Marathon Des Sables 2006 - “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go” T.S Eliot

April 6th -17th 2006

I’d heard of the Marathon Des Sables (MdS) years ago. It was one of those stupid events, far away in some desert, only attracting extremists. I never imagined entering to do it. Then back in the autumn of 2004, with fresh memories of climbing Mt Kenya and Mt Kilimanjaro (6000m and -10’C at the summit) in my shorts with no problems, I was looking for ‘something else to do’.

I searched around the internet and looked it up. It looked like the ultimate extreme event. I was 44 years old and I sent off a £500 deposit to the ‘Best of Morocco’ who organise the ‘British contingent’. I was registered for the 2006 event and I had 17 months to prepare and also save for the £2200 entry cost. I had no idea what to do next.

A couple of weeks later, completely by accident, there was a TV documentary on it. All round ‘good guy’ Ben Fogle, whom I had never heard of, filmed a documentary of the event. He finished, but it wasn’t pretty. The programme generated unexpected interest and the 2006 event filled up overnight. The Daily Mail laughably reported that Prince William had entered for it. Yeah, right Will, whatever…

17 months….it seemed like a lifetime away, but it passed so quickly. I was out running and walking on a regular basis, but seemed to be plagued with injuries. It wasn’t until I did the Stratford upon Avon Marathon in May 2005 that I felt I was back on track. It was my first attempt to carry a light pack and even then I struggled. However, during the event, I got chatting to a competitor called Paul Byard. He had completed the MdS 2004 event. I spent an hour getting info from him and we exchanged emails. True to his word, he sent me all the ‘mandatory’ kit to borrow and personal advice which was to start training with a pack. His advice and gear finally focused me on the event. I knew what I had to do and how to do it.

After the summer holidays, I discovered the Long distance Walking Association (LDWA) and did a 30 mile hike with a light pack in 10 hours around the Rottingdean area in Sussex. That was my baseline and my training started in earnest with 7 months to go. I’d get out jogging with my pack and 9kg of rubble in it during the week, do a long walk around Norfolk on a Saturday with the pack and do a running or LDWA event on the Sunday. It chewed up a lot of my time. On top of this I was researching kit, buying it, trying it out, trying other stuff – footwear, clothes, food, energy food, re-hydration powder etc.

Because it was such an extreme one off event, I also decided to finally raise money for a charity. I’d never done it before. I chose the The Big C Appeal in Norwich, a local charity raising funds for cancer support and research. I wrote off to 150 trusts, companies, shops, you name it. I generated very little interest. Norwich City College, my employer, promoted me in the local press and still Norfolk remained immune to their only representative doing the event. Fortunately I was able to rely on staff and students at the college, friends and family to raise some sponsorship. You do what you can.

By December 2005, I had injured my right knee after 200 miles of training in November. I was forced to rest until the end of January, but refreshed, I embarked on a final two months of regular weekend events. In February for example, I started with a 35 mile run in Rugby, followed by a 54 mile walk from Reading to London with a 14 kg pack. The ‘Thames Meander’ was supposed to give competitors a chance to walk an equal length to the longest day in the MdS. It took me 15 and a half hours, but I had no blisters and I was awarded the ‘Marshall’s Cup’ for carrying the heaviest pack of the day and having a very sunny attitude and for my support of other ‘injured’ competitors. Finishing at 1am, I drove three hours home and felt fit enough to complete a 20km race the next morning. For me this was proof I had a chance of surviving the real event. I did a 20 mile race the weekend afterwards. I had also turned 46 years old.

In mid January, I had attended a seminar in Wiltshire run by a Scotsman called Rab Lundie who had completed the MdS four times. He ran the army gym and his training was to run 2 and a half hours every day with an 8kg pack on a treadmill focusing on a brick on the wall with ‘Focus brick’ written on it! At weekends, he pounded the surrounding hills. At the very informative seminar, I finally met Simon Owen aged 46. We had been communicating via the MdS online ‘Forum’ for a year swopping tips, kit advice, training experiences etc. About 70 competitors turned up to the seminar and I was relieved to see that they were all ages and sizes. We met Alan Silcock, 38, from Manchester and for the next two months the three of us keep up email banter of support and advice swapping. It took an absolute age to prepare and pack my food – exact calorie count and weight, packed by individual days.

I calculated that I had run or walked 2000 miles in training for this event. A fortnight before leaving, I had attached my ‘gaiters’ (sewn by my neighbour, these were made of parachute silk to keep the sand out) to my running shoes using industrial glue and completed a 27 mile LDWA hike with full pack to test them. On the weekend before flying to Morocco, when the College broke up for the Easter holidays, I hiked 12 miles on the Saturday with a full 14kg pack and then completed the Bungay Marathon (my 33rd) the next day. It was a gamble. I should have really been resting. I finally gave in to a close cropped haircut (my shortest in about 35 years) and shaved off my chest, groin and hair on my feet. I also did a radio interview for BBC Norfolk. When I stepped on the scales I was amazed to see that I weighed 110 kilos. I was packed and still wondering what on earth I was attempting.

Thursday April 6th

My dad drove me down to Gatwick South Terminal. I had my backpack full of the ‘mandatory’ equipment (sleeping bag, head torch, whistle, anti venom pump, signalling mirror etc) and I was wearing my New Balance 854 trainers (one size too long, two extra widths to cope with any feet swelling in the heat) with the gaiters. I couldn’t afford to lose any of this equipment en route. The rest of my gear was in a crappy old suitcase including 7 bundles of food. I got some strange looks from other passengers at my gaiters and a security officer asked to ‘inspect them for explosives’. It was quite funny to see numerous competitors walking around in gaiters or wearing ‘Raidlight’ backpacks.

At the bar, I met Alan Silcock, (whom I nicknamed the ‘Prince of Pain’ since he was always getting injured during training but never rested and continued to flog his body regardless – eg “My right knee is agony but I managed a 12 mile run before work this morning”) who had flown down the previous night with other northern competitors and had already set up court with others including Kiwi Keith, who at 118 kilo was certainly the heaviest competitor – a military man recently returned from Baghdad, Iraq and Graham (35), was a policeman from North Wales. As we boarded, I saw Simon at the departure gate. 225 Britons flew out on a chartered Monarch Airlines flight to Quarzazate, Morocco. I sat with Ian Baldwin (31), a chemist and Ian Jones (28), a chemical engineer from Manchester. Ian B’s younger sister had died from cancer two years previously and he was out to raise money for cancer and do something in her memory. I recognised a few people from the January seminar and the Thames Meander.

Less than four hours late we touched down in the small but tidy Moroccan town of Quarzazate (pronounced ‘Wazawat) which lies less than 300km southeast of Marrakech. Our buses transferred us the short distance to the Berber Palace Hotel, a 5 star affair. You can check out the hotel at Berber Palace Hotel. Simon and I were given a spacious room and explored the town until we found a small supermarket and broke into the duty free rum and cokes before enjoying the evening dinner buffet.

Friday April 7th

Before we knew it, we had had breakfast and were hanging around with our gear outside the hotel waiting for the 9am buses which arrived at 10am. Simon and I spent an hour discussing rock concerts and albums from our past. Ironically, sat near us listening was a small, heavily tattooed kid who turned out to be Jack Osbourne (23), Ozzy Osbourne’s son.

The four hour, 220km bus ride to Tazzarine was dramatic as we climbed up through dry gorges of twisted brown rock layers covered in sand. The road had been washed away in parts and wound up around the mountains like a discarded ribbon of black tarmac.

But once the ‘Road Book’ was issued, no one was looking at the scenery. The MdS route is a secret until the last minute, and the Road book is our ‘bible’. It tells us how long each stage is, the terrain, bearings and where the checkpoints are. The route is different every year but always around 240km (150 miles) split across 6 days. As we checked each day, it soon became obvious that this year, the route had been radically redesigned. Usually, there is a ‘Dunes’ day on Day 3 and a ‘Long Day’ on Day 4. This year, they had merged the two into Day 4 so that the last 24 miles of the 54 mile slog were over dunes. However, the organisers had decided to lengthen Day 1, throw in some mountains and include dunes on Days 2, 4, 5 and 6 including the highest sand dunes in Morocco. Word soon spread around the bus from MdS veterans that this would be a ‘killer’ course to complete.

Everyone was drinking lots of mineral water which was relieved at a toilet stop. Men to the right, women to the left. Then a lunch stop in 36’c sunshine where we were issued with French pack lunches which were a huge collection of goodies. Outside one of the buses, a large black scorpion lay in the sun. It was roasting outside and only a few of us removed our shirts. En route Simon told me about his life of publishing many magazines. One of the women’s magazines he managed was called ‘Chat’. He concluded that the typical readers were women with “three different kids by three different prisoners”. We heard about a British competitor who had cycled from Calais to Gibraltar, then canoed across the Gibraltar straits and then cycled all the way to Quarzazate. It had taken him 5 weeks.

Sat in an air conditioned bus, I always feel detached from a country. You can’t feel the heat or dust on your face like you would if you caught a local bus. It was almost like looking at Morocco as a movie from your window. We passed through some small and medium sized dusty Moroccan settlements until we reached Tazzarine and drove onto Ait Saadane where the road ended. There was a mad scramble onto open back army trucks and Simon and I were lucky enough to board the one at the front, where we found Rab Laundie and his team. It was a relatively short if bumpy 9km ride into the desert to the ‘Bivovac’ main camp. Rab told us that this was where they had run on the last day last year. Within 30 minutes, we were deposited into the empty camp where a few French volunteers welcomed us. We had the pick of the tents and Simon and I chose Tent 96 because of its proximity to the administration area. Each day, the camp would be broken and rebuilt somewhere else but in the same pattern.

There were over 100 tatty black Berber tents laid out in 2 large rings. Off to one side were a long series of large whites tents which would be used for administration, a whole collection of white square tents where the volunteers, doctors and nurses slept, a communal kitchen area and dining tents to eat in on the floor. There was also a large tent for Doc Trotters medical team and a central admin tent which issued results and information. There were also dozens of four wheel drives to ferry staff and medical people around between checkpoints and trucks to move all the gear. It was a huge operation like a circus moving around the desert.

As the army trucks arrived, competitors piled out and groups/teams either monopolized tents or individuals looked for spaces where there were any. The two Ian’s (Baldwin and Jones) spotted us and moved in. Then a couple of Irish army guys – Dave McCarthy, 23 and Paul Holohan, 26 grabbed spaces, followed by Alan Goddard, a 45 year old primary teacher and finally Stuart Anderson, a 29 year old mature student from London, doing Sports Therapy. Simon and I were the oldest and I also allegedly snored the loudest. The tents were spacious but only contained two thick carpets to lie on. They provided shade from the sun but no protection from any sand blowing around because only the two sides reached the ground, while the front and back were open. The eight of us lay across the carpets like peas in a pod. Somewhere away from the compound, a dozen holes had been dug and screens put around them. These were the only “toilets” we saw all week.

Alan Silcock’s team were housed across the way. I was over there talking to Kiwi Keith when Jack Osbourne’s team mates, who were making a TV documentary of the event, told us that they couldn’t make up their mind where to base Jack and themselves. It was a choice between some Irish guys or four English soldiers. Keith, a military man, suggested the squaddies. “They’ll be good value for your TV documentary”. What he didn’t know was that one of them was a bossy sergeant major who liked to keep the tent organised. When poor out Jack spread all his kit, the sergeant major gave him a real grilling about the “F***ing Admin Explosion” and to get himself “squared away”. We later heard that Jack was “sulking” that evening. Nice move Keith. I had chatted to Jack earlier, asking him how much training he had done. “Quite a bit” he said.

Gradually, other nationalities (there were 32 this year) arrived and moved into their allotted areas, though the French with the second largest contingent of runners, would arrive the following morning. I went for a walk around the compound, chatting to various people and took a stroll out to the nearest sand dune to have a climb. Local Moroccan kids sat on top and cheered as various competitors tried to run up it.

The French organisers put on dinner at sunset. There were long queues but they moved pretty quickly and we were fed excellent spaghetti bolognaise, salad, bread, a small bottle of red wine each, desert and coffee.

Saturday April 8th

The following morning, while lining up for a French breakfast in 29’c sunshine, I realised that the Ahansal Brothers were standing behind us. Lahcen Ahansal was a legend, having won the race 9 times. His younger brother, Mohammed had won it once. Together, these Moroccan brothers had dominated the event over the last decade. I went and introduced myself from England. They didn’t speak much English, but their coach translated. “How long will it take you?” Lahcen asked me. “Probably 60 hours”. Knowing that he usually did the event in around 17 hours, he said “When I finish, I’ll run back to carry your backpack!” “Make the most of that” Simon said, “That’s the only time you’ll be in front of the Ahansal brothers all week”.

After breakfast, I spotted Patrick Bauer having his meal at a table. I went across and introduced myself to “Monsieur Bauer” with an “Enchante”. Monsieur Bauer had originally designed the event after walking 200km across the desert back in the 1980s. It had become a legendary event and he was responsible for starting every stage and for congratulating and kissing all finishers of the competition. It was great to meet all these people I had read about. Everyone was totally accessible.

The administrative and technical inspections started at 9am in waves of 60 runners. Everybody had a competitive number. We were allotted an hour in which to get processed. I was 596 and due to check in between 1 and 2pm. With the morning off, the two Ians and I decided to go for a hike around the area – to test out our gaiters, see what it was like to walk in heat and just have a nose around. We left our packs and just enjoyed the sunshine and scenery – an old ruined castle covered in a sand dune, palm trees where water was obviously captured underground and locals filling water cans at wells. Our gaiters suffered in the sharp sand and upon return, urgent repairs were made.

There were the last minute decisions of what to take and leave behind. Originally, I had planned to take an evening set of clothes – shirt, slacks, shorts. I decided that with all the extra dunes, weight would be an issue and only took the shorts. We had already stopped washing so I might as well wear the same clothes all week, but I did decide to take the remainder of the duty free rum in a plastic water bottle. During our initial stay at the ‘Bivouac’, we were plied with plenty of mineral water to drink.

Graham from Alan's tent, came to inform us that he had been to take a crap, and to avoid getting his newly purchased Moroccan slippers covered in shit, he had taken them off before squatting over a hole. When he stood up, he accidentally knocked a slipper into the hole. He was about to recah down and grab it, when someone shitting next door, let go and his slipper was covered in shit. He was last heard yelling "You've just shit on my slipper you bastard" in his best Welsh accent to some uncomprehanding Swiss competitor

1pm arrived and I carried my battered old suitcase containing everything I wouldn’t need, along with my backpack and all my food. I entered the check in area and my suitcase was handed over along with my return hotel reservation. I was issued two numbers which had to be completely visible on my front and the back of my backpack, plastic water ration card and medical cards, salt tablets and a distress flare. Then I presented my ECG and medical form to the doctors and also presented my food. There was no request to see the mandatory equipment and no one weighed my pack. I was waved through and it was all over in 15 minutes. We were to find out later that 760 competitors entered the check in and 29 were rejected based on their ECG results. Imagine turning up, having paid all that money and not being allowed to start. Later on, we understood why the doctors had pulled anyone out with suspect ECGs (heart beat monitoring).

Back in the tent, we lay on our sleeping bags and watched a gale force 5 sand storm hit the campsite. Vicious winds whipped around and sand blew into the tent through every gap. The check in continued in waves of people until the administrative tent was blown down. Then the kitchen area blew down as the winds increased. Finally, individual tents started to collapse. We went to find large boulders to weigh down the sides, but as the winds increased, our tent started to tear, was finally shredded and collapsed. I found the manager of the Berber tent crew and a French volunteer came to sew up the tent before it was re-erected with better guy ropes. Half the tents were blown down in the three hour sandstorm.

Meanwhile, I spotted the large number of men on camels and horses. Despite the sandstorm, they were rehearsing for the entertainment at dusk. About 10 camels were lined up and prompted by someone, they would charge ahead while the men spun their guns around their heads. A few men on horses practiced stunts hanging off the saddles etc. The winds were awful and visibility decreased further. On one charge, a camel rider lost his balance, fell off and the camel stood on his arm, breaking it right in front of me. An ambulance rushed up to help the local while the sandstorm just got worse and worse.

We had been told to assemble at 5pm for a “Welcome”. Patrick Bauer appeared and suddenly the sand storm stopped. “Jesus Christ has just arrived and the storm has ended” concluded Simon. He climbed aboard a jeep with an English interpreter and welcomed every nationality individually, all the key personnel, sponsors and said that it was “Doc Trotters” tenth year of voluntary service. I hadn’t realised that all the French staff (who looked after checkpoints, handed out water etc) were all volunteers who did the event for free. The speeches went on (and on) for an hour.

Just as the camels and horses entered the central area for their show, Patrick Bauer climbed down, (“Elvis has just left the Bivouac”) and the sandstorm returned with a vengeance and our tent blew down for a second time. I watched the camel drivers and horse riders fire their guns and charge around while our tent was ripped apart again. The result of that afternoon was that we were all covered in sand and dust and were filthy. We had only been in the desert for 24 hours and we looked like we had been there for days. Dusty hair, grimy faces, sand in every orifice and piece of gear.

Somehow the French got their kitchen rebuilt and did really well to provide an evening meal for over 1000 people in a sandstorm. A can of beer was handed out with the meal, though I was able to acquire a few extra cans from people who were worried about dehydration before start day. As I sat in our dusty tent under a full moon, enjoying the beer and banter amongst my tent mates, I realised there was no turning back now. Then Irish Dave’s stomach filled the tent with a horrendous smell and Paul with his thick Killarney accent pronounced “Aw man, that was absolutely fookin septic” and we fell about laughing. 24 hours before, I only knew Simon. Now we were all living together like a bunch of school kids on a camping holiday away from their parents. The language and humour got worse, and the smell of us inside the tent deteriorated over the next few days. Ian Jones said that after Day 2, we “smelt like goats”.

Sunday April 9th – Stage 1

From now on, we were self sufficient. Only water, tents and medical support were provided. Around 6.30am, the Berber crews came round and dismantled the tents and took the carpets away. Ian Jones was dismayed by the number of spiders crawling out of the canvas, though none appeared poisonous as far as we knew! We were left standing about or sitting on our thermarests. I heated up a cup of coffee on my hex stove and added water to my crunchy nut cereal/powdered milk/sugar mix in a plastic bag. This would be my normal breakfast for the next 7 days – 600 calories. We had to have a minimum of 2000 calories a day, though I was carrying 22,000 calories for the week overall including a bag of Haribou for emergencies.

Water was distributed from within the ring of tents from trucks and when you collected it, your water card was clipped. Failure to collect water meant a 1 hour time penalty. Every bottle you were issued had your number written on the top and the bottle. If you did not deposit it in the correct places, you were given another 1 hour time penalty. We were issued with 1 ½ litres of water of our 9 litre daily allowance, although we still had lots from the day before. We took group photos of our tent crew lined up and Alan’s crew.

We had been told to assemble at the start around 8am for an aerial photo. A number ‘21’ had been designed with ropes and we filled it. Standing next to us was Lahcen Ahansal. I had a look at his backpack which seemed tiny to mine. “The weight is on the front pack” he indicated and then had his photo taken with me. It was a great way to start the first day with a photo with the eventual winner.

Patrick Bauer climbed aboard a jeep with the translator in front of the official departure gateway with the inflatables covered in sponsors’ logos, and gave us a rousing salute and explained today’s stage – Ait Saadane to Rich Merzoug. 28 km. Much longer than a usual starting stage. We had an 8 hour time limit. Then some music pumped out through loudspeakers and we were off.

I was wearing a quick drying desert shirt, lyrca shorts and gaitors attached to my running shoes, toesocks, a buff around my neck and another on my head. I think I was the only person who didn’t bother with suntan lotion or sunglasses though I had them. I carried my snacks (Skittles!), vaseline, a face cloth and rehyrdation powder in my front pack and had my water ration card and medical card attached to the front pack rather than around my neck. I had a half litre water bottle on both shoulder straps and one in my front pack. I would be carrying my heaviest weight on Day 1 (probably 12kg + 1.7kg in water) which would gradually be reduced as the food was eaten.

I had a deliberate strategy which was to protect my feet for a long as possible before Day 4. I was only interested in a finish, not a position. My sole focus was on making any checkpoint deadlines and then getting to the finish before the cut off time. I was not concerned with people overtaking me. I did not try and keep up with anyone but walk at my own pace. It was me against the elements and the clock not against the other runners.

Keith, Graham, Alan and I had decided to start right at the back and be the last of the 731 competitors to cross the line, right in front of the two camels who brought up the rear. If the camels passed you, you were also out of the race. Everyone took off at high speed, running into the distance. They were just gone! We crossed the line with the camels 10 metres behind us and stepped out. There were a lot of walkers as well as runners. A helicopter buzzed overhead shooting TV footage and local women and children cheered us off.

In that early stage, I started to see competitors I would see all week – people walking around my pace. The 52 year old American guy, the large Canadian guy who carried a huge Canadian flag all week, Rory, an Englishman carrying a huge union Jack, with union jack top hat and shorts, Brigid, a German woman with whom I had walked some of the Thames Meander, the two petite Japanese female models who were being filmed doing it by a Japanese TV crew that followed them everywhere. Plus others from tents around me.

Graham did not wear gaiters. He had decided to carry 40 pairs of women’s stockings and just slip them over his shoes and then replace when they worn out every few kilometres. He set off at a good pace counti ng off everyone he was passing and we followed him past some ruins, palm trees and small dunes. Within a few kilometres, we had passed over 100 walkers and entered a wadi (dry river bed). But I was walking as fast as I could and I could feel a hotspot just beneath my left big toe.

There was a large ruined fort ahead at about 7km, with lots of local kids hanging around cheering. I pulled up and removed a sock, stuck a compeed plaster over the rough skin and decided to stick a second sock on top of the first one as an experiment. I was wary of my feet swelling but felt the extra padding would be beneficial. At this stage it was important to be proactive in trying to contain foot damage.

Graham and Keith had gone ahead. I tried an experiment to jog and catch them up, but after a kilometre along the long stony wadi, the hot air scorched my lungs and it was obvious that I would not be running in this heat. I caught Keith who was maintaining his own pace. Graham had moved on and was really flying with his walking poles. I was surprised because Graham had managed to get a blister waiting for the bus two days ago and another queuing for food. He had become the first person on the ‘Blister List’ and became the butt of our jokes. “They are just background noise” he concluded. The real blisters would erupt later in the week.

Checkpoint 1 appeared at 12.5km after 2 hours 50 mins. There were tall red flags to indicate the position and jeeps were corralled. We queued through numbered funnels where a 1 ½ litre bottle of water was handed out and our water ration card was clipped to say we had passed through the checkpoint. There were probably 100 people lying around, getting their breath back, removing socks, taking on food and water. More salt tablets were being handed out. I swallowed 15 on the first day alone.

I found Alan Silcock. He had originally started walking and then, carried away with adrenaline, decided to run. He had been at the checkpoint for 40 minutes and felt absolutely “knackered”. We didn’t realise it, but the humidity levels were double of what was normally expected for this time of year and the temperatures were rising to a high of 41’C today – much higher than average. I took off my other sock, compeeded the ball of my right foot and slipped on the second sock. I wore both pairs for the first four days and my feet did not swell up as predicted.

My other strategy was never to hang around at checkpoints. Keep the momentum going. You could leave a lot of people behind you at these. They would often catch me up and walk past, but then I would pass them at the next checkpoint. After 10 minutes, I was out of there with Alan in tow just as Keith arrived. Keith was already dehydrated and not taking on enough water. Alan, himself, felt he had over done it and decided to stick with me doing a comfortable walking pace.

We crossed a stony plateau for 4 kilometres only to be met with a very steep 15% climb up a “small jebel” (mountain). It was a tough ascent with people stopping to draw breath. I saw Alan ahead of me and then he was gone. I thought he’d got his second wind. I just kept my head down until I reached the summit, from where, there was a marvellous view across the endless stony valley below and the fault line ridge of jebal Bou Lalhirh. It looks spectacular in my photograph.

After the steep sandy descent, I followed the narrow track across the valley. Competitors were strung out for miles ahead. There was another sandy climb at 18km. The wind picked up on the ridge. I was really feeling the effect of the course and conditions now. My feet were feeling warm and I stopped to check my hotspots while someone snapped my photo with the valley below as a backdrop.

There was a tricky 200m descent into a small stony valley in the middle of which lay Checkpoint 2 at 21km which I reached in 4 hours 50 mins. There were a handful of competitors. Just as I was leaving, Alan staggered in. He had stopped on the mountain climb and had only just caught up. He looked shattered. I told him not to hang around too long.

A sandstorm had blown up and it blew directly into my face. After leaving the checkpoint, there was another small stony hill to a summit followed by a relatively stony valley. Then another sandy hill to summit at 25km. From Checkpoint 2, the final 7 kms were a struggle to battle the wind and sand. Alan eventually caught me and finished just ahead.

I arrived at the finish in 6 hours 18min (a mere 4 hours 15 behind Lahcen Ahansal) well ahead of the 8 hour cut off but completely worn out having averaged 4.44 km an hour over the terrain. I was in 625th position so I had stayed ahead of nearly 100 competitors. I had to steady myself against a jeep for a few minutes to get my breath back. Then I picked up my 3 bottles of water (4 ½ litres). Jack Osbourne came in five minutes behind me and looked a lot better than I felt.

Back at Tent 96, everyone had returned apart from Stuart. When he arrived at the tent some time later, he just collapsed to his knees and threw up water everywhere. “That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done” he concluded. One of the problems with dehydration is that if you swallow your water rather than sip it, the body can’t absorb it fast enough and feeling ill, the body just wants to get rid of the surplus water.

The email tent had opened and even though I felt exhausted, I decided to line up to send a message. It took me 2 hours to stand in line with an exhausted body, before getting a laptop with a French keyboard, and after all that, I don’t think my message ever got through (a sponsor was offering a free daily email to every competitor but it was only open between 3pm and 8pm). I was dehydrated and worn out and decided I didn’t have the energy to do this every night. I stuck my head into Doc Trotters and saw four people getting IVs. They didn’t look well. I learnt later that 21 competitors were given emergency IVs that day.

Inside our tent, I just cramped up for the next few hours. I could hardly raise the energy to cook anything and my evening meal of chicken noodles was mostly left in the cut off bottle which was my bowl. The only things I could force down me were pepperoni sticks and Nik Nak snacks despite both Ians telling me to get some calories inside me. I wasn’t alone. Alan in our tent looked in a bad way, absolutely shattered. He lay there with his buff dipped in water, resting on his forehead, cooling himself. I tried it as well and it seemed to work. I managed to open my sole can of beer which was piping hot and drank the contents. Not recommended if dehydrated! The others seemed ok and cooked their meals on their stoves and quickly swallowed all their water allowances. By around 8pm, my body revived itself and I felt much better. I even managed to walk into the distance to take my first desert dump. Everyone was to be asleep by 9pm.

Rumours had gone around the camp that some people were still coming in at 12 hours, but it turned out that only 8 people dropped out on Day 1 and that the final competitor was a Japanese man carrying a massive backpack. He came in 20 minutes after the cut off time and the organisers made an exception to allow him to start Day 2 because of the extreme conditions. He never completed the next day.

On the official website at www.darbaroud.com Patrick Bauer wrote of Stage 1: “It’s been a very unusual day. When you look at the statistics over the last few years, you see it’s the first time we’ve had this situation: 21 IVs and 8 retirements on the first day. We’ve never seen that before. It was 41°C today but with 18% hygrometry. Last year it was hotter (47°C) but the hygrometry level was only 6%. Competitors had trouble hydrating themselves adequately today. I saw very experienced runners, people that have done several MDS, in a real state. The strong winds also meant some competitors got dehydrated. So in view of the situation, we decided to give an extra 1.5 litres of water. We’ll do the same thing again if necessary. Today has shown us that the hygrometry is an important factor in managing your water intake… perhaps as important as the temperature itself. (Ed note: we never got that extra 1.5 litres of water!)

Tomorrow’s stage is longer (35km) and the organisation will be even more vigilant in checking competitors’ health. The weather forecast is similar to today’s and I hope that runners have understood the importance of managing their water intake. The stage starts off with a good old climb and towards the end they’ll cross a dune section. If the wind blows in the dunes like it did today, we’ll all have our work cut out.”

Monday April 10th – Stage 2

I woke up the tent around 6am with a cry of “Groundhog Day!” I was refreshed and ready for another ordeal. The familiar routine of having the tent brought down and making breakfast, dressing our feet and repacking our gear was repeated. There was no washing, just teeth brushing. We also picked up our 1 ½ litres of water.

Rob has to be mentioned. He was the “Best of Morocco” representative who was asked to step in at the last moment, fly over and act as a liaison between the English competitors and the French organisers, except that he could speak no French. He would wander up to each tent and try and answer all our questions “When does the water get handed out? What time are we starting? Why have no emails arrived?” etc He would remain emotionless and pronounce in a flat, dalek, John Major type voice “I have no information about that”. We took to yelling “exterminate, exterminate” whenever he came close. He did his best and we did our best to take the piss out of him. He was the best example of a “Jobs worth” I had seen in years. “Give the guy a break” said Simon. ”Don’t forget he is dealing with the French who are absolutely f****** clueless”.

From dawn, competitors would try and find somewhere to relieve themselves. The distances got shorter from the tent compound as the week unfolded and feet became worse. One Frenchman walked all of 75ft from the tents, dropped his shorts, squatted down, showed his white bum to everyone and just took a crap there and then to a round of applause. A feat he repeated on numerous occasions. Unfortunately, he always did it in front of the English tents.

I checked out Alan Silcock’s tent. Everyone had made it back including Keith. Alan himself, was a little despondent after yesterday and his team had to persuade him to start Day 2. I also bumped into Jack Osbourne who said he had felt ‘bone weary’ afterwards. Rab Lundie said that his team had done ok, but that it was much tougher than they had expected.

We lined up for the start. Patrick Bauer told us of the (now) 9 drop outs and that the temperature had been 41’c mid afternoon which with the humidity had drained the competitors. He said it was the toughest first stage ever held in the event. We were urged to manage our water and not under estimate the difficulty of this next stage.

Stage 2 would be a 35km slog between Rich Merzoug where we were camped, and Ma’der El Kebir. The music pumped out, the helicopter soared overhead and we were off at 9am with 7 hours to reach Checkpoint 2 and a 10 hour time limit. I had been standing next to Jack Osbourne’s team and was surprised when they jogged off at the start.

The start of this stage was a long slow haul up the side of the towering Jebel Tibert. The sandy passageway was narrow and there were some serious bottlenecks climbing up. I comfortably walked up the incline to the summit at 2.3km and then down the other side. Alan Goddard from my tent jogged past and Ian Baldwin strode past with his long legs and sticks. He could really cover the ground quickly and soon left me behind.

Then it was a long bland haul across stony ground, crossing a big track, crossing the Aatchana wadi and more sand and stones. I passed Jack Osbourne who had stopped to treat his feet and then he and his team came past me again still jogging. I thought his team were pushing him too hard after yesterday. I knew Keith was behind me somewhere and that as long as he was, then I was fine time wise. It was already 42'C degrees mid morning.

I had already got into my mantra of completely switching my brain off and having a riff from Oasis’s song ‘Columbia’ on a continual loop in my head as my self imposed pacemaker. I had often used the same song during marathon runs. The lyrics went:

“There we were now here we are
All this confusion nothings the same to me
There we were now here we are
All this confusion nothings the same to me

But I can't tell you the way I feel
Because the way I feel is oh so! new to me
No I can't sell you the way I feel
Because the way I feel is oh so! new to me

What I heard is not what I hear
I can see the signs but they're not very clear
What I heard is not what I hear
I can see the signs but they're not very clear

This is confusion am I confusing you?”

Chatting to Mr Canada as we started, he had suggested that I stick my salt tablets in my cheeks and let them dissolve slowly. They would take an hour to disappear and gave my mouth something to do in-between swallowing handfuls of Skittles. Consequently, I only took 5 salt tablets today. I found my fruit bars pretty inedible but one bottle of water with rehyrdation powder was refreshing with the occasional sip.

Checkpoint 1 at the Joufert pass, took an age to appear at 12km in 2 hours 50 mins. Just before I arrived, there was a shout from behind “Anyone seen a fat bastard in the desert around here?” It was Simon. He had been slowed by the earlier bottlenecks and had caught up. He had finished an hour earlier than me yesterday with his marching technique. Show off!

I seemed to be walking faster than yesterday considering the terrain but I was still in the final 25% of competitors. There were a lot of people taking shelter from the winds and resting. I went straight through Checkpoint 1 just filling up my water bottles. Simon took off and I started a mind bogglingly numb 11km section which started with sand, then some small dunes for about 3km, followed by endless flat stony ground with hills on the right. The wind blew in our faces and I just kept my head down and tried not to keep looking ahead, concentrating just on the 2 metres in front of me. This stage was a mental challenge to keep covering the ground with no landmarks to let you know how far how you had covered or how far the checkpoint was.

Checkpoint 2 at 23km was just after some small ruins, past some palm trees and beneath some isolated tamarisk trees on the edge of some dunes. As I arrived in 5 hours 15 mins, a serious sandstorm had blown up and the checkpoint looked like a war zone. Doc Trotter’s temporary tent had people lying on their backs getting IVs. People were cowering behind jeeps, sticking their heads underneath the chassis to get away from the wind and sand. My left gaiter had ripped slightly on the side just above the shoe, and stuck behind a jeep, I managed to thread a needle in the wind and sew it up. A little local girl stood and watched and asked for the needle. It was blunt so I gave it to her. Many people seemed hesitant to go on since the visibility was nearing zero.

After 15 minutes of being buffeted by the wind and sand, I decided to make a move. I had my neck buff pulled up over my face and my head buff with peak pulled down with just a slit for my eyes. In our road book we had been instructed “In the event of a serious sandstorm where visibility drops to almost nil, it is imperative that all competitors stop immediately… Use your common sense and no heroics.” This was after three Koreans had been lost for 24 hours last year when a sandstorm hit. Incidentally, I heard that this year’s Koreans had ended up in this competition after losing a TV quiz show in Seoul. Tough break or what! I wonder what the third prize was?

I could see a couple of competitors moving slowly in front of me, almost bent double in the sandstorm so I followed them. I thought it was better to get going before they halted the race. Others just sat down and waited or sheltered beneath trees and bushes. I don’t think there was at least a few seconds during the first three days when I thought “What the hell am I doing here, doing this, in these conditions? It would be so easy to fire off my distress flare and pull out of the race and return to normality”. That time today was now as the sand hit my arms so hard that it burnt my skin through severe exfoliation. But as I plodded through the heavy sand dunes, I reasoned, that if I sat down and pulled out, I’d end up waiting here for ages until the sandstorm stopped and someone could come and get me, so I might as well keep moving.

The dunes went on for 4km and the sandstorm never stopped. I never got my camera out again that day after Checkpoint 2. Visibility was non-existent. I was pleased to be passing a few people sheltering and one of the British squaddies who caught me said “You don’t quit do you. You just keep going. Good on you mate.”

The final 8km were across hard packed ground and was another demoralising slog in the wind and sand. I have a photo of the finish but don’t remember finishing. I came across the line in 8hrs 9 mins in 573th position. I had averaged 4.3km an hour which was pretty good considering the sand dunes and storms. This time I actually felt better than yesterday though I had very sore shoulders and collecting my water, returned to the tent to hear all the news about this killer day.

The two Irish lads, Dave and Paul were completely wiped out. “We had our heads up our holes today” Paul said, meaning that they had gone out too fast and suffered later. They looked like I did yesterday and couldn’t move for hours. Ian Jones was completely dehydrated and had drunk all his water rations for that evening. Alan Goddard had quit by Checkpoint 2 absolutely shattered. So had Rab Lundie, who had been "psyched out” by the toughness of the course and had a large blister. He had been going for a good position this year – Top 75 and it just wasn’t happening. Jack Osbourne had quit somewhere between Checkpoint 1 and 2. I blame his team for making him jog. In the other tent, Alan Silcock had pulled his groin and pulled out before Checkpoint 2. So much for the ‘Prince of Pain’. Keith made the finish by the skin of his teeth. Most telling was the news that Lahcen Ahansal, the leader and his brother had walked the last 2 kilometres, out of water and completely exhausted. Mind you, he still finished 5 hours ahead of me!

By the end of Stage 2, 68 competitors had dropped out of the event. The average number for the whole event was usually around 40. The humidity and windy conditions were ripping apart the field. The two Alans, Rab etc had to hand over all their food but were allowed to continue to sleep in the tents tonight. They were now fed by the organisation. Many competitors were complaining about a lack of water. Some petitioned the organisers to get an extra bottle that evening. As far as I remember, the organisers said no. It was the ‘Marathon Des Sables’ It was supposed to be tough. I tended to agree although I didn’t drink as much as the others. One thing I knew was that I would be too dehydrated to drink the rum and gave it to Alan G as a farewell present and to get my pack weight down.

In some ways, I was very motivated after Stage 2. The fact that someone like Rab who was real hardcore had quit whereas I hadn’t, spurred me on. I remember walking with a Scottish guy on Day 1 and seeing him in the latter stages of Day 2. He had said to me “I’m too stupid to quit” and I think this was my attitude as well. Discussing it with Simon later, he suggested it was previous finishers who were often quitting because the complex extremes of climate and route made it was just so much harder than before. Because we were novices, we knew no better. We thought it was supposed to be like this. Three things were already obvious; this would be as much a mental challenge as a physical one, water management would be crucial and finally Jack Osbourne’s documentary “Adrenalin Junkies” on the event would be very short indeed!

On the official website at www.darbaroud.com Patrick Bauer wrote of Stage 2: “I’m glad we decided to give out an extra bottle of water before the competitors went into the dunes. It was blowing a gale and was even hotter than yesterday. They needed that water. It’s been a crazy day.. with more IVs and more people pulling out because they’re drained but also due to low morale. These winds are draining, and they sap your energy. It was also a tough afternoon for us… we thought we’d lost one of the competitors. We spent an hour searching for him with the helicopter. The risk of losing a competitor is a continual worry when you organise this kind of event. But in fact it turned out there’d been a mistake at the check-point and he’d crossed the finish line no problem. It was a huge relief for us and a very emotional moment… We all get emotional …. but that reminds you you’re alive.. you’re human. Tomorrow’s stage is longer : 38km. There are hill climbs but there won’t be the vast sandy plaines of today so I hope we’ll be more protected from the wind. (ed note: I don’t remember ever getting that extra bottle of water before the dunes because I wasn’t given it).

Tuesday April 11th – Stage 3

6am. “Groundhog Day!” followed by a chorus of “You bastard!” Many of the people we knew who had quit on Day 2 decided not to hang around and opted for the choice of heading back to Quarzazate and trying to fly home early. It was either that or hanging around for another 5 days with the circus and the sandstorms. After breakfast we said goodbye to the two Alans and Rab who told us to save ourselves for Day 4 which looked like the toughest stage ever. His two team mates had decided to pull out with him. All had completed last year’s event.

I had been surprised they had dropped out so early. The rest of our tent seemed to have endured the hardships so far. Everyone had a bad day but it was spread out over the week. Even Stuart hadn’t thrown up again though god knows we tried to make him. He dosed himself up on Ibuprofen and codeine. Simon was taking 800mg tablets of Ibuprofen every morning. “They look like horse pills” I concluded.

I tried to stay off the pills and just made sure the balls of my feet were still ok. I was still without a blister at this point. Everyone was bathing their feet in iodine, and staying away from Doc Trotters, preferring to lance their blisters with sterilised needles and threading Bettadene covered cotton through to draw out the moisture. We all supported each other and between us had enough gear, medical stuff or spare food, if anyone was missing something. My head torch switch had gone early on, but it still worked. I missed electricity so much. After Day 1, it was dark by the time I got back to the tent every night and I’d have to fumble around in the dark trying to get organised when all you wanted to do was just lie down and get away from the incessant sand.

We were a strange mix in the tent and soon everyone was given nicknames: I remember lying in the tent and saying “What the hell am I doing stuck in the middle of nowhere with you idiots”. The Irish lads were nicknamed the “McF*** Brothers” based on their language. We joked about them being in the Irish army. “It’s NATOs best kept secret” Dave said “We get up about 10, ponce around a bit and hit the bar”. They also told us that the Irish SAS had a motto “Who Cares, Who Wins”. They were an absolute riot. I told them that if the doctors for this event had been Irish, they would have been called “Bog Trotters”.

Ian B who abhorred swearing, was called ‘Cliff’ after goody goody Cliff Richard even though he was reduced to swearing like a trooper by Day 3 (“I am sick to the f****** teeth of everyone swearing”). Ian J was “Rambo” because he always ran on the edge of his total athletic abilities pushing himself beyond the edge and suffering for it. I called Ian “Spot On” because as a Manchester lad, he said this phrase all the time. Everything was ‘Spot on’ for Ian except the amount of water handed out. Stuart was “Womble” because he came from Wimbledon and wombled his way through the stages. Simon was “Mud Guts” because of his ability to clear the tent with his horrendously loud and smelly farts. For some reason, we had all seen the old movie “Blazing Saddles” and every day we’d be quoting wonderful lines from it. It was a really good atmosphere with lots of laughter. By the third night, both Ians were sleeping outside the tent to get away from my snoring and Simon’s wind problem.

The Irish lads became very adapt at collecting firewood to cook. They were still cooking breakfast today with 20 minutes before the 9am start after giving the Berber tent crew short shrift about the disappearance of the tent around 7am and refusing to leave their sleeping bags until absolutely necessary. Simon and Ian B became obsessed with the inevitable ‘minefields’ of shit that were being deposited by competitors nearer and nearer the tent complex every day. They would force themselves out at dawn on a stealth mission before the rush and ensure a “shit free” path to some modicum of privacy. I wasn’t eating enough to force the issue. It was universally agreed amongst the British that if you had to take a crap, walk around to the French section and do it as close to their tents as possible without getting caught.

At today’s start, Patrick Bauer climbed aboard a Land Rover and told us about the dire conditions yesterday and the horrendous drop out rate. It had been another hot day, 35% humidity and sandstorms from hell. Competitors were mumbling about a lack of water before we even started.

It was Tuesday so it must be Stage 3, a 38km stroll from Ma’der el Kebir where we were camped to Maharch - wherever that was. Today, the Irish lads decided to change tactics and slow down. They decided to walk with me and save themselves from another disaster like yesterday. We were given 9 hours to reach Checkpoint 3 and 11 hours to complete the stage.

Starting at 9am at the back with the camels, we set off over uneven ground with small dunes and calotropis plants. Gradually we passed people and it was always a relief to lose sight of the camels which marked the final competitors. The small dunes continued in-between hard packed surfaces. By 8km we passed barriers of vegetation and crossed a dried out lake a kilometre later. Checkpoint 1 lay at 11km at the foot of a small hillock in the middle of the lake. We arrived in 1 hour 50 mins and still felt pretty fresh though we were obviously motoring today. The temp was almost 40'c and rising.

We continued on to the end of the lake and then at 13km started to climb up an gently inclining sandy valley that gradually rose in height. The thick sand sapped the legs and went on for 7km. It seemed an endless climb. I had been hoping to see Checkpoint 2 but there was no sign. Instead at 19km, there was the most terrible gradient (less than 10%) to climb up a sand cliff to a ridge. By now it was midday and the heat was stifling. The Irish lads kept going at their pace, and I slowed down to cope with the slope. It was the worst hill all week.

I found Checkpoint 2 hidden from the ridge at 20km and just collapsed. I was on my hands and knees for about 25 minutes just trying to get my breath back in the heat. I saw Jack Osbourne’s other two team members flaked out too. People were already suffering. The humidity must have been really high today, because I was always thirsty no matter how much I drank. I came across Katie, from Alan’s tent who didn’t look too bad and took off with her walking sticks flying. The temperature had topped off at 50'C but the heat was relentless.

Conscious of the cut off time and the long rest I had taken, I decided I’d have to regroup on the move; that is, try and recover my physical and mental capacities as I covered the undulating ridge which looked over the valley. It was a wonderful vista, up and down for a couple of kilometres, but I was too exhausted to take it in. There was then a steep descent into another sandy valley which was a kilometre long. At 22km we had to ascend another tall sandy barrier and down again to continue along stony ground.

I was feeling better as I skirted around a second mound, climbing over another sandy slope and taking a sandy path between Mziouda and Ras Khemmouna jebels but I was pretty much on automatic pilot. A bunch of British squaddies walked past saying “Look, it’s the Terminator. He never stops until you are dead”. That became my nickname that week. They would rest up, I would pass them, then, they’d pass me though I was still plodding at the same old rate. We covered a very stony valley around 27km which burnt up the feet.

The squaddies were convinced that Checkpoint 3 was just over the next summit ahead of us which was the highest point of the pass over jebel Ras Khemmouna. My water was running low. I think we had become disorientated in the heat and felt as if we had walked further than we actually had. It was a steep sandy climb up and an even steeper, sandier descent. My gaiters were thankfully holding up.

However, from the summit, there was no sign of a checkpoint, just a dried out lake ahead of me with a sandstorm raging over it. My heart sank. How far to the other end of the dried lake which I couldn’t even see? Was the checkpoint hidden by the sandstorm? What happens when I run out of water? My camera never came out again that day. I had too many other things to deal with.

A wicked wind whipped sand across the lake from my right. I plodded across but was blown all over the place. Dehydrated, I finally ran out of water and tottered around like a drunk. I could see distress flares going off behind me and a jeep would take off out of the sandstorm to pick up the collapsed competitor. I was worried that if they saw me staggering around, they would pull me out as well, but I thought as long as I keep moving, no matter how slow, then I am still making progress. It was a case of one step at a time and keep moving and try and keep to the bearing regardless of the wind battering me.

It took an absolute age, probably an hour to cross what was only 3km, but in the sandstorm and wind, it seemed like 10km. It was impossible to gauge any distances. As I approached Checkpoint 3, which appeared at the last moment out of the sandstorm, a girl caught me up and said ‘Open your mouth’. She squirted in a drop of her last drops of water. “Don’t swallow. Leave it in your mouth.” This one act of generosity taught me how to manage my water for the rest of the week. Take small sips all the time but leave it in your mouth as long as possible. This way, mentally, your body feels as if it has more water than it has, but it absorbs it gradually leaving your fully hydrated. Crossing that dry lake was definitely the lowest point of my week. It would have been so easy to set off a distress flare and get picked up.

I was relieved to reach Checkpoint 3 in 8 hours, one hour before the cut off time. The volunteers said “We have been watching you stagger across the lake and it is good to see that you still have a smile on your face”. I was beat and so dehydrated. I was given my 1 ½ litre bottle of water and took shelter from the sandstorm behind a Doc Trotter jeep. The door was open and I spotted four bottles of water. This was a matter of survival and I pinched another bottle. I drank one and filled up my water bottles with the other. A doctor came up and said “Are you ok? The conditions today are too tough. They should have cancelled the stage”.

I left after 15 minutes, re-hydrated and pleased that I only had 7 km to the finish and 2 hrs 45 to complete it in. I could see a string of people staggering across the lake. I couldn’t see Kiwi Keith. He was cutting it fine again, going at his own pace. I had doubts he’d make it after what I had gone through, carrying all that weight over the sand ridges. Ten minutes after I left, the doctors started handing out a second bottle of water to all competitors because they were in such a state. Ian “Rambo” Jones arriving earlier than me, had taken a 1 hour penalty just to get extra water.

I followed one of the Japanese models through the picturesque verdant El Maharch gorge. The temperature had dropped late afternoon and it was almost a pleasant stroll as the sun dropped from the sky. Japanese cameramen buzzed around filming the tiny girl obviously on automatic pilot. Brigid, the German girl came past me with another two walkers. We passed by the new solar powered pump that had been financed by this event for the locals. Lots of kids hung around the wells. It was tempting to stop for a wash, but I just wanted to get back. At one point, a local kid offered to sell me a bottle of coke.

The final kilometres were over really stony ground and there was a large fort between the finish and the last village. My feet were burning up by now over the rocks. A convoy of 4 wheel drives came rumbling past me on the sandy trail – tourists out on a day’s excursion in the desert. They probably looked at us from their air conditioned comfort and thought what the hell are they doing here and why do they look so tired?

I was so pleased to reach the finish in 9 hours 54 mins, over 2 hours before the cut off time. I had averaged 3.84km an hour, obviously losing pace over the dried lake but I had finished in 520th position. I must have been giving Lahcen Ahansal an easy race. He had arrived 6 hours and 43 mins ahead of me today. How did he do that?

Back at Tent 96, everyone had survived. I staggered up and yelled “Never write off the goose until you see the box go into the hole” (From Mad Max 1). Simon had finished in 8 hours 10 mins but was suffering. Un-typically, he couldn’t be bothered to cook and instead, lay around lethargically. The Irish lads were fine, pleased that they had paced themselves. The two Ians and Stuart who had gone for it were desperate for more water and I gave them some of mine.

Then the stories came out. Today had been the “bastard day” of the event. Another 60 competitors had dropped out. Distress flares had been fired and IV’s were being administered all over the place, but there were three main episodes: An Irish competitor had a severe attack of hypothermia whereby his body with a core temperature of 41'C, lost it’s capacity to cool itself down. He went into a coma. Doc Trotters had rescued him (5 minutes to live from all accounts), but he was in such a state he was immediately flown to France to Bordeaux to a University hospital and put into intensive care.

Secondly, a Finnish girl, whom Simon knew, had a stroke and was paralysed for a couple of days. She had been given 7 litres of saline after a minor stroke and was going to require a brain scan.T hirdly, Ian ‘Rambo’ Jones came across a German girl having convulsions. A Japanese TV crew were just filming her while doing nothing to help her. Ian launched his distress flare and jogged a kilometre to wave down Doc Trotters who rushed up and dealt with her. Adrian, a large guy from a neighbouring tent whom I saw everyday, had watched someone else attempt to launch a distress flare and it just bounced across the ground. He launched his into the air. Both Ian and Adrian were reissued distress flares without time penalties.

Keith had barely made Checkpoint 3 by the cut off time and when he arrived, he fell to his knees and threw up. Completely dehydrated, the doctors had shoved 8 IVs into his arms. He lost a lot of time here, but set off for the finish. He was pulled out of the race with 90 minutes to go being told that he would never make the cut off time. Keith decided to stay on with the event and become the “tent bitch” – getting the tent sorted for the rest of the team, helping them with injuries and all round gopher. It was a nice gesture.

A veteran of 17 Marathon Des Sables events quit during today’s stage. The British competitor who had cycled and canoed and had finished the 2005 event also dropped out today. So did Jack Osbourne’s team. Competitors who had completed the event in 2004 and 2005 were coming up and saying the course this year was unbelievable and made the others look like a doddle. It’s difficult to know if this was true.

Many competitors were despondent. Everyone was asking for more water and representatives from many tents visited the officials to request additional bottles. The doctors themselves were arguing with the organisers telling them to issue more water. Finally, a truck arrived with new supplies and everyone felt better for the extra bottle.

One bonus was that the emails from friends and family had started to come through. They would be printed out and distributed to the tents. The messages really made everyone feel much better and motivated to finish. Simon had not received any yet which he thought strange. I joked that his wife had emailed me instead and sent her love to him. Eventually he discovered that his emails had been sent to the wrong tent. My Scottish auntie tried to send me a couple of messages but got confused and sent them to competitor No 1. Lahcen Ahansal was probably sat in his tent thinking “who the hell is Bob Jack?”

Word spread around the camp after an email stated that Patrick Bauer had written this on the www.darbaroud.com website: “At the end of the first three days the competitors are exhausted. There’s a record number of retirements : 122 for the first three days [less than 50 for the whole course last year]. It’s due to a combination of high temperatures, strong winds and unusually high hygrometry levels (20% compared to the usual 6%). I also think the competitors are less well prepared this year compared to last”.

This last comment left many people fuming. Everyone felt that they were prepared as they could be. It was the lack of water that was causing the problems.

Wednesday April 12th – Stage 4 – Long Day

“Groundhog Day”….”Today, I will mostly be wearing…sand” (Fast Show). After yesterday’s stage, my shoulders had been very sore and I knew that I needed to get my backpack weight down. It was the long stage today and it would be dominated by sand dunes. I dumped over half my food (I had started with 6kg of food) – I wasn’t eating as much as I thought I would and if I didn’t get through today, I wouldn’t need any of it anyway. My pack felt a lot lighter but I carried an extra bottle of water in my front pack for emergencies. There was no way I was going to run out of water again.

I had another problem, my lycra shorts had congealed sand inside them and despite the Vaseline liberally distributed around my groin area, I had growing sores in delicate parts from sandy friction. I wore my shorts inside out today but the dust got in again. For the last two stages, I had to wear my spare shorts, because my lycra shorts could stand up on their own and my groin was in danger of unfeasibly large boils.

We had been told that on doctor’s orders, the long stage had been reduced from 54 miles to 35 miles. I think they were seriously worried that someone might actually die after yesterday’s conditions. The route would take us from Maharch to Jebel El Mraier. Originally, we were supposed to head north, cross over some mountains and then follow a valley south across some dunes. The new route cut across the valley, directly east through a pass at Tizin Guidou and then joining the route going south. A new temporary checkpoint was established at 10km.

With the noise of competitors, I didn’t really understand the instructions. As far as I understood it, we had to reach Checkpoint 6 by 16 hours (2am) and that we had 30 hours to complete the stage. Because the route changed, I don’t have any details on the first part. Patrick Bauer announced that from now on, every checkpoint would offer two bottles of water if it was needed. This brought a loud cheer or should that be jeer especially after his website posting.

Today, we set off an hour later at 10am to try and spend less time in the heat. The 50 top elite runners and 5 fastest women would leave at midday. As before, I set off with the Irish lads and we made good time across the flat stony ground where there lots of bushes. I don’t remember when I reached the temporary Checkpoint 1 but it was around 2 hours and I didn’t stop, other than to pick up water. It was 40'c. I had adopted the new method of taking regular sips of water and swilling it around my mouth. I never felt thirsty and always had plenty of water. I was also sucking my salt tablets for hours on end.

After Checkpoint 1 at 9km, Paul and Dave pulled away. I kept to my normal pace with my Oasis soundtrack. Around 1pm, Lahcen Ahansal came past. He was really flying. It had taken him one hour to cover my three. A few minutes behind, his new Jordanian competition came past. Over the next hour, all the other elite runners came past as we climbed endless sand dunes. Another sandstorm erupted and I had to keep my head down into the wind.

Checkpoint 2 (10km further on?) lay in the sand dunes on uneven packed ground near the Ba Hallou ruins. I seem to remember making quick sewing repairs to my gaiters which had ripped again, but I was out of there as soon as possible. I was aware that this course could literally throw up anything, so it was better to make as much time early on as possible in case I slowed later.

The route had been adapted to cut off a little more, so rather than heading south, we cut southeast down off the sand dunes to a vast cracked flat salt plain called Iferd Nou Haduar. We skirted around its edge. It was an awesome sight – a vast mud flat with no landmarks whatsoever to let you know how far you had walked. In the distance, I could see a few dots. These were competitors in front of me. The wind whipped across the barren landscape.

Then we re-entered the sand dunes for another 7km. This time, the wind was behind us, which made a change and it felt as if I was flying along. Again, there were no landmarks and I remember Adrian catching me. “Where’s the checkpoint?” I asked. He looked at his Road book. “You see that small mountain in the distance as far as you can see? It’s around there somewhere. God knows how far that is. It could be two hours away.”

When I eventually reached that mountain, it was a lot bigger than I had expected but we didn’t have to climb it. Checkpoint 3 was even further on than expected. The organisers always liked to hide them until they appeared at the last moment. It always seemed a mental challenge to remain optimistic that you would get there before your water ran out. I arrived at Checkpoint 3 (29 km) at 4.30pm. I was pleased to have passed half way in six and a half hours. It seemed strange to think that I still had nine and a half hours before the cut off time. I was already feeling very optimistic and my pack and shoulders still felt fine.

The dunes continued but they were not steep, just undulating. We had a sandy climb heading towards jebel Foum Al Opaht then up to the summit after a 150m sharp climb (nearly 25%). There was a tricky descent over 50 metres and then onto uneven footpath through a dry river bed. The climb down continued into a stony valley. These stones really started to cut into my feet and I could feel my first blisters starting to appear.

Checkpoint 4 lay at the foot of a rocky peak. I arrived at 6.15pm (38km?) to find a lot of people resting up in what seemed balmy 39'c temperatures. Ian ‘Rambo’ Jones was completely dehydrated and had been there for 90 minutes. Simon and Ian Baldwin had also taken a long rest here. Rory with the Union Jack arrived just before me. “You are really flying today” he said. I swallowed a pepperoni and some Skittles and refilled my water bottles. I was also given a nightlight to wear – to illuminate me in the dark.

The sun was setting and the surrounding landscapes of mountains looked spectacular. I wanted to get out of the dunes before darkness fell, though a full moon was already rising. “I’m outta here” I told Simon “You’ll catch me”. I felt very good at this point. A Dutchman passed and said “Only 2 more kilometres of dunes”. But we had to climb up and descend steep dunes and I was up to my knees in sand. My feet were sliding around my shoes and I could feel the blisters on my toes. There were pink night sticks every 500m indicating the route.

My problems were compounded by the undulating stony ground that appeared and my feet felt as if they were walking on glass. Simon and Ian came past in the dark “Anyone seen a fat bastard in the dark around here?” I held my head torch in my hand, but had to keep the switch pressed on all the time. I was conscious of my double jointed ankles. If I tripped over a rock or stood on an uneven bit, my ankle tended to just give way and I might sprain it.

A huge green laser beam appeared on the horizon. It dominated the black night sky. The full moon and cloudless sky meant that visibility was pretty good. I thought the beam was indicating the finish, but it was actually Checkpoint 5. I followed a sandy footpath and walked with a Frenchman. We were walking as quickly as possible, gritting our teeth, not talking and just getting some more kilometres behind us. A young Englishman, Sam and his two mates came up singing karaoke songs in the dark. “Any requests?” Sam asked “Yeah, F*** off” I replied as they laughed. They would speed on and then I’d catch them when they sat down to rest. “You never stop do you Bob?” he said. “I’m like a Duracell bunny. I keep on going…very slowly”.

It is quite disconcerting to walk in the dark. You have no idea of how far you have walked. The laser seemed to get closer but one of the problems was following the track. I kept veering off and it would split into different pathways caused by four wheel drives. In the end, I could see some competitors’ night lights ahead and decided to cut across land towards the laser which was near a collection of lights and turned out to be Checkpoint 5.

I arrived sometime after 9pm. A few competitors were eating and resting. I refilled my water bottles and was out of there in 5 minutes. I wanted to get to Checkpoint 6 before that 2am cut off. The undulating terrain continued and the stones were replaced by sand. I followed a sandy river bed. I was walking in the middle of the Sahara Desert on my own at night with a full moon above me and a carpet of stars. There was no one else around or so I thought. As I passed small sand dunes, I could hear voices and noticed that local boys were sat in groups on top of them in the dark. “Salaam aleikum" (Peace to you) I said. This had been my traditional greeting to all the locals all week. “Aleikum Salaam” they always replied, surprised to hear Arabic rather than French. “Chockran” (Thank you) I’d reply.

I pushed on through the sand with trees and fields on my right and wadi-type vegetation. I could see a couple of jeeps flashing their lights to indicate the route. There were more small hills with sandy areas in-between and occasional small dunes. Then more stony ground. Checkpoint 6 was tiny. Just a jeep and tent. I arrived at midnight “You are doing very well” said a volunteer. “There are only 4 kilometres to the finish”. Eh?

So I kept going, determined to get back. My feet were very painful but I was so close. More stony ground ripped my toes and the balls of my feet. There were two final kilometres of sand dunes to cross. I clambered up and down them in the dark but they were hard work. I could see the finish arch which was lit up at night in red. I could also hear some French voices behind me catching me. I decided to break into a jog for the finish. I could hear a Frenchman saying “don’t worry, we’ll catch him” but I pushed on. I had walked over 34 miles and I was going to keep my position. I could hear the Frenchman catching but I put on a final spurt over the stony finish. I was surprised to see Keith and Adrian waiting at the finish line. It was 1am. They were waiting for Graham and Katie from their tent. I had seen Katie accompanying a damaged Ian Jones at Checkpoint 4.

It was only later that I discovered that the cut off time had been for Checkpoint 5 where the laser was. I had walked an extra 9km to the next checkpoint. But my strategy paid off. It meant that I had got the entire long day over in one day. It had taken 14 hours 52 mins (only 10 hours behind the Jordanian who won the stage). It was my best stage of the week finishing in 417th position. I had averaged 3.83km an hour and I estimated that I had only spent about 35 minutes at checkpoints all day.

Many competitors behind me decided that when they reached the laser at Checkpoint 5 to spend the night there. People were coming in all night and all the next morning. One woman came in after 23 hours. The fact that I had got back in one go meant that I caught or built up a lot of time on others which I would not lose very much in the last two days. Overall I was around 490th position which I was very happy with. My major problem was that my feet were now a mess.

Thursday April 13th – Rest Day

We all had a lie in the next morning because we knew the Berber crew would not be pulling the tents down. I could barely walk and it took an age to hobble out through the “minefield” to the sand dunes for a crap which I had to do on my hands and knees, unable to squat. I had gone from the best feet in the tent to the worst.

Doc Trotters had lines of people waiting to be seen. Instead, I waited outside the email tent for it to open at 10am and was first on. I was able to send an email to say that I had completed the hardest day but that my feet were suffering. From the emails messages I received, friends were logging onto the official site and getting quite excited at following my progress and seeing the photos and mini videos of the event.

Lori, my girlfriend had panicked when I had sent no emails and had been reduced to logging on to the official website to try and find if I had survived. As one of the slower competitors, my result usually appeared around 1am GMT. So there would be this mad panic and phone calls between her and my father who was adamant that I would crawl over broken glass to finish and Lori who was less optimistic. Once the result came through, she would forward it on to all interested parties with any comments from Patrick Bauer on the official website. I think the emails started with “He’s alive”.

We lay around the tent in the shade while the sun roasted the campsite. Snacking, sleeping and passing round Dave’s book ‘Jarhead’. He had dragged this with him all the way so far and had read about 2 pages! By the end of the day, he had reached page 8. There were flies everywhere which would land on any blisters or cuts. “Where the hell did they all come from?” someone asked. “They know we are not moving today and have invited all their mates”. It was not exactly a hygienic environment.

One of the balls of my feet was oozing pus all day and late in the afternoon, I finally relented and went to see Doc Trotters. They looked exhausted having been dealing with runners all day. A French nurse took one look at my right foot and started slicing it open, then injected some red iodine into it which really stung and then bandaged it up. Fortunately she left my other blisters alone. I hobbled out of the tent, not sure if it had done any good. Like me, by now, many people were hobbling around slowly with large red iodine patches on feet, shoulders or back. Most of the time, I just lay on my sleeping bag and moaned a lot that day. “Serves you right for taking the piss out of our feet for the first three days” Simon concluded as he broke wind again.

That evening, the sponsors, New Balance wanted us to replace our race numbers because there would be extensive TV coverage of tomorrow’s stage. The bribe to do so was a can of warm Coca Cola. I took the Coke and kept the new number as a souvenir. Imagine my surprise the next day at Checkpoint 1 when a volunteer looked at my well worn number and said “Where is your new number?” “This is my new number” I lied.

Friday April 14th – Stage 5 – Marathon Day

“Groundhog Day!” “Today, I will mostly be wearing ripped gaiters”…With the hardest day over and an abundance of water, morale in the camp was very high. Only a handful of people had dropped out on Day 4 and the consensus was that the worst was over. Today, we only had to complete 26 miles which seemed very short to the previous 35. It would also be a relief to leave the campsite at Jebel el Mraier with the flies and endless piles of human shit all around the campsite. So much for not leaving any trace of our presence.

Other tents were now dumping food and other goodies so it was a chance to pick up some decent energy bars and something different from noodles. My pack now felt very light, though I always made sure I had that extra bottle of water on my front pack. My feet were covered in plasters and bandages and Stuart had given me a codeine pill as a pain killer. This was becoming a war of attrition on the body. For the first time, I could no longer get my toe socks on and had to just wear my other socks, which meant less cushioning.

At the start Patrick Bauer reported that the coma case in France had recovered and that the Finnish girl could walk again. An AC/DC song was loudly pumped out of the loudspeakers and we were off at 9am. We had 12 hours to complete it with a 9 hour cut off at Checkpoint 3. We were going from Jebel El Mraier to Kourci Dial Zaid somewhere in the desert .

Everyone seemed to take off running. It was like Day 1 again. I started walking over the first set of sand dunes but realised that the temperature was much lower today – about 28’C and that it was actually possible to jog comfortably. So I started jogging over the stony ground, past a rocky peak on my right, across another stony plateau with occasional hills. Then we had to traverse a large crevice in the dried river bed, across a dried out lake, back into hilly and stony ground. All this was just over the first 10.5 km to Checkpoint 1. I jogged all the way there and arrived in 1 hour 50 mins. Stuart was having a rest. He was surprised to see me as I yelled “Oi…Womble!” Usually, he was always far ahead of me. I was surprised to see Patrick Bauer handing out water here, going for the sympathy vote after his website comments.

After the first checkpoint, I was walking and back into my Oasis mindset. The biggest problem was that the majority of today’s surfaces were hard stony rocks. Miles and miles of them. It looked as if the course had been deliberately designed to destroy the feet of anyone who already had damaged feet. It was so painful to cross. So between Checkpoint 1 and 2, we followed a wadi between some hills, through a valley with gravel type stones, another undulating stony plateaux, another wadi, another stony plateaux, packed ground and then sand. It was all very flat with few landmarks to let you know any distances. Stuart had passed me as had the Japanese model whom I had spoken to most days in my terrible Japanese. Both were resting at Checkpoint 2 and I kept going. “Has anyone seen a fat bastard doing a marathon around here?” It was Simon. He had caught me up after my fast start.

Right after Checkpoint 2 at 22.5km, there were a long series of sand dunes that appeared out of nowhere. The road book called them “small dunes” but they were some of the toughest, tallest and most endless all week and they went on for 9km. Imagine doing a marathon and at half way you have to cross 6 miles of sand dunes. There was always an element of surprise in this event and if you didn’t build in some reserve time, terrain like this could ruin your cut off time.

I followed Simon and the Japanese model into the dunes. It was a real slog in knee deep sand and my feet slid around my shoes ripping my bandages apart and stretching my skin. My gaiters were holding up well, but the friction in my shoes was really painful. It was difficult to find a way through and we would climb up to the top of a sand dune to see someone in the distance – but the dunes never seemed to end. There was always another in the distance. Simon and the Japanese girl pulled away, as Japanese cameramen sprinted over the dunes to watch her slog up and down obviously on automatic pilot. Stuart also caught and passed me. I was really suffering. It was just more pain on top of all those stony surfaces.

Eventually, I saw Stuart in the distance on top of a dune, waving his walking stick in the air. He was indicating that Checkpoint 3 was in site at 31km. What a relief. Seven hours had passed but I was two hours ahead of the cut off time. Now I knew I’d get through today even if the codeine painkiller had worn off.

But of course, once the dunes were finished just after the checkpoint, there were another 8km of “slightly stony plateau” and a “plateaux with fine black stones” and a sandy pass. I wonder what the French definition of “slightly” is? My feet were mush by the end of it.

At 39.5 km, I crawled into Checkpoint 4 at around 9 hours. It was just a compulsory checkpoint and no water was handed out because there were only 3km to the finish. I had budgeted my water accordingly and had loads left. The lower temperatures meant I was drinking less as well – except over the dunes which left my mouth parched and I had to continually take in sips.

It felt good to know that the worst was over and it was just a matter of walking alongside a mountain and through a pass to the finish. It was almost dark when I finished in 9 hours 56 min, two hours ahead of the cut off time. My position today was 545 but overall I had only dropped only 3 places to 493. I had averaged 4.24 kilometres an hour. No one had apparently dropped out today.

Back at the tent, I was amazed to hear that the Irish lads had finished their first marathon in 6 hours (with backpacks). Unbelievable. Dave and Paul told us how they had witnessed a comical sight on the sand dunes. Someone had stopped to take a crap and the helicopter was buzzing over getting footage of the runners. As it came down lower to get close up shots, the pilot did not see the crapping runner who was directly underneath and who was signalling frantically with his torch to indicate his presence. The helicopter descended right over him and the rotar blades blew him down the dunes with his shorts around his ankles. Now that’s what you call a Kodak moment.

My feet were a disaster and fumbling around in the dark, I just left the dressings on and would worry about them tomorrow. Everybody in the tent was very happy to have survived. Emails arrived from both Alans congratulating us on sticking it out and getting so far. Which was nice.

That evening there was a classical concert. It seemed a bit bizarre that a French orchestra had been flown in along with an Egyptian conductor. A small stage with a giant video screen had been set up about 50m from our tent. As the classical music started, we lay in our tents and listened. I was just too tired with painful feet to bother going out. I was in two minds about this event. While it gave the local Moroccan dignitaries an excuse to visit the camp, I felt that it would have been better if a Moroccan band had been asked to play. It seemed rather irrelevant to listen to Strauss and Mozart in the middle of the desert and so very French in attitude. Having some tribal desert music would have been a lot more entertaining. I would have got out of the tent for that.

Saturday April 15th – Stage 6 – Last Day

“Groundhog day!” “Today I will be mostly wearing…medals”. The Berber tent crews did not have to break camp today because the tents were going nowhere except back to wherever they had come from. Competitors were dumping all their spare food, clothes, damaged gear, thermarests etc. The Berber crews were going around and gathering up as much gear as they could carry. A neighbour gave me a pair of walking sticks which I tied to my pack. I was desperate for dressings and wrapped my feet in whatever I could find.

We packed up and had breakfast for the final time and had a Tent 96 photo. We were very grubby after nine days in the desert and our clothes were filthy but we were still smiling and throwing humorous insults around.. I had a week old beard that was white (so I discovered later). I was told that I looked like George Best after a bad night out.

The French volunteers, doctors and nurses boarded the jeeps and made a honking farewell procession around the campsite with everyone cheering. There was also a party atmosphere at the start. Patrick Bauer congratulated everyone for completing the event. There was only a 12km stage to go from Kourci Dial Zaid to the town of Merzouga but it involved crossing some of the highest dunes in the Sahara Desert. The AC/DC song pumped out again and everyone was jumping up and down. And then we were off.

Like greyhounds out of the trap, most competitors sprinted off across the rocky terrain. I jogged steadily along any sandy path I could find in between the rocks. It was undulating but generally flat. The sun was high in the sky again. I knew we must be getting near civilization because a group of tourists being led around on camels had stopped to watch us all run past. Around 6km, we passed the ruins of a small village of Merdani. Locals were still living in the ruins which included an old fortress. Then we crossed the Honklafhin wadi across more stony ground and approached the huge sand dunes ahead.

The Erg Merzouga were gigantic, bright orange mountains of sand. They were relatively solid underfoot and I could continue to jog slowly around the peaks and in and out of the depressions, following a couple of Germans who preened themselves for action photos on the dunes. It was a great feeling to be on the dunes thinking “Hey I’m running across sand dunes in the Sahara Desert” and they were much easier than yesterday’s monsters. I had passed Stuart en route but not seen anyone else from our tent. The dunes lasted four kilometres and I was actually passing people.

The finish was a tall water tower which was visible from the dunes. I heard a voice behind me “Anyone seen a fat bastard lost in the dunes around here?” Simon’s feet had also taken a bashing and he had taken it easy today. With the finish in site, we decided to cross the line together “well, it would be rude not too”. All those months of communicating via email, all the ideas and tips and equipment comparisons and then those first three days of hell on the actual event. We had come through it all and now it was all about to end. It was a strange feeling.

The finish line was only a few metres after the dunes stopped. We crossed in 2 hours 4 mins and shook hands. Patrick Bauer then grabbed me and gave me a kiss on both cheeks and we were given our medals and a goody bag of food. I had averaged 5.71km on that final stage, my fastest of the week. Overall, I finished in 493rd position with a total time of 51 hours 14 mins, a mere 34 hours behind the winner – Lahcen Ahansal again – not that he ever came back to help me with my backpack. Simon had done really well finishing in 417th position in 46 hours. Noone was bothered about a position. We had come for a finish and achieved it.

Competitors lay around waiting for tent mates to finish and a Moroccan band was playing. We found Ian Baldwin who had arrived before us and watched Stuart come in. Graham and Keith were smoking cigars. There was a magnificent sight on the dunes; a camel train of 10 camels were being led in a line over the sand.

We had been given bus tickets for the return journey back to Quarzazate and our bus was supposedly leaving at 12.10. We departed at 12.30 and then discovered we had a 350km journey back which would take about 7 hours. Just what we needed. I think this was the worst part of the week. Crawling back over all the hills we had first crossed, having to stop to let people pee when all we wanted to do was to get back to the hotel as soon as possible, get the dressings off our feet and inspect the damage, have a shower and just leave the desert behind us. I got cramp on the bus and the need for a toilet became slightly more serious!

When we finally arrived just before dusk, we were dropped up the road from the Berber Palace Hotel where we collected our dusty suitcases and then had to walk half a mile to the hotel. I could barely walk. The English checked back into this hotel and I never saw any of the foreign competitors again. Simon went ahead and checked us in and I checked straight into the toilet! My first shower left a layer of sand on the bottom. It took two razors to shave the beard and my running clothes should have been burnt. The dressings on my feet were so embedded, I had to cut them off with scissors. Other than eating and grabbing a couple of beers, we were too tired to do much celebrating if it involved walking. BBC world TV reported that absolutely nothing had occurred during our absence from the world.

Rob, the ‘Best of Morocco’ liaison man, stood on a chair to praise all the English competitors who had finished, only to be drowned out with cries of “I have no information about that!”

Sunday April 16th/Monday April 17th

We spent the next morning feeding ourselves on a decent breakfast, and then went to the organizers hotel to hand in our distress flares which were replaced with ‘Finisher T-shirts’. Then it was down to the local supermarket to buy an obscene amount of beer and back to the hotel to laze around a square in the sun drinking, chatting and reviewing the week with my tent mates. The state of our feet meant that all competitors were banned from using the swimming pools. We could have gone to the afternoon presentation of the awards, but I couldn’t be bothered to stand on my feet unless it was to replace an empty beer can and noone wanted to face any long winded speeches in French. After the evening meal, the celebrations went on well after midnight. I suppose we were all feeling very smug. After a bottle of rum, Kiwi Keith even did a Haku dance in the bar, vowing to return in 2008 to complete the event which was, as far as he was concerned “unfinished business”. He maintained that he was pulled from Stage 3 against his will and felt that the competition was easier from Day 4. Maybe so, but those cut off times are put in for a reason.

We were up at 5am on Monday and in the buses by 6am ready for the short ride to the airport. The plane left at 8.30 and we were back in the UK 4 hours later. The desert seemed a lifetime away. Returning to electricity, fresh running water and clean sheets, I had nothing but admiration for the local people who live in the desert all the time. Their wells must be their only survival tool. It was obvious on the course that we were running over areas which had previously contained fertile crops but were now lying underneath the sand of the ever increasing Saharan Desert.

It was a once in a lifetime challenge that I achieved. It took both mental and physical exertion to complete and even when I had finished, I don’t think it had sunk in what I had done. It was like living in an ever moving circus of pain for a week in the middle of a desert. What I do know is that for the following week, I was a zombie at work with no real energy or enthusiasm. I felt drained and once the adrenalin of finishing had worn off, my body still had to repair itself. Amazingly I only lost 5kg in weight though the hotel food may have replaced some of it. A week later, I could walk better but the skin was falling off my feet and toes. Four toes lost most of the skin off them, both balls of my feet were sliced up and one heel had a nice blister. Would I do it again? No. I don’t think I have anything to prove.

I will leave the last word to the official conclusion of this year’s event:

MDS lives up to its reputation : the most difficult race in the world During the press conference with journalists from all over the world and the champion of this edition, Lahcen Ahansal, Director Patrick Bauer looked back on this great but very difficult edition. With 731 at the start, from 32 countries, 585 finished the race i.e. 146 pulled out. Bauer explained that this unusually high level was due largely to extreme weather conditions as from day one: high temperatures (up to 42°C), sandstorms and very high hygrometry levels (up to 35%). « Nature took over. You realise how small you are compared to the elements. In these conditions what counts is having good mental and physical preparation. We saw that some competitors weren’t as well prepared as other years. The majority however did manage their course well and I take my hat off to them.”

According to the director of the Doc Trotter medical team, a record number of IVs were administered (62). The high hygrometry level was the most unexpected aspect of the race from a medical point of view (more than 20% higher than usual): “regulating the hydration level in your body – whether voluntary or involuntary- is more difficult when the hygrometry level is high. You therefore have to adapt your water intake accordingly – take in small amounts more regularly and more salt – 5g per day. That’s when experience really comes into play… Running is a skill."

For another interesting and rather more painful account of the race check out this site Donald Sandeman's Account