The Marathon Des Sables - Day Seven and Epilogue

Day Seven

The end of the competitive section of the MDS was marked with an evening of prize giving and Paris Opera. For reasons unknown this was all set up some distance from the camp. As a result I spent around 30 minutes hobbling down, watched the prize giving and started hobbling back before the opera on the grounds I may need all night to get back to my tent. The sounds of the opera singer drifted over the camp and provided quite a surreal soundtrack to my last night in the desert. I didn't see the opera singer so I have no idea what size she was but even if the fat lady was singing it wasn't quite over yet...

Unlike 2013 we were still self-sufficient on the last day so I had to face the last round of the granola challenge in the morning. Fortunately I had tried to keep the weight of the last days calories to a bare minimum and so only had 100g of granola to contend with and a similar quantity of macadamia nuts to eat during the last stage.

The last day of the MDS was changed in 2013 to be an untimed ‘charity’ stage in which friends, family and sponsors could take part. Patrick had judged this to be enough of a success to repeat the format for 2014. I would have to say I didn't meet anyone among the competitors that was hugely enthusiastic about it. I did think at various points it might be nice to spend some time trotting through the Sahara where I wasn't being timed but by the time the opportunity arrived I really just wanted to be clean and have a nice cold drink. On the subject of nice cold drinks I forgot to mention that I was rewarded for my willpower in not visiting the restaurant on Day Four with a cold can of Coke, which the organisers kindly gave us all on Day Five.

There were a few other annoyances with the charity stage. The first was that we all had to queue up for an unreasonably long time to be given a very cheap blue cotton t-shirt with ‘UNICEF’ on it that we would have to wear for the stage. Would it really have broken the MDS budget to have given us a decent technical t-shirt that wouldn't instantly become soaked in sweat as soon as I put it on? Also those of us that were still technically competing in the event were kept milling around for what seemed like forever while the ‘family, friends, sponsors, etc.’ were gathered together and provided with water. This, followed by another very long speech from Patrick, almost led to rebellion as a countdown from ten was started by some of the runners towards the front of the start area while Patrick was still speaking. However eventually we were allowed to depart for a slow amble through some dunes.

The walk was pleasant enough; I spent some of it with my tent mates and some of it talking to Sue, who was still wearing the donkey ears which had allowed me to spot her on the rest day. This time she actually knew which Colin I was but seemed happy to talk to me anyway.

By the time we reached the finish line our tent group had split into two - this was in no way indicative of any falling out between tent members but simply caused by the fact that some of us were able to move much faster than others. It wasn't a deliberate act but by this time I, and I suspect most of the other members of my tent, didn't have much left in the way of mental capacity and so keeping track of seven other people was beyond my limited thought processes. I was part of the second group and the four of us crossed the line together, handed in transponders and flares, and went to find a coach.

I will skip over the coach journey, suffice to say not only were we not on a coach with the other half of the tent but we were also on a coach predominantly filled with French people. This was absolutely fine until they started singing…

I will also skip over the hotel check-in process, if only to save the blushes of those that had clearly failed to even slightly organise this part of the event. I ended up checked into two rooms, one of which was very nice, and after a shower, and another shower, then a third… went to find cold beer and hot food for the first time in over a week.

As you may have realised I found the end of the MDS a slight anti-climax. If the charity stage is to stay it needs to be better organised so that it can be given a more upbeat feel. The prize giving and party the night before could have been held in the middle of the camp, possibly accompanied by more Coca-cola and even the odd beer or two maybe to create more of an atmosphere. However to be fair it is an evolving part of the MDS and as such perhaps it will be better next time.

Epilogue

The event is what it is and so I’m not going to dwell on how I think it could be improved, it has to be considered in its entirety, if you want to do the MDS that is what you get. I will however dwell on what I could have improved with regard to my part of it. Firstly - you've probably already guessed - the granola would definitely not be part of any future MDS adventure, not in the industrial quantities I was trying to eat it in anyway. I would probably replace it with cereal bars, nuts and seeds. I know that isn’t in many ways dissimilar to the ingredients of granola but it’s a world away when you are trying to eat it, trust me, I know!

My only other food issue was that, whilst not taking electrolyte tablets was a good decision, it would have been nice to occasionally have something to flavour my water with. Apart from the mint tea and my daily recovery shake I only ever had lukewarm water to drink. This may not seem a problem and it wasn't a huge one, but some variation would have still been a big boost.

I didn't miss having a stove. It might possibly have been good after the long stage as I had to delay my meal until the next day when the sun came out, but even if I had had a stove I would still probably have not bothered with it and stuck to the Peperami and cereal bars I had for my ‘evening’ meal that day.

As far as the rest of my equipment went I had no real complaints. The lightweight pillow would have been a lot more of a problem if it had been windier. As it was I always had to stuff it into to my sleeping bag if I got up in the night to be sure it would still be there on my return, however the only way to avoid that would have been to have had something heavier.

Whilst on the subject of weight, if there was one piece of advice I would give to any future MDS hopeful it would be keep your pack weight down. I'm fairly sure that some of the Day One drop outs could have been avoided if they had had lighter packs. My guideline would be definitely no more than 10% of your bodyweight (or the 6.5kg minimum if you are less than 65kg). Don’t forget on the start line you will have an extra 1.5kg weight in water and around 0.5kg of flare, road book etc. I did take an optimistically large number of Wemmi-wipes. By Day Two I realised that being clean would be something that happened to other people until I was out of the desert. This doesn't mean I neglected hygiene - that would have been a very bad move - just that much of my body was permanently covered in fine sand. I also took twice as much sun cream as I needed. I proved this by losing one tube within the first 5km of Day One and still having enough for the week. I could have done without the MP3 player too, I don’t run with music and apart from half an hour on the rest day I didn't use it.

My sleep system worked perfectly. A fiver’s worth of foam was a more than adequate mat and I was never cold in my very expensive sleeping bag. As previously mentioned keeping the pillow under control was challenging but it did the job. The night of Day Two was actually the best night’s sleep I’d had for weeks!

So how do I feel about it now I’ve had time to reflect? My overriding feeling about the MDS is one of great achievement. As those of you that have followed my blog from the beginning will know I put a lot of effort into this journey, both physical and mental. It’s immensely satisfying to feel that it paid off - or I got lucky, I’ll never know. A top 200 place is so much more than I ever dared hope for and my performance on the long day was everything I wanted it to be.

Would I do it again? Absolutely, I enjoyed it. I'm not sure I've met anyone that can really comprehend that but I did genuinely enjoy the event. Not every minute of every day - I could have done without the ‘river’ episode for a start - but as a whole I enjoyed it. My biggest concern about doing it again is whether or not I could do as well. I need a 10% improvement in my performance to move up to top 100 which I guess would have to be my target for next time.

However, regardless of whether there is a next time, this is where our journey ends. Thank you so much to all of you that have followed my journey, whether you have been there from the beginning or if you joined along the way, thanks for staying until the end. There will be more adventures and I may continue blogging under a different title but the MDS journey and blog is at an end - I hope you enjoyed it, I did!

The Marathon Des Sables - Day Six

Stage Five was the final competitive stage of the 29th Marathon Des Sables. To round things off we would run a marathon distance across the desert. Physically I was in good shape to do this apart from one small problem - well two small problems really - my feet. I had trimmed off ‘excess’ skin and taped them up on the rest day after allowing them to ‘air’ for a while but they were really getting quite painful, my speed around camp wasn’t what it should have been to say the least. I don’t want to make too much of it as others were in a far worse position, Paul for instance was on antibiotics as his blisters had become infected and his feet had swollen so much he didn’t dare take his socks off and had to remove the insoles from his trainers to get them on. The things that were on my side were paracetamol and the fact that all that was left after today was a 7.7km untimed walk to the end on Saturday.

As with every other day I needed a plan. Today’s plan was to ‘leave it all in the desert’. By that I meant that I was intending to give it everything and try and hold on to my top 200 position. If I lost it then it would be because there were 200+ people quicker than me, not because I’d held back because my feet were sore or any other pathetic excuse like that. If it all went horribly wrong I was still fairly likely to finish top 300, which had been my original target anyway.  I was also fairly certain that anyone in position 200 - 250 was likely to have top 200 aspiration so it wasn’t sufficient to simply finish in front of a few of my fellow late starters in order to retain my place. If I really wanted it, it was time to ‘man up’ and get on with it.

The slight fly in the ointment as far as I was concerned was the ‘Elite Start’ I appeared to have gate-crashed. Starting an hour and a half after the main field meant I was potentially spending longer running in the hotter part of the day. However my more immediate worry was that so far ‘navigation’ consisted of following the person in front. I had a vision of 199 people disappearing over the horizon in front of me…

Ok, so I’ve moaned, whinged and complained (not necessarily in that order) about being on the elite start - it’s time to tell the truth. It was possibly the best moment of my running career up to that point. I’ve never been ‘special’ (not in a good way anyway) whilst running. I’m usually in the pen behind the elite athletes at the Great North Run. My local 10 mile event hands out gold medals to the top 50, silver to the next 150 and bronze to the rest, I’ll never forget the year I came 201st… Not only was I starting with Mohamad Ahansal,  Rachid Elmorabity and of course Danny Kendall, I could actually see them at the start - OK this wouldn't last long once we started running but every other day I had been too far back in the crowd to even see them lining up. I felt like it was my first day at ‘Big Boys’ school, I had to nail it today, if for no other reason than to prove I deserved to be there.

Also at the start were some of the people I had been passing and been passed by in the previous stages. Again I didn't usually see these people until sometime further into the day so it was nice to be able to exchange pleasantries and take a few photographs.

I actually can’t remember if we did the ‘Happy’ dance or not! Otherwise I think everything was fairly standard and at ‘ZERO!’ I set off for my last competitive run of the 2014 MDS,  I was nearly as emotional as I was for the first.

The first 12km to the first checkpoint were reasonably flat, not too much sand and generally reasonably conducive to running. As we settled into our stride I was pleased to find I wasn't at the back and estimated my position to be somewhere between 150th and 170th, a position I was very happy with. Being overtaken by Great Uncle Bulgaria was slightly demoralising until I realised he was hitching a ride with Julia Donovan, the top British female. Julia would finish in an excellent 110th overall and fifth in the ladies category.  I know I have a slight tendency to mention the achievements of Danny Kendall quite a lot but it would be very remiss of me not to also point out that three of the top ten ladies were British. Julia was carrying a Womble to proclaim her Wimbledon roots. I’m sure there are those that would tut loudly at the idea of the top British Female carrying 90 grams of superfluous weight but I salute her, we don’t run for the money so why shouldn't we be allowed to inject some humour into the event? My only issue with Great Uncle B was that I nearly came a cropper photographing him whilst still running.

By now I had caught and was passing the walkers from the earlier start. The cheers and encouragement made me feel like a real athlete and further strengthened my resolve to give it everything today. If you are reading this and you, on this day or any other, gave any words of encouragement or cheers to runner number 641, thank you.

It must be time to mention my feet again. The situation was that on reasonably smooth ground they hurt but it was just a constant pain I could live with. The problem came on stony ground when a small stone in the wrong place could send me into a whole new world of pain. Should I have worn trail shoes that gave a bit more protection against that sort of thing? Possibly, but then I could have had a whole different set of problems - or none, I’ll never know.

Coming up to around 20km I started to feel not quite right, not really bad but definitely a little strange (stranger than normal that is). I decided to try and sort myself out straight away and so I slowed to a walk and ate a couple of Clif Bloks, and had some water and a couple of salt tablets. After a few minutes I felt better and started to run again. 600m later I was at CP2. According to my GPS that was at least 1000m earlier than it should have been and if I had realised I would have continued to the checkpoint rather than stopped before. Anyway such is life and I doubt it really cost me much time and at least I did get myself sorted rather than hope for the best.

One absolute rule of running is never ever try something for the first time on an event. As I had lost a little time on the run up to CP2 I decided there would be no messing about so I unscrewed the lids of my water bottles as I arrived at the checkpoint, quick refill and I would be off. That was the plan… The reality was that I was given two bottles of water. I leant forward to put one of them down, my bottle lids fell out of the bottles, flipped over onto the ground, everything  got covered in sand… Fortunately I only really needed one bottle of water so using the other to rinse off my bottle lids wasn't a great hardship - it just took much longer than every other bottle refill that week.

Apart from one somewhat uncomfortable rocky gorge, much of CP2 to CP3 was wide fairly smooth tracks. I ran along one of those tracks towards a large hill; however this time I was to go round it rather than over. A marshal, strategically positioned to catch those that had become conditioned to run over rather than round things, told me that as I rounded the next corner I would be able to see CP3, and that from there to the finish was only 10 more kilometres. I could have kissed him but I think that it says somewhere in the MDS rules that the only official anyone is allowed to kiss is Patrick, so in order to avoid any potential time penalty being added I patted him on the back in a manly sort of way and thanked him profusely.

Sure enough there was CP3 and after that the last piece of running I would do in the Sahara this year.  I seem to remember a lot of sand after leaving CP3. Usually I would have walked it, as most people were doing. However my feet were such that walking was very slow and I still wanted that top 200 place. Also I only had 10km to go, full stop. No need to save anything for the next leg or for tomorrow, nothing; so I continued running and continued trying to overtake people.

This was OK in the sand, however when I got onto the final stony plateau and hill things were a little different. Across most of the stony ground on the event there were small paths, one person wide, and this was no exception. By now I’m passing people that have been out for an hour and a half more than me and they are, for want of a better word, knackered.  Due to the aforementioned narrowness of the path, in order to overtake I had to run onto the more stony parts of the ground. After a couple of overtaking manoeuvres I decided it was time to stop being brave and so all subsequent overtakes were accompanied with yelps of pain that probably gave the impression that the stones were red hot and I was running barefoot. To anyone I passed and probably nearly knocked over in my haste to get back on the path, I apologise profusely.

At 39km I arrived at the top of a stony hill that gave my first view of the finish line. In keeping with the general theme of the 2014 MDS, ‘sandy terrain’ led to the finish and it seemed entirely appropriate that the final instruction in the road book read ’B5 Finish line after some dunes’. By now I was simply running as hard as I could to cross the finish line, which I did, just after 2 pm on the 11th of April 2014, 5 hours, 24 minutes and 7 seconds after I started. It was my fastest average pace for any day of the MDS, but would it be enough?

Before I could find out where I finished I had to queue for around 30 minutes to get my medal and the obligatory photos. I waved at the webcam and became quite teary at the thought that people back home might be watching me - fortunately the camera picture was sufficiently blurry that no-one noticed. I picked up my mint tea and my water, went back to the tent, went back to clap some of my tent mates home and then went to the email tent. According to the computer there I was 190th! This later changed to 192nd but that was good enough for me, I’d come in 218th on the day and held on to the same position as I started the day in, a  top 200 finish, a hundred places up on my most optimistic pre-race hope - I was absolutely elated! As the adrenaline and paracetamol wore off walking became more and more of a challenge but it didn’t matter, I was a top 200 finisher in the 2014 MDS!

Saturday was the 7.7km charity stage, surely I couldn’t fail to complete that?

The Marathon Des Sables - Days Four and Five

Day Four - or more accurately Stage Four - was the big one and the stage I had, in a weird way, been most looking forward to. For me this is the stage that really defines the MDS. There are two ways of tackling it, either as two stages with a nap in between or one big run. My plan had always been to run it as one continuous stage. There were two reasons for this, one, nap-time counts as part of your stage time, so if I wanted a good time I couldn't afford a nap. The second was that, as I said previously, for me the Long Day defines the MDS and so I wanted to really embrace the challenge of running 50 miles non-stop (ish) across the desert into the night. I had also set myself the challenge of finishing the same day as I started. The road book said we were due to start at 9 ‘o’ clock in the morning so I would have 15 hours to meet my self-imposed deadline. The race organisers were far more lenient and allowed 34 hours to allow people to sleep on the course. However there were closing times for various check points. CP4 closed 16 hours after race start so it would still be necessary to get to CP5 - 58km from the start - to have a proper night’s sleep. As I said if things went according to plan none of this would bother me, however it’s always good to know what the options were if my wheels started to come off.

One of the things not everyone realises about distance running is that your brain is competing for the same energy supply as your body. This means that as your body becomes fatigued so does your brain. In order to minimise errors caused by this I had a fairly clear plan for the nutrition and ‘equipment’ side of the race. By equipment I essentially mean making sure my torch and GPS didn't run out of battery at inopportune moments. As many of you may know, the light from an LED torch remains the same colour as the battery runs down, unlike filament bulbs that used to go from white to yellow to brown as the batteries died. However the brightness of an LED torch does reduce, it’s just not always as easy to tell. I had put new batteries in my head torch before leaving the UK and hadn't used it much since then, however MDS rules state you must carry a spare set so I put those in the head torch in the morning and relegated the used batteries to ‘spares’. This should mean that if I had to change the batteries before I finished I was probably in significant trouble and a slightly dim head torch would be the least of my worries. I also wasn't certain I could do the whole stage on only one set of GPS batteries so I put spares of those in the waist pocket of my pack. To make life easier I was intending to change them at CP4 when it should still be light and a new set should last the rest of the stage - unless I was in the previously mentioned trouble.

My nutrition strategy also revolved around CP4. For eating ‘on the run’ I simply put a few more Clif Bloks, Peperami  and nuts in my pack pockets and continued with the approach that had worked well for the previous three stages - eat when I felt like it. I know one should have a disciplined approach to nutrition and hydration but despite all my training I never quite got that sorted. At Checkpoint Four I was going mix up my sachet of Peronin, discussed in previous blogs, and consume that on the way to CP5. If I was running out of energy earlier I would do this at CP3 to CP4 instead but I felt that by leaving it slightly longer to CP4 I would hopefully ensure I didn't run out of energy at the end of the stage in the dark.

With all plans in place that just left the relatively trivial exercise of running 80kms…

Despite now knowing the start routine I was as nervous at the start as I had been on Day One. We were due to start at 9 today rather than 8:30 so at 9:08 we set off.

My race strategy was to be similar to that I had evolved over days one to three. The accepted wisdom is generally that races should be run at constant pace or with a ‘negative split’, that is the second half is run faster than the first. My strategy was to do as much running early on and slow down and move to a run/walk as the temperature increased. For the long day I was planning on doing this with the intention of being in a good state to resume running as the sun went down. The first section up to CP1 was quite suited to running, not too many dunes and reasonably flat. I took full advantage and made reasonably good time to the first checkpoint.

Immediately after CP1 I was confronted by El Otfal Jebel, the most difficult Jebel ascent of the 2014 MDS. It’s debatable whether the rope at the top section was really necessary but that didn't stop me hanging on to it anyway. The slope started at a 12% average and was mostly sand. As I ascended I followed the majority and moved to the edge of the sandy ascent and clambered up through the rocks. The final 500m was a 30% gradient and rock gave way to sand. This was the main reason I grabbed the aforementioned rope, my legs were wrecked so the opportunity to take some of the strain on my arms wasn't to be missed. The top of the Jebel presented me with another stunning view, both of the landscape and also the dried up water course that would be the rather rocky - although easier than the route up - descent.

After the descent a couple of stony plains separated by 1.3km of the inevitable dunes allowed me to regain some of the time lost on the Jebel crossing on the run to CP2. CP2 to CP3 was still reasonably good running territory but did present an extreme mental challenge. Four days into the MDS and I have mostly drunk lukewarm water and eaten granola and lukewarm freeze dried foods, I haven’t washed for 6 days. I have slept on the ground in a tent for nearly a week. This is not a good time to see a sign for a hotel or a restaurant.  However I summoned up all of my willpower and simply photographed both to prove I wasn't hallucinating and pushed on to Checkpoint Three.  At CP3 all competitors were given a glow stick to be attached to their pack after dark so that others could follow them. If they knew my track record of getting lost they wouldn't have given one to me…

This seems like a good time to mention my feet. ‘Sore’ seems like a good word. ‘Very’ seems like a good word to put in front of it. However doses of paracetamol were keeping the pain down to manageable levels and they didn't seem to be getting any worse so, although they hurt, I was hopeful that they wouldn't prove a major obstacle to a good time on Stage Four. Certainly at CP3 I was well ahead of the 5.5km/h pace I needed to be sure of finishing the same day as I started.

Many checkpoints on the MDS seemed to be located immediately before climbs and CP3 was no exception. It was also getting very hot as it approached 2 ‘o’ clock in the afternoon so it was time to move to phase two of the plan and try keep the energy  expenditure down and minimise the chance of overheating. This was easier said than done as the terrain was quite sandy and had several ascents, including a 13% climb to the crest of the Mhadid Al Elahau Jebel. It was around this time that the elite runners began to pass me. For those that aren't aware, the top 50 men and top 5 women are gently roasted in tents for 3 hours after the rest of the field depart and finally released at around midday. Danny Kendall caught me up while I was walking up the Jebel. He too was walking, just twice as fast as me and, in all probability, faster than I moved all day, even when running. He grinned at me and enquired whether I was having fun. I replied ‘Yes, for a given value of fun’, by which time he had passed me and soon disappeared over the horizon. I was fairly happy it had taken the elites this long to pass me, I was about half way through the stage, I had been running for just over six hours, the elites for just over three.  This seemed to bode well for finishing in less than 15 hours and hopefully taking less than twice as long as the stage winner. After the Jebel it was a sandy descent, sandy ascent and finally another sandy descent until I reached CP4.

At CP4 I saw my first medical intervention by Doc Trotters. A British competitor was suffering from dehydration and was being put on a drip whilst I was changing the batteries in my GPS and mixing up my Peronin. My original plan had been to mix up my Peronin and drink it on the run however, possibly due to having witnessed first-hand the effects of dehydration, I drank it at the checkpoint and refilled my bottle with more water.  I had also drunk all of my water before I arrived at CP4 so it seemed prudent to drink as much as I could of the two bottles of water we were given rather than tip the ‘spare’ over myself as I had been doing before.

The terrain from CP4 to CP5 was reasonably conducive to running and as my ‘resupply’ at CP4 had included more paracetamol and it was starting to cool down a little (I thought anyway) I decided to try and run slightly more of the section.  It was shortly after CP4 I saw my second medical emergency, someone being treated out on the course, presumably for heat exhaustion or dehydration. Fortunately my plan seemed to be working out well and by CP5 I had only 23km to go and sunset was definitely approaching. Alternatively I had over a quarter of the stage left to go and it was about to get dark. However, I tried to approach all of the MDS with a positive mental attitude so I stuck to version one of events.

At CP5 a very helpful official activated my glow stick and attached it to my pack for me, he even got my head torch out of the lid pocket of my pack which saved me from having to take it off again. With many thanks to said official I set off towards the sunset.

The course was marked with glow sticks attached to the tops of the marker boards used in daylight. Any section likely to be run after seemed to be kept fairly simple from a navigational point of view, simply run point to point past the glow sticks. I found this a slight challenge at dusk as the glow sticks didn't stand out until it was fully dark but the boards became harder to see as soon as the sun set. However I found my way to CP6 and picked up my final ration of water before I got to the finish. As they gave us two bottles again I filled my bottles, drank half the second bottle and squashed it down so I could carry it under my pack waist belt in case I needed it later. I would, but not for reasons I could ever have imagined…

There was now less than 12km to go and I could take over three hours and still arrive before midnight. By now I felt really good, I’m not sure why that was but I ran through the dark, past the locals offering water from their well, past many of my fellow runners who appeared to have decided it was better to walk through the dark, and from glow stick to glow stick.

I was about a kilometre from the finish and in sight of the camp feeling on top of the world when I noticed that there were two glow sticks about 3 metres apart. Being of an engineering nature when theorising about such things I assumed it was to line us up with the actual finish, it being quite small compared to the size of the camp. As I approached the glow sticks I also saw that some irresponsible person had left a plank of wood right where a runner could trip over it. I'm still a little hazy on what happened next but it appeared to involve some degree of moisture and me staggering past the plank and the second glow stick with my left trainer half off and covered in mud. As I had previously mentioned I was feeling great up to this point and so once the initial disbelief had worn off I was able to see the funny side of managing to fall in a river (or at least a very muddy puddle) on a run across a desert - it was a bridge not a plank. However I can imagine that if things weren't going well that was the kind of event that could be the last straw. If any of my fellow runners had a similar experience (no one I spoke to admitted it) and weren't in a good place then hopefully the lights of the camp gave them the strength to regroup and get to the finish. In my defence there was no mention of any river, puddle or bridge in the road book. This defence has to be tempered with the admission that my attention span was never long enough to read beyond CP5 of Stage 4 until I started writing this blog and so even if it had have been mentioned I still wouldn't have known about it.

I finished just before 10:30, 13 hours 21 minutes and 29 seconds after I set off, comfortably inside my target and feeling incredibly happy. I used the water I had carried from CP6 to wash the mud off my hands aquired when refitting my trainer and went to collect my water ration. The conversation at the water stop went like this:

NICE LADY: ‘How are you?’

ME: ‘I feel great, am I weird?’

NICE LADY: ‘Yes’

I went back to the tent where Adrian was waiting for me and lay down very satisfied with my days work. I vaguely remember other people arriving as I drifted in and out of sleep until I woke up next morning.

The next day was the rest day, during which I thought I’d clean the mud off my trainers, sort out my kit and generally get ready for the final competitive day. What actually happened was that we spent a bit of time worrying about about Sarah (one of my tent mates) for a while until we heard she had spent the night at CP4, obviously I had misunderstood the rules on checkpoint closing time (she returned to the tent at around 3 ‘o’ clock that afternoon).  I spent the rest of my time, sending an email, chatting, clapping in the last finishers and being mistaken for a different Colin.

As you may have realised I was very pleased with my Stage Four performance, my strategy seemed to work almost perfectly. I finished 161^st, my best finishing position of any day of the MDS. This was really important to me because, as I said at the beginning, for me the Long Day is the defining feature of the MDS and to do well made me feel much more satisfied with my MDS performance overall. It also showed that my approach to Day Three had been correct and that it hadn't been the beginning of a decline in performance. I had done so well I’d moved up to 192^nd overall. This was going to be interesting as the Marathon Day also had two start times, only this time the later start was for the top 200 competitors…

The Marathon Des Sables - Day Three

The morning of Day Three again started with the granola challenge which I won out of necessity. My feet also required more TLC than before so my mood was a little subdued despite the fact that I was doing - compared to my expectations - remarkably well.

Right from the beginning I had known that the day that could really make or break me was going to be Day Four, the 80km stage. Because of this I was planning on taking Day Three not easy, but I was intending to run conservatively to ensure I was in the best possible shape for Day Four. That wasn't to say I wasn't going to give Day Three a good go, I just knew that after holding it together on the first two days I mustn't screw it up now. The stage was 37.5km long, of which about three quarters would be some variation on sand, according to the road book.

By now the morning routine of singing (Happy Birthday), cheering (Danny Kendall) and dancing (to ‘Happy’ of course), along with Patrick’s briefing with accompanying ‘translation’, was well established and soon we were off across hilly, stony terrain which, with the same inevitability as the ‘Happy’ dance each morning, soon gave way to sandy terrain, sand mounds and - you guessed it - dunes.

Less the 5km after Checkpoint One the road book said ‘Fin du sable’ - Sand ends. This didn't mean life was going to become easy of course and after a few kilometres over stony ground I arrived at the base of Foum Al Opath Jebel, a 12% climb of over a kilometre along a gorge that would take me over the side of the Jebel without, fortunately, requiring me to go right over the top of it.

The summit of the climb was another of those views that took away any breath I had remaining. As I’ve said before, this is purely my account of my MDS but I think I can say that for me, no matter how hard the climb, none of the summits I reached ever disappointed in terms of the view provided, and when that view included the finish, well that was even better.

However this particular summit was barely half way through the stage and so, despite the vast distance I could see, the finish was not part of it. The descent became less and less stony and more and more sandy until it was time for some more sand dunes. Crossing these entailed much walking across sandy slopes, which really wasn't helping my feet. Checkpoint Two was located at the exit of the dunes, four hundred metres from the next set.

After the dunes the run into CP3 crossed a vast flat open plain. This was very easy to run on but at the same time was so vast I felt slightly agoraphobic as I crossed it and was quite pleased I wasn’t crossing it alone. This was one of several occasions on the MDS when I realised just how small I am compared to the world.

After CP3 it was only 5km to the finish, the shortest section of the 2014 MDS. I passed the ruins of Ba Hallou to enter the last kilometre of the inevitable ‘sandy terrain’ to the finish of Stage Three.

Stage Three was marked my lowest performance in the 2014 MDS. I completed it in 6 hours, 4 minutes and 58 seconds, slightly more time than I had taken for Stage Two, which was 3.5km longer. I was 280th on the day which slipped me down to 248th overall. I was still top 250 - just - but would have to do better on Stage Four, the 80km stage, if I was to retain my ranking.

So was I disappointed with my Day Three performance? After a couple of week’s reflection I'm still not sure. At the time I was slightly surprised I hadn't done a little better as I didn't feel like I had taken it that easy, however the plan had always been to make sure I finished Day Three in a state fit to take on Day Four. The sand was also taking its toll on my feet which didn't help. It wasn't getting into my shoes - the Racekit gaiters did a superb job of preventing that - but the sideways shearing forces on the soles of my feet were pulling the layers of skin apart. Obviously that didn't help my speed across the dunes and other variations on sand I encountered. Now I can look at the results and put my performance into context, if I had been 10 minutes faster I would have jumped over 30 places, which explains why the effect on my overall placing wasn't as bad as it could have been. I think on balance I can’t say my Day Three performance was disappointing as it left me in the top 250 and ready (feet permitting) to really attack Day Four. Interestingly, one thing I had noticed from reading other peoples blogs before the event was that Day Three often seemed to be a low point for competitors and whilst I fortunately never had any points that were as low as some seemed to suffer, it probably was my lowest ebb of the week.

The principle method by which I could communicate with the outside world was by email, however there was also Bivouac TV, so I went and made a short video telling everyone it was hard, thanking them for their support and asking for more of the same. The rest of Day Three was spent eating and preparing and planning Day Four. As I said at the beginning, Day Four could make or break my MDS - which would it be? Or would it just go averagely well and not really do either? All will be revealed in the next instalment of my epic race across the Sahara.

The Marathon Des Sables - Day Two

I awoke on Day Two feeling in reasonable condition considering the effort expended on Day One. I would like to think this was down to the amount of preparation I had put into the event, certainly my body was fairly used to running long distances for several days in succession. Alternatively some kind of desert induced delirium was setting in, which was probably equally likely. Anyway the day started with another battle with 150g of granola, after which I taped the sorer parts of my feet and got my shoes and socks on.

I wasn’t expecting to finish as highly placed on Day Two as I had on Day One. This wasn’t just due to my natural caution about my ability but down to the fact that although longer (41km), Stage 2 appeared to favour faster runners. I'm a good steady plodder but speed work had been almost entirely absent from my training for several months.

Day Two started in a similar fashion to Day One. We didn't have to form a giant ‘29’ but ‘Happy Birthday’. ‘Happy’ and the course briefing were much the same. The highlight was the reading out of the Top 10 from Day One. Danny Kendall was in an incredible 5th place and received by far the loudest cheer of the morning. Danny is not only a great British athlete he is also an absolutely top bloke who has gave me much useful advice during my preparation and totally deserves the respect and affection of his fellow runners.

We set off to Patrick’s countdown, ‘Highway to Hell’, and the low flying helicopter, across a plateau and into some ‘dunettes’. I think as far as most competitors were concerned by now sand was sand, and suggesting we were crossing dunettes rather than full blown dunes wasn't really helping.

A plateau gave way to an area of camel grass and ‘sand mounds’ (how many ways can you avoid saying ‘dune’?) which mercifully only lasted for a few hundred metres up to Checkpoint One. CP1 to CP2 took us along dirt tracks and across stony plateaus – and of course a few ‘sandy valleys’ and ‘dunettes’. CP2 to CP3 was a similar story. At CP3 Patrick Bauer was waiting to greet us. Whether you like it or not (and not everyone does) Patrick is the MDS. Personally, whilst I could have lived without some of his longer speeches and the ‘Happy’ dance every day, I think the MDS benefits massively from his very visible presence, it gives the event personality and uniqueness. He was more than happy to pose with me for a quick selfie (is it still a ‘selfie’ if there are two of you in the picture?) before I set off again.

‘Setting off again’ wasn't quite the rapid, dynamic event I would have liked it to have been due to the fact that El Abeth Jebel was immediately behind CP3. It was only a 15% gradient but the slope was composed of stones and predominantly - you guessed - sand. However once at the top things got much better since, as well as a great view, the descent was through soft sand that could be run/jumped down with little effort and much enjoyment. Surprisingly some people were very cautious on sandy descents and spent quite a lot of time and effort descending. Quite possibly they were right and I was risking injury but I felt, rightly or wrongly, that the worst that was likely to happen was a loss of dignity if I ended up sliding down a slope on my backside.

After that the terrain was increasingly stony but for once not sandy. A slightly hilly area led to the bivouac, which as Day One could be seen from several kilometres out. The terrain became less stony on the run into the bivouac and so I was determined to keep running all the way to the finish line. It was at this point my head and body began having an argument:

HEAD: ‘We’re running to the finish’

BODY: ‘We don’t feel well’

HEAD: ‘Shut up, we are running’

BODY: ‘If you don’t stop running we’ll poo ourselves’

HEAD: ‘Tough, keep running’

As a result when I crossed the line and got my cup of mint tea I couldn't decide whether to find some shade and drink my tea (no shade to be found), go to the toilet (I didn't have a poo bag) or get my water (my hands were full with my cup of tea). As a result I spent several minutes walking round in circles heading to the toilet, then the water point, then back towards the finish until I had drunk my tea, my stomach had settled and I was in a position to collect my water ration and go back to the tent.

As I said previously, I wasn’t expecting to do as well on Day Two; however I completed the 41km in 6 hours 4 minutes and 47 seconds to finish in 231st place on the day, moving me up to 227th overall! This was particularly pleasing as it proved I could at least hold my own on the faster stages and I hadn't burnt myself out on Day One. I couldn't be too complacent though as there were still three more days of competitive running and we had covered less than one third of the total race distance.

So how was Day Two? To me it felt harder than Day One. It was less sandy, certainly there were no dune climbs anything like those of Day One, but it felt hotter. It was definitely further and I ran faster. The fact I finished higher suggests I may well have expended more energy; it was the only day where I finished feeling less than 100% and with a slight degree of confusion. I felt much better very quickly after I stopped but it’s an indication that I was probably pushing myself very hard.

My feet were starting to suffer, especially the left one. Two days of running across sloping sand was causing the skin to shear apart. Possibly I should have gone to Doc Trotters but I felt I wanted to be in control of how my feet were treated so I cleaned, disinfected and taped them myself. This is no slight on the abilities of the doctors and nurses of the Doc Trotters organisation, they did an excellent job on some of my tent mates’ feet, I simply felt that while I could deal with my problems I should - and I couldn't be bothered to queue. OK, it was mainly the queuing thing.

According to the road book, dunes (dunettes, mounds, sandy valleys) would make up most of tomorrow’s stage - how would my feet like that?

The Marathon Des Sables - Day One

Before I start describing my run in the Sahara I want to make one thing very clear – it’s my run. Every person will have a different experience depending on how prepared they are, how the conditions affect them and - probably most significantly – where they are in the pack. For instance on Day One there were reports of some interesting games being played by Mohamad and Rachid, when they realised the rest of the top runners were simply following them through the dunes rather than navigating their own path. I was 239th so obviously I have no idea what was happening among the top ten. Equally I only know from others about the difficulties faced by those running further back. Some had problems with running out of water; some became disorientated in the dunes. Being on the small side and generally not taking more than a couple of hours to get between check points, I never had significant issues with water. Also I was fortunate enough to always be able to see sufficient runners ahead of me that navigation was never an issue. Those that have followed my journey to the MDS will be aware that had that not been the case the story you are about to read could have been very different and would probably have involved a helicopter. As a result I'm afraid mine is almost certainly not the most interesting story of the 2014 MDS but it’s the only one I can tell with any conviction so I will try and at least make it entertaining.

The day started with my first self-supplied meal, 150g of granola with powdered milk. Just add water and stir for a delicious breakfast, 700 calories and lots of carbohydrate, what could be better? Well by Day Three I was giving serious consideration to seeing if I couldn't catch a lizard or two and eat those instead. It’s not that there is anything wrong with granola but 150g is a lot – it’s around 3 times what you would have for a ‘normal’ breakfast. And granola is, well, chewy, it takes a lot of eating. Even on Day One I was wondering about the wisdom of having made this my start to every day; however it was all I had so I was going to have to stick with it – I couldn't afford to lose that many calories per day.

All my snacks for the day were distributed around various pockets on my pack and my bottle holders. I didn't want to have to take my pack off once I was running, partly to save time but mainly because it was a bit of a faff as to comply with MDS rules on number placement the chest strap had to be fastened under my front number. I even had my compass and sun cream readily to hand, although if I became lost I stood as much chance of finding my way with the sun cream as I did the compass.

Anyway given this is supposed to be the abridged version I seem to have written an alarming amount about the MDS before reaching the start line so let’s move on to said start line.

We were told to assemble at the start for a 7:45 briefing for an 8:30 start, or possibly a 9:00 start, I was never entirely sure. At 7:45 everyone was still milling around the camp until, much like birds flying south for winter, first a trickle and then gradually a flood of people moved towards the start. Well to be precise first we all had to stand inside a series of tapes to form the figure ‘29’ as it was the 29th edition of the MDS. Then we had a briefing from Patrick of which around 50% was translated/paraphrased into English. Then we had to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to some people. Then we had to dance to Pharrell Williams ‘Happy’ for a while. Finally Patrick started to count down (in French naturally, fortunately without translation or we would have heard ‘Ten…six…some numbers…zero). At this point I became quite emotional as it was dawning on me that when he got to zero (same in French and English as it happens) I would be setting off on the journey I had trained and planned so hard for – this was the moment my entire life for the previous two years had been leading up to. ‘ZERO!’ – and we are off with much cheering and waving. The atmosphere at the start of every day was incredible. For me the whole thing was given a greater sense of urgency and excitement by the first low passes by the camera helicopter, itflies sideways about 50 feet above the ground (maybe, I'm not good at judging heights, definitely very low) straight along the stream of competitors leaving the start, then comes back over us and then does some circuits. Personally I loved this part of the day as for me it really added to the atmosphere. Strangely I didn't find ‘Highway to Hell’ as big a part of the start as I expected, possibly because I generally got across the start line fairly quickly and so didn't hear much of it.

I am now running the 2014 MDS! I am also running towards the biggest sand dunes in Morocco, 3km over flat ground, through a small valley and into 12km of dunes before I reach Checkpoint One, the longest single leg in the 2014 MDS. Well we were told the first stages would be ‘surprising in their difficulty and length’. I tried to keep a steady pace for the ‘flat’ section to put myself into a reasonable position but also one that I felt I could maintain, so not too far forward but ahead of all the walkers seemed about right.

As we entered the dunes everyone around me (including me) was still running. Then we stopped running and started walking when things took an uphill slant, back to running on the flat and downhill though. Gradually what constituted ‘up’ became flatter and flatter until very little running was going on and we walked more or less in single file through the dunes, a long unbroken line as far as one could see in either direction – which admittedly often wasn't that far due to the up and down nature of sand dunes, but at times was a vast string of humanity stretching several kilometres. This was I suspect the only reason I didn't get lost in the dunes, I was part of a great chain of people, all moving at roughly the same speed and fortunately with a person at the front that knew the way (more or less, apparently we didn't exit the dunes quite where we were supposed to but we were in sight of the checkpoint).

The section from CP1 to CP2 was rather less sandy, indeed as I left CP1 I couldn't shake off the feeling I was running across a car park. It was a very stony car park but I just couldn't get the idea that I was crossing a car park back to the dunes out of my head. It may have had something to do with training at Fuerteventura, where there were some parking areas at the edge of the dunes, I don’t know but looking back on it, it seems a strange illusion to be under – maybe the heat affected more than I realised.

One thing the Sahara is not is a flat, featureless, sandy landscape. There is a lot of sand, which is occasionally, but not often, flat. There are a lot of plateaus, hills, mountains, river beds, and of course there are villages and structures made by man. Some of these villages are entirely abandoned like M’Fiss, once a mining village, now completely uninhabited, its buildings being slowly reclaimed by the desert as the sand erodes the mud bricks. A rocky climb up past the old mines led us to CP2, the final checkpoint of the day, only just over 8km lay between us and the finish.

Of course it wasn't going to be that easy, more sand and a few rocky climbs were in front of me before I caught my first glimpse of the bivouac. Patrick seems to like to position the camp such that it can be seen from some distance away. On this stage there was still the matter of 3km of the Dunes of Znai’gui Erg to be negotiated before I had finished, nowhere near as daunting as Chebbi Erg but still a challenge after 31km of hard effort across the preceding dunes and climbs. However the real key to being a successful ultra-runner is to simply keep putting one foot in front of the other until you reach the finish line. I always try and make sure I’m running as I cross the finish so despite having been forced to walk much of the last 3km I made sure I ran the last 500m to the finish to complete the day in 5 hours 43 minutes and 43 seconds and more importantly in a very pleasing and scarcely believable 239th place!

So what was my first stage of the 2014 MDS like? Hot, obviously, however there was a slight breeze for much of the time in the dunes which, although not even slightly cool, did at least aid evaporation and so provided a small but welcome cooling effect. Running on sand was taking a toll on my feet; flat sand was OK, its energy sapping, slow and wearing but not too damaging. Running across sand slopes however pulls at the layers of skin and was starting to cause some soreness under my big toes – this was just a small taste of things to come. The climbs were probably the hardest part, especially when combined with soft sand later in the stage. I had to pause once or twice as my legs burned with the effort of pushing on up a seemingly endless slope, the sand making every step more of an effort and less of an achievement, what should have taken two steps would take three, then four, five.. However despite all this I never felt it would beat me, it would slow me down, it would make me work harder than any of my training runs but I would not be beaten.

Amazingly I was first back out of my tent group – just! I lay immobile on the floor of the tent, water bottles lying where they fell, for a while - until I mixed my recovery shake, drank it and lay down some more. Tomorrow appeared to have less dunes and more opportunity to run, had Day One left me in a state to take advantage though?

The Marathon Des Sables - Admin Day

I fully intend to write a complete account of my MDS experience; however this will take a number of months and span many, many pages. I will try and write a slightly shorter account of the event for my blog for those that don’t want to wait or don’t want to waste too much of their life reading about my antics in the desert.

The first thing that struck me about the Marathon Des Sables is just how big it is. The official website describes it thus:

• 130 volunteers on the course itself,

• 450 support staff overall,

• 120 000 litres of mineral water,

• 300 Berber and Saharan tents,

• 120 all-terrain vehicles,

• 2 “Ecureuil” helicopter and 1 “Cessna” plane,

• 8 “MDS special” commercial planes,

• 25 buses,

• 4 camels,

• 1 incinerator lorry for burning waste,

• 4 quads to ensure environment and safety on race,

• 52 medical staff,

• 6.5 kms of Elastoplast, 2 700 Compeed, 19 000 compresses,

• 6 000 painkillers, 150 litres of disinfectant,

• 1 editing bus, 5 cameras, 1 satellite image station,

• 10 satellite telephones, 30 computers, fax and internet,

• A touch of madness...

The only figures there that I'm not sure about are the number of camels, I only saw two, and the ‘touch of madness’, I'm fairly sure it takes more than a touch to enter this event.

However even knowing all this before I went didn't prepare me for the size of the camp when we arrived. It did mean that we had quite a walk around the ring of tents before we found a vacant lot. The camp is arranged in the same way every day so tents near to the ‘entrance’ are at a premium as they will be nearest the finish. One of the many ‘amusing’ little points of the MDS is that after running 35 – 80km you are immediately given 3 bottles (4.5 litres) of water to stagger back to your tent with. If you complete day 4 (the long stage) after the morning water distribution for Day 5 (the ‘rest’ day) you may be lucky enough to be presented with 6 bottles to carry back with you.

One of the most, if not the most,  impressive parts of the whole event is the way the entire camp is dismantled, moved up to 80km and entirely rebuilt every day. The competitors sleep in what are called ‘Berber Tents’. These consist of a piece of thick black cloth held up by 2 poles at each side in the centre, with shorter poles and steel pegs creating low ‘walls’ at either end. The tents are open front and back, although it is possible to partly close them if you are brave enough to remove one of the central pole supports. On the floor is a carpet, red and black or yellow and black – it varies day to day. Eight people sleep in each tent, generally aligned front to back or vice-versa dependent (in our case) on which way we thought the wind would blow each night. The Berbers also don’t bother to wait for you to get up each morning; the tents are dismantled around you. They do however leave the carpet until everyone is off it, although if you are taking too long your final preparations will be done under the gaze of a couple of impatient Berbers. This is fair enough considering the vast logistical exercise of moving the camp, there is no time to allow a thousand people to slowly get up and get packed before the tents start to come down.

The eight people you share a tent with can have a huge effect on your MDS experience and I was lucky that I had already arranged to be part of a great group of six other guys and one very tolerant woman.

Admin Day Dawns…

In many ways I was more worried about Admin Day than actually running the MDS. The reason for this was simply that the MDS has a fairly extensive set of rules. However I think the British find them slightly difficult as many of them are not quantified – how big a knife? How much topical disinfectant? How do we prove we have the right number of calories per day? Then of course there was the whole issue of getting the medical certificate signed off and having an ECG signed and stamped exactly as required. Get any of this wrong and you could find yourself starting with a two hour time penalty. However…

The elite runners have specific times to go for their checks and will be fully scrutinised both at the start of the race and at the end of every stage. For those of us in the masses a full check is far less likely – although not impossible. Certainly for me the checks were minimal. I had signed a list of mandatory equipment to confirm I had it and listed my calories per day. The official asked to see my road book, inquired as to the weight of my pack (6.8kg – well it was when I packed it in the UK) and the weight of my food (3.8kg) and that was my equipment check. My form was counter signed and I went on to the medical check.

My medical check was similarly brief, I think if you can stand in the midday sun for 2 hours in the queue for the admin checks you are probably deemed fit to run. My medical consisted of a brief glance at my signed form and ECG followed by the questions ‘Have you done this before?’ Answer, ‘no’ and ‘but you are quite fit, yes?’ Answer, ‘yes.’ I was rewarded with another signature on my form and a small plastic bag of tablets that would have had me answering some very awkward questions if I was found with them at the V-Festival but were actually salt tablets. We were told to take two per bottle of water, going up to four after 5 hours of running. I took them fairly well as directed and had no hydration problems. Given the amount of salt that was encrusted in my running gear and pack by the end I suspect I would not have had such a good time if I had neglected to take the tablets.

In addition I was given a water card to be clipped when I took each ration of water, a transponder, a medical card, a ‘ski pass’ style holder for the water card and a flare. I was given them in that order, which meant by the time I collected the holder for the water card I’d already lost the card because I put it down when I attached the transponder to my ankle so it could be checked…

Anyway I seemed to pass all the checks and managed to hang on to all my kit for long enough to present my fully signed form to the officials giving out the all-important race numbers. The Marathon Des Sables isn't generally considered an educational event but in the course of getting my number (which also has the competitor’s first name on it) I learned that in France ‘Colin’ is both a champagne and a fish.

It was now all very real – I had handed in my travel bag so everything I had for the impending adventure across the Sahara was either in my pack or on my body. We would be served one more meal that evening before we had to be entirely self-sufficient the next day and head out into the biggest sand dunes in Morocco!

Time to go!

I started this blog nearly 10 months ago. Some of you have followed me from my first post, others I've picked up along the way. Hopefully you have all enjoyed being part of my journey, which is now reaching its final destination.

I've divided, weighed, labelled and packed - mostly in that order - all my food into packs for each day so that my heat addled brain won't have to work out complicated logic problems such as 'if it's Tuesday and I've run 27 miles, how many Peperamis can I have with my Spaghetti Bolognaise?' It even all fits in my pack - just. I finally bought a cigarette lighter - it's a compulsory kit item and one that is so easy to obtain I decided to wait until just before the shops shut on the day before I travel to buy one. My medical certificate and ECG are hopefully signed and dated to a standard that will satisfy the French race officials, a 200 Euro 'fine' and a 2 hour time penalty would not be a start to my MdS that I would chose.

I could go on for pages with details of all the other things I've been doing as part of my final preparation, and if this was normal blog entry I probably would. However the main reason for writing is to say thank you to all those of you that have travelled on this journey with me and to promise you that you will find out how it ends. I will certainly write some of it in my blog, I even have a vague idea that I might fill the void left by MdS planning by writing a book about it, who knows. The support I've had and the words of encouragement have undoubtedly made a difference and hopefully some of you will continue to support me in the desert. 'How can we do that?' I hear you ask. Well direct from the MdS website...

Go to the website and follow the instructions. 

http://www.marathondessables.com

section "write to competitors"

After 11 april, this email service will no longer be operational.

Only messages with surname (HARPER), first name (COLIN) and race ID number (641) will be transferred.

Do not send attachments (e.g. photos). This will cancel the message. Messages will be given to competitors on the bivouac every day. Note: AOI cannot transfer messages posted on Facebook, Twitter,...

Obviously I added my name and race number - if that was on the website I'd get everyone's messages which would be confusing and very time consuming to read. 

What it doesn't say is that the 'write to competitors' section probably won't be there until sometime Sunday so if you can't find it try again later. Any messages you send will be printed out and given to me each evening and much appreciated.

I always try and acknowledge those people that have supported me on races, be they event organisers, marshals or fellow competitors. However I'm going to save the last word before I go for the one person without whom I would never have made it this far.

Sharon, thanks for all you support, for the endless discussions about kit, food and strategy, for running with me, for arranging holidays around training, for washing endless running kit, for not complaining when I covered the kitchen in mud and most of all for just always being there no matter what - thank you, I love you.

Right, it really is time to go - bye!

The Final Countdown...

Before I go any further with this blog entry I will apologise in advance if its even less coherent than usual. Hopefully you will understand that with barely a week to go until I fly to Morocco I'm a bit preoccupied at the moment! however given the level of support I've had from some of the readers of my blog I feel it would be wrong to simply abandon you now - anyway I promised I'd tell you about Fuerteventura...

So what is there to tell about Fuerteventura? Well the journey there went fairly smoothly - apart from having to queue up twice to drop our bags off as we were 'too early' the first time! You can book an airport lounge for three hours but Easyjet won't take your bag until two and a half hours before the flight departs... Anyway as we'd been to Feurteventura before we knew exactly what we were doing and where we were going this time - which is why it only took two attempts to get out of the airport car park. We had asked the hotel for a room a near as possible to the same as the one we stayed in before - they obliged by giving us the room next door to the one we stayed in before. This was only slightly disconcerting as it was identical but a mirror image. However we coped and even more surprisingly didn't ever try and get in the wrong room.

As I like to be prepared for the 'worst case scenario' I decided I would try my full MdS kit on the sand dunes on day one. The reasoning being that if I injured myself, contracted the plague or got arrested and didn't run again then at least I would have fulfilled one aim of the trip (I'm not calling it a holiday - no matter how many cocktails I had). A 16 mile run over the dunes left me with no sand in my shoes and, whilst I still wasn't sure it was worth the money, the X-bionic clothing seemed to be comfortable and wicked sweat away very competently. I did get a blister on the arch of my foot due to my new shoes needing a little wearing in however it was annoying rather than debilitating so I still considered the test an unqualified success.

 Whilst looking for running routes in Fuerteventura on the web, I had discovered that there was an allegedly well marked path from Corralejo (where we were staying) all the way down the island to Morro Jable in the south. It also passed through the volcanoes near Corralejo, which we hadn't got round to visiting on our previous trip. So for the day two  run a jog out to the volcanoes, a bit of a walk/jog around and up them, and around the general area for a bit of a sightseeing expedition all sounded like quite a nice idea. Sharon wisely decided she would go back to the hotel after this and leave me to improvise a slightly longer run. I followed GR131 (the path) to the next town, Lajares, and - rather than turn round and go back - I had this vague idea that I could run to the next town on the coast, El Cortillo, from where I had run to Corralejo on my previous trip. This was a fine idea except that El Cortillo was further away than I expected it to be and hence by the time I returned to the hotel I had run 33 miles since I'd left it that morning. As a result I decided that a quick 10 miles before breakfast would do for the next day and I'd have the rest of the day off.

The trip to the volcanoes and on to Lajares, had shown me that there was another way back to Corralejo round the other side of the volcanoes, which opened up the possibility of if not a circular route then at least one that wasn't simply there and back. By being a bit vague about how far it was and with the promise of a Coke when we got to Lajares I persuaded Sharon that we were going to run this together. I really enjoyed it, Sharon enjoyed the Coke and she didn't kill me so I think she was secretly very pleased to find she could run 17 miles in a day and actually enjoy at least some of it!

By now I had slightly revised my training plan and thought I was going to start reducing the mileage as the trip progressed, however I still had 3 fairly hard runs planned...

The first plan was to follow GR131 a bit further. As I'd run the section to Lajares a couple of times Sharon dropped me there and agreed to pick me up a few hours later at Tefia, around 18 miles further down the trail. Obviously I got lost but it wasn't entirely my fault - in my eyes anyway. I was very keen to avoid three large dogs that were barking at me noisily - so keen in fact that I didn't stop to wonder if the path they were on was the one I should have taken... 

Anyway after an unscheduled tour of Villa Verde I found the road to La Oliva where I was able to pick up GR131 again. The second detour doesn't count as lost because I knew I was going the wrong way, it was just that the arrow painted on the lamppost could be construed as pointing in any direction but the one I was meant to go. On my third trip back to said lamppost a helpful local pointed me in the right direction (and told me how to pronounce Tefia - Te-FEE-a, apparently).

From there on it was all fairly straightforward, I had some incredible open countryside between the mountains to run in, often without any sign (apart from the trail) of civilisation. I only had one dog incident on the way and met up with Sharon about half an hour later than I said I would in Tefia - which doesn't even appear to have a shop. Twenty miles for the day and one of the best days running I've had in a long while.

The next day was back to the dunes for the ultimate kit test! I had been running so far with my pack slightly weighted with two litres of water (which came in very handy on my 33 mile run!). Today I was going with 6 litres for a total pack weight of around 7kg plus a litre and a half of water in my drinking bottles. This was about what I expect my starting weight on Day One of the MdS to be. Full MdS clothing was worn and a 16 mile dune and beach run undertaken to really test out my equipment and get a feel for what I was in for on the MdS. The result of this run was that I may need to consider putting some tape on my back to avoid  rucksack rubbing - although better weight distribution may help - its hard to 'distribute' three bottles of water in a pack. It also made me more determined than ever that my pack will be as light as I can make it...

The last big 'effort' run would be a jog/stagger/walk to the top of Pico de la Zarza, the highest point on Fuerteventura. This was a challenging day, although the biggest challenge was finding the start of the path! Eventually we found our way to the start and set off up. The climb varied from 'joggable' to 'I'm going to walk this bit' and took a fairly long route to the summit through far more greenery than is found on the more northerly parts of Fuerteventura. All in all a nice climb - even if the top was in cloud and so we had no views. Predictably the trip down was quite a bit quicker and we had time to see the sights of Morro Jable before we went back to Corralejo. For anyone that remembers my blog post about my previous Fuerteventura trip, yes, some of those sights were German sausage!

My final runs were along the coast to El Cortillo and another early morning run so we could relax on our last day. In nine days I ran nearly 147 miles, got a sun tan and gained a lot of confidence in my kit.

Since then I've not run too much as I managed to bring a cold back with me - I still reckon its a better souvenir than a wicker donkey though. The last of my food should arrive tomorrow, I'm intending to pay a visit to the lovely people at Racekit over the weekend for a few last odds and ends and then I should be ready! My main preoccupation at the moment is heat acclimatisation - the general consensus is that  it is a very good thing. I don't have the time to go to a proper heat chamber, however a few heaters and an exercise bike have allowed me to turn the bathroom into a forty degree plus torture chamber that should serve the purpose and allow me to get nicely acclimatised.

So here we are! Barely a week to go until I leave. Hopefully I will have time to write one last short entry before I go but for now I'm off to decide how much toilet paper I will need....