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?
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