One of the things I got wrong in 2014 was my breakfast choice. I decided 150 grams of granola and powdered milk mixed with water would be a good thing to start every day with. By this time then, I was finding getting through the granola harder than the running. For 2016 I decided breakfast would be a couple of bars, one of which would give me the power of beetroot, in which I am a firm believer. Was it better than granola? The answer is yes but there is still room for improvement. I seem to find it hard to eat anything in the morning in the desert, if/when I go back I might try a liquid breakfast as that might help me maintain my hydration better too. I did actually get try a liquid breakfast when Darren and me swapped breakfasts - he was sick of his liquid meal every morning and I was starting to put Chia Charge flapjacks in the same category as granola. I think next time some variety would be a good idea...
Anyway it was the morning of the final competitive day of the 2016 MDS and to be honest I wasn't feeling great. The day off hadn't really done me any favours. I think I had failed to drink enough during the day despite Perry sharing his mint tea bags and Tim his spicy chai ones. Either bag could be dropped into a bottle of water and the bottle left in the sun. No-one is likely to start selling the resulting liquid in cafés in Shoreditch but to me it tasted far better than plain water. If/when I return I will be taking mint and/or spicy chai tea bags to aid my water consumption.
As in 2014 I was top 200 and therefore on the later start for the marathon day. Last time I was worried that 199 people would vanish over the horizon and I would be left behind on my own. This time I was fairly certain that would happen as I knew today would be a struggle. The fact the first three kilometres were sand and dunes wasn't going to help and sure enough I watched most of the field gradually pull ahead of me until I was fully expecting to have a camel nuzzling my backside.
As it was I didn't get molested by a camel and gradually I started to catch the back markers from the earlier start. I was however well behind almost everyone else that started later and realised today would simply be a damage limitation exercise. The fact that almost every instruction in the road book up to CP3 has the word 'sand' or 'dunes' or just 'sandy' in it somewhere wasn't helping and it was quite a relief to finally see the last camp of the 2016 MDS. There was still about six kilometres to go from that point and a fair few of those involved sand but at least I could see what I had to do.
In 2014 the finish was slightly ant-climactic as I had to queue to get my medal. In 2016 it was slightly anti-climactic as we wouldn't get our medals until the end of the charity stage tomorrow. However it was great to be welcomed back by my tent mate Tony and I think I did manage to look fairly enthusiastic about finishing for the obligatory photos.
As you might realise from reading the above the marathon stage wasn't my finest hour on the MDS - in fact it wasn't my finest six hours. I was 337th, my lowest placing in any stage of either MDS. However I had finished and despite my poor finish on the last day was 158th overall, up 34 places on 2014.
Despite the fact we hadn't got our medals and despite the fact we were told that tomorrow's charity stage was mandatory and any penalties incurred would be added to our time, prizes were still given out that evening. We weren't entirely sure what Patrick would do if Rachid El-Morabity chucked his water bottle away on the course the next day - would he really give him a 30 minute penalty and take his winner's trophy away? We went to the prize giving anyway - mainly because there were rumours of another can of Coke or even a beer afterwards. I didn't take the beer rumour too seriously but I did enjoy the can of Coke we were given.
All that was left the next day was a rather long hike out of the desert...
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