MDS 2016 - Day Seven

Most of these posts tend to have some sort of preamble about something else before we get to the running. This one is really quite important as it links to the news I got on Day One. You might remember I mentioned my Belgian friend Philippe being taken ill just before the start and hence it appearing his MDS would be over before it started. Well it wasn't. I was in the queue for the email tent on (I think) Day Three behind one of the Belgian runners who told me that Philippe had started and was still in the MDS! This was fantastic news and I eventually tracked Philippe down and saw for myself that he was not only still going but in good spirits and his race was getting better day by day. Mind you, from where he started that was fairly inevitable. Day One was unsurprisingly hell (his description), after being given the OK to start he had to report to Doc Trotters at each checkpoint. However he finished well within the cut-off and completed the rest of the race also within all the cut-offs and so I'm very pleased to say is the proud owner of a 2016 MDS medal.

At the point we pick up my story however none of us are proud owners of anything new apart from a UNICEF blue t-shirt. I understand it looks good for photos to have us all in the same t-shirt, I only have two issues with it. Firstly it did detract a bit from the 'posing with medal' picture at the end as everyone looked quite similar and far too clean. Secondly - and in the very unlikely event of Patrick reading my blog, please, please fix this one - the t-shirt is an ordinary 'non-technical' one in cotton. This means it gets very sweaty very quickly. I appreciate that keeping down costs on the t-shirts means there is more money for the charity but if it was a technical t-shirt (like the 'Finisher' shirt) people would wear them to races after the event and raise the profile of the charity aspect of the MDS. A lot of people accuse the MDS of being 'commercial' and there are a lot of rules regarding keeping the sponsors logos visible on the race numbers. However these sponsors are Moroccan companies - I suspect Coca-Cola would pay a lot more than Sidi ali to be on the race numbers - and the money raised by allowing those not doing the MDS to take part in the charity stage funds a number of projects in Morocco primarily aimed at educating children. So whilst yes, there is undoubtedly a strong commercial element I suspect it could be a lot worse.

Anyway on with the running - or today, walking. The charity stage is un-timed and so tent groups frequently walk together and Tent 137 was going to be no exception. It was going to be a long walk, - 17.7 km - and also fairly straight, flat and not terribly interesting, looking at the road book. Obviously there were dunes, a jebel and a a bit of a dust storm so at least it wouldn't be entirely un-typical of the 2016 MDS. Why was it so long? The answer actually lies in Day Four. Whilst the route of the MDS changes every year there are certain aspects that are fairly fixed. It's always in the same area of Morocco for instance. Even though I'd only done it once before I covered quite a lot of the same ground in 2016 as I did in 2014. One of the limiting factors is that about 25 coaches are needed to get the competitors to and from Ouarzazate and the start and finish of the race, and there are only so many places you can park these in a desert. You may remember that I said Day Four was a more scenic loop and the camp didn't move very far and so because Day Five is always a marathon and hence the distance is fixed, the last camp ended up 17.7 km from the nearest road/bus park suitable for the coaches.

Anyway Tent 137 set out as a group in good spirits and looking forward to getting to the hotel and a shower, beer and a bed without stones poking through (hopefully) in about that order I think - well it was for me anyway. It's actually quite hard to keep eight people together in amongst the overall throng - especially when everyone is now wearing the same t-shirt. The group splits as different conversations start and so we had to make sure we regrouped or at least knew where each other was every so often along the way. However we'd been a pretty close-knit bunch through the week and we were determined to cross the finish line together so we stopped a few hundred metres from the end to regroup and cross the line as a team - and what a team we were, not only did we all finish but six of us were in the top 200. We collected our medals and went to sit on a coach for a while before it decided to take us to the Berbere Palace Hotel.

So we've come to the end of my 2016 MDS adventure. Last time my final blog entry included an epilogue but as this one has rambled on a bit I'll make that a separate entry and in it - as I've done the diary bit up to now - I'll try and describe just what it really felt like to run in the 2016 MDS - the words 'hot' and 'sand' may be overused though...