Fitness
Ultra Man: The Man Who Runs Before the Ultrarunners
Ultrarunners win the medals, but Carlos Garcia Prieto is usually the first person to complete the course. Welcome to one of the most unusual jobs in sport.
Carlos Garcia Prieto recalls finding himself encircled by five snarling dogs, deep in the mountains of Georgia. “They were barking, showing their teeth. Huge animals, maybe 60 or 70 kilos each. I didn’t move. About five metres before they reached me, they calmed down. A few minutes later I was stroking them.”
Three Peaks of Lavaredo in Italy’s Dolomites
© Thiago Diz
For the 64-year-old Spaniard, it’s just another day at the office. “I’ve had guns pointed at me three times,” he continues. “Like, ‘Who the fuck are you? Get off my land!’ Twice in Australia and once in Sri Lanka. A few people have come at me with machetes, too. Oh, and one time I fell down, hit my head on a rock and was unconscious for several minutes.”
100km del Sahara: Racing in Tunisia
© Thiago Diz
You’re probably wondering what sort of job would put a person in the path of such danger. Special operations soldier? Bounty hunter? DEA officer charged with busting drug cartels? Not quite. Garcia Prieto is in the business of ultramarathons. would put a person in the path of such danger. Special operations soldier? Bounty hunter? DEA officer charged with busting drug cartels? Not quite. Garcia Prieto is in the business of ultramarathons. – think 100, 250, even 500km. As for the locations, forget the smooth, spectator-lined streets of London or New York City; replace them with endless scorching desert, alpine peaks, or the frozen wilderness of Antarctica. The more remote, the better. But Garcia Prieto isn’t usually a participant. His work begins months, sometimes years, before the pistol sounds.
As far as I know, I’m the world’s only professional ultra-race designer
“As far as I know, I’m the world’s only professional ultra-race designer,” he smiles. “There’s a huge number of races around the globe – maybe 30,000 or something – but they’re usually put together by clubs, town halls or sport associations. The people organising them are lawyers, mechanics, truck drivers, whatever. This is my only work. Twenty-four hours a day, this is my life.”
Carlos Garcia Prieto Sketches Ultramarathon Courses by Hand
© Thiago Diz
Garcia Prieto’s CV reads like an encyclopaedia of the world’s most iconic ultra events. A trained architect, he took a punt working a race when construction jobs dried up during the 2008 financial crisis, and he hasn’t looked back since.
I have to run every single section of the course for myself
He grins as he thinks back to his introduction to the sport. “A friend asked me, ‘Why don’t we go and run in the mountains? There’s this race we could do.’ I said, ‘What do you mean? Can you run in the mountains?’
Ultramarathon Running Across Antarctica’s Frozen Landscape
© Thiago Diz
These extreme races push the human body into unfamiliar territory. Sometimes runners are moving for days at a time with little to no rest, and it’s often the mind that cracks first. Hallucinations are common, due to sleep deprivation, and training is as much about preparing mentally as it is about conditioning the body.“I ran races where you spend two nights running,” Garcia Prieto says. “At the end, I suddenly realised I was falling asleep while running. The guy in front of me kept moving in and out of the beam of my head torch. His poles were making this rhythm: ‘click, click, click.’ I got hypnotised. My mind was somewhere else completely.
This glacier was spectacular. I never got tired of looking at it. Every lap, I was like, ‘This is amazing!
Ultramarathon Runners Descend Chile’s Valle de la Luna
© Thiago Diz
Exploring Jordan’s Desert Landscape During the Roving Race
© Thiago Diz
Runners Navigate a Narrow Mountain Fissure in Namibia
© Thiago Diz
“You have to break it up. If you start a 100-mile [161km] race thinking, ‘I have to run 100 miles,’ you probably won’t finish. [Instead] you decide that you’re going to run to that tree. Then to that rock one kilometre further on.”
Garcia Prieto hasn’t raced in a long time: he “lost the eye of the tiger”, as he puts it. But he still trains every day. And he has to. Because while he may not be competing, the Spaniard insists on running every inch of every course he designs.
Ultramarathon Campsite Nestled Among Namibia’s Sand Dunes
© Thiago Diz
“Not even one metre of the race do I do in Google Earth,” he states emphatically. “I have to see everything for myself. I don’t trust anybody else. To balance the race, I need to know every single section. Someone can tell me it’s rocky or whatever, but that’s not enough. I need to know what it feels like.”
Marathon Runners Tackle a Frozen Polar Race Circuit
© Thiago Diz
Designing a Polar Marathon Course Around Wildlife
© Thiago Diz
The Four Deserts has been called one of the hardest races in the world
This is non-negotiable for Garcia Prieto. He needs to understand the threats fully. Crevasses, wildfires, loose rocks, floods, high winds, wild cattle – these are things he has to be on the ground to see for himself. “I need to know if there are snakes. I need to know if there are wild dogs. I need to know everything.”
RacingThePlanet Ultramarathon Through Jordan’s Desert
© Thiago Diz
His brush with the latter in Georgia, on the border of Eastern Europe and West Asia, is a prime example of why this approach is vital. “That experience changed the race,” he explains. “It turns out that these dogs are common in the area, to protect sheep from wolf attacks. We were able to organise dog-patrol vehicles during the event because I knew exactly where those dogs would be.”
Carlos Garcia Prieto Maps the Gobi March Ultramarathon in Mongolia
© Thiago Diz
This 250km stage race finished at Petra, one of the Seven Wonders
Safety, organisation and pragmatism only get you so far. For Garcia Prieto, what separates a good race from a life-altering experience is the soul of the route: what is its reason for existing? Every climb, descent and obstacle has to earn its place, creating a journey that reveals the spirit of a mountain range, a desert or a frozen continent as much as it tests those crossing it. The images on these pages represent some highlights from his ongoing quest to answer that question and, in doing so, create the best races on Earth.