At the beginning of the trip, Sandy and I ran Fuego Y Agua, an ultra-trail race on the island of Ometepe with about 15 of our Amigos teammates. The island is made up of two volcanoes, Conception and Maderas. The race we ran was 28 kilometers. Parts of it were on a beach, rocky road and a significant part climbing and descending the Maderas volcano. It was 87 degrees when the race started in the morning and the temperature rose to 94 during the day. We got a little shade and slightly lower temperatures as we climbed the volcano, but it was still HOT compared to the weather we trained in here at home. We made it to about half a mile past the last checkpoint on the volcano before we decided to turn around. Quite a few other race participants turned back before we did. The last group we spoke with said the top of the volcano was all mud that required you to crawl on the rim of the crater while holding a rope so you didn’t slide off the side. It took us an hour to climb the previous mile and we had about another hour before we made it to the top. We decided we didn’t have another hour of climbing left in us. The 4.5 mile descent was every bit as hard as the climb. When we returned to the aid station where our team truck was waiting for us, we had covered 24 kilometers. I had refilled my hydration pack at the 10k mark and had no water left when we returned to the aid station. It’s a tough, tough race and not like anything I’ve ever done before or will ever do again.