MDS 2016 - Day One

Finally the great day dawned. When the day dawns people start moving and unless you are a particularly heavy sleeper that's it for your night-time slumber, and even if you are a heavy sleeper the Berbers will come and take your tent away very soon so you might as well give in and get up  - so I did. Actually I'd been getting up quite a lot that night and whilst this could point to me being well hydrated I was slightly concerned that most of my water appeared to have gone straight through me rather than being absorbed - hence my comment at the end of my previous blog entry that I should have eaten more of my salt tablets.

Breakfast this time consisted of a couple of bars rather than ludicrous amounts of granola as in 2104, and seemed a little easier to get through. The next activity was yet another trip into the desert which indicated, as I feared, that I could be a little better hydrated. I immediately started drinking more water and Tent 137 set out for the first activity of the day, making the big 31.As an aside, I had a conversation with Darren later in which he mentioned making a big 31. As he is ex-military and my brain had switched off I thought '31' was the number of some sort of military procedure relating to something else entirely and hence the term 'making a big 31' assumed a completely different meaning for Darren and myself for the rest of the week. Anyway for those that aren't familiar with the rituals of the MDS, before the start of each race all the competitors have to go and stand inside taped off areas which form the number of that particular edition so the organisers can film us from the helicopter for the official pictures and videos. This was the 31st Edition hence we had to make a 'big 31'. This done we were free to sort of mill about aimlessly until the race briefing.

While milling aimlessly I spotted a group of Belgians. I hasten to add I wasn't trying to spot all 48 nationalities in alphabetical order. If I was then being at 'Belgium' would imply I'd already spotted Australia and Austria and probably decided there were no representatives of Azerbaijan present. No the reason I was interested in Belgians stemmed back to 2015 and the Lake Balaton Supermarathon. I think there were only two of us from the UK at that race and so we had found a very friendly group of Belgians to talk to, one of whom was entered into MDS 2016 (I wasn't at that point) and was very interested in talking to me about my experiences in 2014. We had stayed in touch and hence I was keen to meet up with him in the desert. The Belgians indeed knew my friend but the news wasn't good. Philippe had been ill the previous night and collapsed whilst making the aforementioned big 31. The medics had taken him away but it didn't look good for his MDS. I thanked his compatriots for the information and returned, slightly shocked, to my tent mates.

However there was no time to dwell on the misfortunes of others as Patrick was up on his Landrover and into his briefing. Edited highlights were translated into English for those of us that assumed all foreigners could understand English if it was said slowly and loudly enough and so didn't bother with foreign languages. Then we had the countdown and as 'Highway to Hell' boomed out we were off into Stage One of the 2016 Marathon des Sables!

The first three kilometres were fairly straightforward and I set off quite quickly in order to not have to overtake too many people when we all slowed up in the dunes. This was the day's first mistake... The going quickly got a lot tougher and slower as I entered the 12 kilometre crossing of the biggest dunes in Morocco - the Chebbi Erg. As I think I said  in the prologue, today was very similar to 2014 and so I should have known when to slow down. Instead I kept pushing until my heart rate got uncomfortably high and I had to slow down whether I liked it or not. By now I was going backwards through the field, my early folly was already taking its toll of both me and my position in the race.

After the dunes came CP1 and then it was just a bit sandy until it became a bit stony as I approached M'fiss. Last time I really liked M'fiss, it's an abandoned mining village which is slowly being reclaimed by the desert. The buildings are breaking down in a way which allows you to see how they were built and generally I think its an interesting place to see. Of course if there is a sandstorm going on you can't see much of it... The sand gave way to a strange purple dust. Some of you will know I wear purple calf guards and a buff so that anyone looking for me in the pictures and videos on the MDS website have a chance of picking me out from the hundreds of similarly dressed competitors. Well my calf guards and buff were now complemented by purple gaiters and a purple hat. I suspect the rest of me had a purplish hue too but it was the previously white hat and gaiters that stood out most.

After M'fiss was CP2. Then it was a sandy passage (a frequently mentioned hazard of the MDS) followed by a stony plateau and a gorge leading to.... some more dunes. There were only three kilometres but I was wrecked. My calves were cramping, when they weren't cramping they were aching and when they weren't cramping or aching they were deciding what to do next, cramp or ache.

Unfortunately Ian Corless was in the dunes. Ian is a lovely chap and a superb photographer - if you have looked at any of the pictures on the MDS website you have probably seen his work. The 'unfortunate' bit stems from the fact I do my level best to avoid being photographed walking and so, cramping, aching and just plain knackered, I had to muster one last burst of energy to run past Ian and pretend I was enjoying it (he wasn't fooled). I could see the finish from the dunes and staggered to almost the end where another of my 'rules' dictated I had to run the last bit across the finish line.

As you may have realised I didn't have a great Day One! I was dehydrated, I set off too fast and I think I was generally a bit too arrogant because it was 'only' 34 kilometres and I'd done it before. I finished the day in 234th place, not a disaster but I had been, I estimated, around 30 minutes slower than I 'should' have been if all had gone well. However at least I had finished and the highlight of the day was that, although Sultan Tea were no longer sponsors of the MDS, I still got a cup of hot sweet mint tea at the end of the stage. It may not sound great but strangely it goes down wonderfully after a run across the desert - well for me anyway. I collected my water and went back to Tent 137.

I was the fifth member of our tent back. Darren had had a simply storming day and was well up the rankings (I can't remember exactly where but I think top 100ish) and it looked like I was in a tent with some pretty quick runners. This wasn't entirely surprising as those of us from Druids had all been fairly close in pace and Eric had also beaten both Perry and myself at the St. Peter's Way Ultra - although we had no idea who he was or that he would become our tent mate at that time. I settled down in the tent and both my calves continued to cramp so I kept drinking and swallowing the salt tablets. Eventually the cramps subsided and I started to feel I was better hydrated. Hopefully Day Two would be better...

MDS 2016 - The Prologue

As some of you will know I largely blame my decision to enter the 2016 Marathon Des Sables on Elisabet Barnes. It was while following her progress to First Place Woman in 2015 that I got excited enough to see if there were any places for 2016. I did this safe in the knowledge there wouldn't be, and according to the website there weren't. Apparently there might be some places in December but by then I would have calmed down and all would be well and it was bit late to enter by then anyway. However an email to see how I registered for a place wouldn't do any harm would it? Well it would if this was the answer:

"Further to your recent enquiry about places on the 2016 Marathon des Sables, I'm pleased to tell you that a small number of places have become available.  I'm sorry for the slow response, but we have been very busy with this year's race!"

Sarah, dear girl, had even sent me a link to sign up with so £500 later there I was, a confirmed entrant for the 2016 MDS!

Anyway Fast Forward a bit to the 2015 Druid's Challenge and I start assembling the nucleus of what would become Tent 137, the best and one of the fastest tents in the 2016 MDS. A few weeks after Druid's we were four, another member was identified at the MDS Expo and we stayed at five with me wondering how to find three more tent mates until less than two weeks before the start. I didn't want to put out a general call on the MDS Facebook group since, whilst there are undoubtedly some people who would make great tent mates that are still free, there are also a few instances where it is unfortunately all too obvious why they have yet to find a tent. However a more immediate concern was my ECG and medical. I'd had the ECG and then had a 'senior moment' leading to me missing my Doctor's appointment by twenty minutes - twenty past eight became twenty to nine in my head... As a result I had to make an 'emergency' (well it was to me) appointment to get the all important certificate signed. Now I will admit I do occasionally exaggerate slightly on this blog but I'm being totally honest when I say that the absolute last words I expected to hear from my Doctor as I handed him the form were 'That's the second one of these I've been given'! This helped a lot as he understood the whole 'signed and stamped' rigmarole the French are so keen on, but who was this hitherto unknown MDS 2016 entrant - or was it just someone being terribly, terribly early for 2017? A call on Facebook lead to Eric revealing himself (figuratively, not literally). We met for coffee and as he seemed a decent chap I enquired if he had any tent mates. He had, two others in fact. Even I didn't need a calculator to work out that me plus four plus Eric plus two equalled eight - job done, the tent was complete!

Fast Forward some more to Gatwick on the eve of our flight. I was sharing a room with Perry in the same hotel as Darren, both part of the original group from Druids. we met up, had a beer and arranged to walk to the airport together the next day. The next day hadn't quite dawned but we had to be up anyway so we went across to the airport. We were trying to get our group together, however only Eric knew two of the people concerned and he was busy eating (this would happen a lot over the next week or so). Hence we were a bit surprised when two guys approached the half concealed table we had seated ourselves at and asked if we were Tent X-treme (the slightly dodgy working title I'd given our group on Facebook). We were, they were and eventually all eight of us were too.

The group was split over two flights and so we boarded different coaches. This was the first change from 2014, we had to fill in a form on the coach to form temporary tent groups for the first night before sorting ourselves out the next day - not a great way to start but that seemed to be how it was going to be. We also got the road book and I discovered the first couple of days would be very similar to 2014, starting with 12 kilometres of the biggest dunes in Morocco... The also seemed to be a lot of sand, even for an event called 'The Marathon of the Sands' there was a lot of sand. There was also an incident involving some sort of protest by the locals that held us up for an hour but as it didn't seem to be aimed at us in particular and I've no idea what it was about I'll skip over that - and the toilet stops, no-one needs to hear about them.

Predictably the careful organisation into groups fell into chaos when our guide couldn't actually find us a tent. However the tenacity and resourcefulness of my tent mates was revealed when, during our circuit of mostly full tents, Tim and Tony (I think it was Tim and Tony, most of my tent mates were taller than me and half of them had beards) stopped us to show us Tent 137 which they had somehow managed to become the sole occupants of until the rest of us arrived. This was much better than the official plan so we all bedded down quite happily ready for Admin Day tomorrow.

Admin Day in 2014 consisted of a two hour queue in the blazing sun followed by a chaotic stumble around a stiflingly hot tent to try and do the kit and medical checks. 2016 was much smoother and outdoors. After around 45 minutes I was done and wondering how to spend the rest of the day. I probably should have spent it eating more of my freshly acquired salt tablets...