realised on my previous trips that most of the time it is better not to know exactly what awaits me. Ignorance has often proved to be of great advantage to me.”
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