Marathon Des Sables Diary, Stage 2 and 3

Stage 2 (38km)

Lovely morning for a run

Wake up is at 6 again. I had my eyes closed anyway, but the gloomy light tells me what i guessed, that a big sandstorm is ripping through us and me and all my kit is covered in sand. Dammit. It makes for a miserable breakfast and and we cant get a fire lit to make a hot one, so a sickness inducing cold freeze dried food has to do. The start is as before, except with the sand still blowing all around. ‘Highway to Hell’ seems more apt than ever as the run begins. 

The day however was on paper, at least, lot easier than yesterday, with 38km of relatively mixed sand, smaller dunes, rocks, and stones, but no big hills. I paced with a fellow Scot for the first 2 stages, overtaking quite a few people, until i got a bad cramp in my left calf. My muscles had run out of fuel, so probably i’d been overdoing it (and had to bear in mind my stomach issue would drain all the good stuff out of me)  I had to limp the 5km to the next checkpoint and got some electrolytes from the medic, and the cramp largely went away, so i take the rest of the day steadily and eat into the one packet of nuts i had been given by my (experienced veteran) tentmate after he looks at my meagre food supply and laughed heartily, the bastard. 

Anyway, that night I eat my shit and get a good sleep compared to the night before and feel fresh when i wake. 

Better to run the right direction though

Stage 3  (38km)

The breakfast again didn’t go down too well, but I force half of it down at least. My perfect desert Ultramarathon friend, Diarhea was still hanging with me. Today 3 was another 38km, just shy of a marathon, and a day full of the most difficult terrain you could put out there, combining dunes with steep hills, then dunes again, just in case your legs were feeling in any way fresh or you feet felt they hadn’t been beaten to a pulp enough. It was also the day before the looming 82km so it was a day to take a gentle pace and prepare for the big day ahead. I'm now realising how important nutrition is to this race – protein, salt, sugar, electrolytes, calories, carbs..i must admit, being a fish and chip eating slacker hadn’t done me a bit of good here and my nutritional knowledge is still pitifully low. The minimum required for the race was 2000Kcal a day, but i only have 1600 plus a few random (but tasty) snacks donated by other more experience runners feeling sorry for me (thanks Maichael, your snoring is forgiven). That coupled with the ongoing diarhea is eating into me and causeing a real fatigue to set in. I suppose my dwindling body fat is being used for the most part but im already thin as a mountain goat (and smellier) Fortunately i still have a little in me to burn off before it starts eating into me properly.

Late in the day i meet a girl who’d just taken 8 anadin and was high as a kite, to ease the pain, so I helped her through to the next checkpoint. Her freinds consider that she should keep taking them because otherwise she doesnt stop talking. But to be honest a chatterbox is exactly what you need in this race, to keep the boredom from setting in. Either that or a nice female bottom to follow (note to self - marry a chatty girl with a nice bottom)

I’d begun to get a few blisters here, so after the race day i pretend im some kind of Rambo and burn a knife and slice them, and pour iodine in to clean them out. It was pretty sore. There were beginning to be a number of injuries and dropouts as the first 3 days takes its toll.

I think everyone in the race gets a nervous sleep the night before day 4 (we go to sleep at 7.30-8pm here and wake at 6.)

I dreampt that all the healthy racers had decided to eat the injured ones and that i woke up to all these guys tucking into the raw human meat. I think it was connected to the fact that i was myself absolutely starving, but with no alternative but to force down inedible gunge. I took ‘expedition food’ much to the amusement of my Austrian tent mates ‘hehe the Englander has typical British food yah’ they would quip as i grimaced trying to actually eat it. The breakfast looks, smells and tasted like vomit, while the dinner looks smells and tastes like shit. I decide make ‘chicken korma’ with the crazy idea that there may be some chicken or korma resemblance in it. Again i couldn’t force half of it down before retching, and then the next morning i noticed my shit looked identical. So theres the proof. 

The ‘toilets’ consist of 8 brown bgs you are given at the start, to do your stuff in and put into special bins. But the organisers did make little shelters to at least do it behind, although the wind often still made a mockery of that. Hygene is a big issue here and i’ve been obsessively cleaning my hands with this foul smelling cleaning gel i bought, as i’m desperate for my diahrea to go away – it’s been sapping my energy and i’m concerned that considering im already undernourished then my body could have some issues here on the long day.

I wish i could say that im successfully blagging this race but im learning that hard way that you just can’t cut corners in the desert  (unless you dope yourself up with pain killers of course..)

ps my camera broke in the sandstorm so ill wait on some photos from freinds to add here

Marathon Des Sables Diary, Stage 1

So im finally back in the cold again, after blundering through the Marathon Des Sables, leaving hundreds of offended people (mostly French so they dont count) in my wake. I wrote a little diary of my escapades anyway, so what follows is the beginning...

Day 1 - 33km  

Everyone looking clean and fresh on Stage 1

Ok so, a fine start, I have a one hour penalty for not bringing a medical cert. with me, which is fair enough. We received the maps and distances for each day the night before so i was able to see that instead of (as is usual) making day 1 a gentle ‘breaking in’ day, it was now one of the most difficult days, with 13km of large sand dunes. We were woken at a freezing 6am (thanks God for Marmot Sleeping bags) by our bivouacs being taken down over us, and after my first homemade breakfast (nasty Porridge) made our way to the start line. The starting gun went off to the apt tune of AC/DC’s ‘Highway to Hell’ which was repeated every morning.

So Off we went, lambs to the slaughter, into the desert. The first 11km was pretty straightforward, mostly flat along a barren stony plateau. I was keeping up good speed, following one Spanish girl with a lovely bottom, daydreaming my marathon away, when my stomach starts rumbling and I have diahrrea. What kind of a 'worst possible case' start is that? Fortunately there was a tiny hill up ahead and i sprint behind it to let go of bowels, but this didn’t feel good and it sapped my energy for the day and i fell back a fair bit. At the checkpoint they gave me some pills for it which blocked me up for 24 hours at least. The sand dunes were enormous, and were as tough a  terrain as you could move on. Fortunately it was only 35 degrees today and though it was nigh on impossible to run them, the 13km trudge up and down fairly drained most of the runners. The big concern for the first day is to take it easy, not get injured, not overdo it, and get the hang of manageing the nutrition and water correctly, which will be key for the rest of the race. So bearing in mind my earlier diahrea, I guiltily walked the last 7km (which i should have really ran, lazy bugger) and got home feeling quite ok to be honest.

I could think of better places to get Diarhea

Dinner was more freeze dried food, which tasted of shit, but I had to force down as i don’t have another option. Fortunately I also had some beef jerky which is full of protein and helps my muscle recharge a bit ready for the next day. However, all being equal, I feel good so far (apart from the diarea and the awful food) and have no blisters yet. Since im bored after 5 minutes checking how lovely the stars are there is nothing much to do after dark in a desert full of blokes, I fall asleep at 8pm, not caring about the Austrian snoring loudly next to me.