Stage Four is 'The Long Day' and for some it will run into Day Five. I was hoping it wouldn't and that I would get a full day off. This year the distance was 84.3 km. It promised to be an interesting route as it consisted mainly of a long loop taking us south over mountains (and dunes, obviously) before we turned back north-ish and then north-west to cross our route out and get to the bivouac. Our camp would only move about 15 - 20 km west so the route had been chosen to be interesting and challenging rather than simply to get us from A to B.
The start of the stage was however familiar. Just under 10 km of small dunes and stones before the first checkpoint and then it was the El Otfal jebel. I didn't want to set off too fast as there was a lot of running to be done today but I did know that El Otfal can become a bit of a queue and so I decided to push on a bit so that things should be moving reasonably well when I started the climb. There really is only one path which can be taken safely. This is because if anyone does try and take a different path they will be above other runners and likely to kick rocks down on them. Unfortunately some are more concerned with their own position than the safety of their fellow competitors and do try other routes. Fortunately this didn't really happen to me but my tent mate John did have to endure falling rocks when someone decided he couldn't possibly suffer a couple of minutes delay and stupidly tried climbing above the other runners. I didn't experience that but I did have a guy climbing so closely behind me I nearly stepped on his fingers several times - I wasn't really bothered about his fingers as such, I just suspected they wouldn't be a sure a footing as the rock underneath them.
I stopped at the top of the jebel for the obligatory selfie and then started the descent. The descent is no where near as steep but it follows a rocky oued bed which offers numerous ankle twisting opportunities. The dunes afterwards only lasted for a kilometre and so barely registered on the sandiness scale that had been sent for the 2016 MDS. They were followed by seven kilometres of flat gravelly plateau to CP2 so I just needed to put my head down and keep jogging...
Unfortunately this didn't quite happen. I was probably no more than a kilometre in when I tripped. I managed to avoid any major damage to my skin or equipment but I did manage to find a small rock to bash my left thigh into. Whilst, as previously mentioned, some of the competitors have little regard for the well-being of their fellows, the vast majority do care about others and a lovely lady from Britain stopped and pulled me to my feet and made sure I was OK. I was but I was slightly dazed and quite annoyed so I wasn't as grateful as I should have been. Fortunately I saw her later when she asked if I was OK and so I was able to thank her properly (thanks again Megan!).
The damage to my leg was having a significant effect on my running style - which isn't very stylish at the best of times anyway. I took some pain killers and tried to run it off and eventually arrived at the second checkpoint where I tipped some water onto my shorts over the damaged area which helped the pain a bit - also the pain killers were starting to kick in.
The route from CP2 was still fairly flat and gravelly until it reached an auberge I recognised from 2014 just before the El Maharch pass. The auberge was also the site of an official MDS photo point. I suspect this may have been to discourage competitors from going into it in search of refreshment - it might be tricky to explain a cold can of Coke in an official photo!
After the pass and some more open flat stuff we had a few sandy ascents including the Mziouda jebel and started to discover why Steve Diederich - founder of Run Ultra, the UK MDS representatives - had told us he thought the 2016 MDS course was one of the best he'd seen when he met us at the airport. The views we would have from CP3 to CP5 were stunning.
I had kind of planned on walking a fair bit from CP3 to CP4 as this was the hottest part of the day. CP4 was where I would have my Peronin, a liquid food designed to be consumed during exercise, and get myself ready for running in the cooler part of the day - that was the plan anyway. The walking bit worked, my thigh was still a bit sore but the aforementioned views were keeping me distracted. It was however very hot and I wasn't drinking enough...
When I got to CP4 I realised I was thirsty, very thirsty. As a result I consumed one and a half litres of water with the Peronin rather than the 400 ml recommended. There were two reasons for this, one, the powder wouldn't dissolve properly so I kept adding more water, and drinking that which did dissolve each time and two, I was struggling badly to drink tepid water so any flavouring helped.
After I left CP4 I felt bloated with water and still thirsty. I then made what was probably a mistake in that I decided to add my recovery shake to one of my water bottles to try and make the water more palatable. I drank it, grateful for something with some taste, but I was now feeling very, very bloated and not at all like running. I saw Perry and John at CP4, John was leaving it as I arrived and Perry overtook me soon after I left. I wasn't really expecting to see either of them again as I was feeling decidedly rough and a bit sorry for myself.
I finally made it to CP5 in a fairly poor state. I would have liked to have hung around there for longer but the medics seemed to be taking an interest in me so I thought I'd better leave before they wanted to examine me too closely. This was about my lowest point on the whole 2016 MDS, the exit from CP5 was a short steep hill I really didn't want to climb up. However that was where I had to go so I thought it was time I had a serious word with myself whilst climbing up. There was 30 km roughly left to go and the sun was going down. I could either have a long and miserable night walking or I could start running again. I still felt bloated but I reasoned that if I ran one of two things would happen, the water would either start to be absorbed into my body - or I would throw up. The second wouldn't be ideal but at least I might feel better afterwards. As it was the first thing happened and after the climb the sandy start gave way to some reasonable dirt terrain over which I could run quite easily. It was at this point I thought I was hallucinating - I wasn't expecting to hear music in the desert. It turned out I wasn't hallucinating and the source of the music was a bluetooth speaker on the back of the pack of a great guy called Tom. We ran along and chatted together for several songs - I'm not sure he entirely appreciated me singing along to 'Mr Brightside' by the Killers but he politely endured it. As it became fully dark he took the safer option and slowed down while I proceeded at full speed kicking every single rock in my path that was larger than a golf ball. I didn't care, after my low point the fact I was feeling better, it was getting cooler and I'd had some positive interaction with another human being had lifted my spirits and I was (relatively speaking) racing along from glow stick to glow stick as they showed me the path to CP6.
After CP6 things got even better as I caught up with Perry and we decided to finish the stage together. I knew having Perry as a tent mate was a good thing but I only realised quite how good it was when he gave me one of his Mint Crumbles. We ran into CP7 together where the marshal pointed to some lights in the distance and told us that was our 'home'. We had less than 10 km to go along some reasonably flat and firm terrain, we just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
As it happened we did slightly better than that. We slowed down for a short rest and someone (I think he was French) had the temerity to overtake us. We looked at each other, shook our heads and set of in hot pursuit. We caught and passed said runner fairly easily and could now see the lights of the camp very clearly. I wanted to finish in style and so sped up a bit, so did Perry, so did I, so did he... My head torch has four settings, dim, normal, bright and The Sun. I selected maximum brightness and we raced to the line side by side. The only problem was that, due to the lack of perspective provided by darkness and with nothing to act as a reference for the size of the camp, we were still about a kilometre from the finish. Were we going to slow down? Hell no, we just carried on and when we did get get to the finish we still managed to find a bit more for a last sprint to wild cheers and applause from the marshals at the line. We waved to the web cam and went collect our tea. Perry then pointed out that if anyone was watching they wouldn't have seen us as we still had our head torches on so we turned them off and went back and waved again. I'm glad we did since at least one person saw us and she has been one of my most loyal supporters through both my MDS adventures. Things got even better when, as a result of Perry wanting a photo with the tea man, I managed to get two cups of mint tea!
I was 171st on the day and managed a same-day finish. Given the way the day had gone things could have been a lot worse. Day Five was spent mostly resting and chatting with my tent mates - and eating, quite a lot of eating. Only one more competitive day for the 2016 MDS, the marathon day...
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