Starting at 4:30 am, we were under tremendous time pressure as we needed to make it to the final checkpoint by 4 pm or be forced to spend the night 3 miles from the end. We made the checkpoint at 3:58 pm, and we were allowed to continue to Machu Picchu, where we arrived for sunset around 6 pm.​It was a very profound and spiritual experience as we had all of Machu Picchu to ourselves for about an hour (all tourists have to leave by 5:30pm). We had special permission from the Peruvian government to start early and finish late... made possible by our sponsor, Intrepid Travel. The trail run was 26 miles long, starting at 9,000 feet, including 3 passes, the highest of which was ~14,000 feet. Most significantly, the trail was extremely treacherous with thousands of steps. The team was required to come up with new guiding techniques.