37.1Km, 11H00 CUT OFF
Analysis of Stage One made for uncomfortable reading and yet the fallout from the enormous dunes of Stage Two cast an even darker shadow. Forlorn hopes for a drop in temperature hadn’t materialised. The legion of participants succumbing to the brutal conditions was as unprecedented as it was sobering.
Grain by grain, the relentless sands of Erg Chebbi claimed another 90 participants. ‘Dunes Day’ has the second highest fallout of the entire race, with 13% of the 672 original starters withdrawing.
- 4 participants had withdrawn on leaving B1 (bivouac one)
- 29 withdrawals after arrival at B2, including our 3rd tent mate
- 19 withdrawals at 2CP1 (Stage Two, checkpoint one)
- 38 withdrawals at 2CP2.
There will be more.
Early the previous evening, Craig had returned from Doc Trotters still feeling horrendous. Within a matter of minutes he vomited again several times in succession, gripped by a gruesome combination of heat and we presumed, some sort of bug which appeared to be ravaging the bivouac. Rich had a particularly rough night too with severe diarrhoea. Everyone has been popping Imodium or anti-sickness medication. Phil had also been unwell.
This is only Stage Three. We have yet to reach the half way point and the dreaded ‘Long Stage’ is still ahead of us. Three of our tent of eight are out. The rest of us are clinging on.
Eat. You must eat Gower. Anything!
I nibble on a Cliff Bar, washing it down with luke warm water. Grains of sand crunch between my teeth, another sound of the Sahara. The bar contains 270 calories. I am burning at least 2000 on each of the first three liaison stages, probably 3000. I pour extra water into my Expedition Foods ‘Porridge with Strawberries’ so it resembles a smoothie. Somehow I force it down, gagging with every other mouthful. Another 800 calories. Yesterday’s dinner was limited to a protein shake. Dried mango, a handful of macadamia nuts, Twiglets and some Cliff Shot Bloks will need to see me through the next 37km to B3. That and cannibalising the scraps of fat left on my body.
Thankfully I am still consuming plenty of water, another litre and a half during the night. Going for a wee became something we celebrated – except I hadn’t wee’d for ages. Every part of my body was absorbing water as quickly as I could guzzle it down.
The Berbers dismantle our tent, exposing us to the already searing sun. Craig hasn’t made it to Stage Three and Rich is putting in a Herculean effort to get to the start line. We huddle to the side of a truck, clinging to shade until the last second. Our little home is packed up and ready to leapfrog ahead to B4.
The mood on the start line was altogether despondent. Dejected. Solemn. The excitement of Stage One is a distant memory. Yesterday, Stage Two was somewhat deflated but still had grit and resilience.
The night had been horrific. No one had much sleep, if any at all.
A one minute silence rapidly focuses everyone.
À NOTRE FRÈRE DES SABLES.
One of the remaining 550 or so participants is a Grammy Award winning composer and the traditional AC/DC anthem is replaced with one of his beautiful compositions. Highway to Hell would hardly have been a sensitive way to start the stage.
Tent mates of our fallen Sand Brother walk out the first hundred meters, everyone including the elite runners follow solemnly behind. It is a fitting way to begin.
Once again, there is one additional bottle of water at the checkpoints. Psychologically, I somehow feel if I can get through today and start the fabled long stage, I will somehow, somewhere find the energy, resilience, determination, endurance and grit to finish this monster.
I repeat yesterday’s game plan, starting out at a fast walking pace. Today’s stage is longer with 37km of inhospitable terrain to cover, including more big dunes. At least three or four kilometres off Erg Znaïgui, several sandy valleys, white hot and stony plateaus and wadi’s with uneven beaten earth.
Optimistically, I calculate the possibility of finishing within seven hours. Less dunes than yesterday. Five kilometres longer. Cumulative effects of heat and direct sun. Missing calories. Stomach cramps. I carry on like this trying to find more positives. Lighter pack. More acclimatised by now. I’ll be half way after this stage [actually in distance that isn’t until well into the long stage, but I pretend to myself it is].
I ease into a strong cadence, sipping from the extra water bottle I’m carrying, popping salt tablets repeatedly. I perfect a technique to cool my face – pouring water onto the buff wrapped round my wrist and stretching it over my hand; the water rapidly evaporates from the buff, drawing heat away and cooling it (at least that’s what I think is happening). I dab the chilled buff over my face, wiping grains of sand out of my eyes and cooling my sun-kissed cheeks.
The first checkpoint is just under eleven kilometres away, but not until we have dealt with Erg Znaïgui. The dunes are as big as yesterday and I re-enact the technique I’d fine tuned. It feels like déjà vu – endless mountains of sand as far as the eye can see. I ascend a particularly high dune and pause to catch my breath. A few other runners are sitting on the same ridge.
I try to appreciate the occasion, reminding myself that very few people will experience such breathtaking views, the enormity of our surrounds and the savagery with which they can consume you. Yesterday my phone refused to play. Even though it is already hot to touch, it miraculously turns on and I rapidly shoot some panoramas and a quick video. I ask a fellow runner, Hannah Mary, if she would take my picture. She has a British flag on her bib but replies with an American accent. We swap a few words and she obliges with a cracking picture, commenting on my CRUK flag. I will see Hannah Mary many more times along the stage and on subsequent days – and am thrilled to see her at the finish.
As I cascade back down the other side of the dune, a new debate starts in my head. Do I stop and rest at one or several checkpoints or just push through? My decision changes several times as I think of more pros and cons for each option. Random thoughts are journeying through my mind. I ponder how Kev, Aaron and Craig must be feeling. The lactic starts to burn my muscles as cumulative dune ascents eat away at already weary legs. One more ridge and CP1 suddenly comes into view. It is another twenty minutes before I reach it.
Water replenished, buffs, hat, shirt, arm sleeves and shorts dowsed until dripping. Game face back on. I leave CP1 and scoff a Cliff Shot Blok, allowing it to dissolve in my rehydrated mouth, with a couple more gulps of water. The small dunes beyond CP1 continued to sap away and it was a further four or five kilometres until a wadi on the other side, followed by a long open plateau where you could get better traction and pick up the pace.
My pack had played havoc since the start, digging into my shoulders no matter how I adjusted it. I had brought along several sheets of thick latex foam, with self adhesive backing. The type rugby players used to create a block on their legs for line-out grip, I had cut it to a size that would cover right over my shoulder and down over my collarbone. I started with just one pad on each shoulder, but had now doubled up and had the thickness of two on each side. In addition I had several strips of kinesiology tape over each shoulder, to add a further layer of protection and prevent chaffing. Despite these measures and a pack that was less heavy to the tune of three days food, I could still feel it digging into my shoulders.
Intermittently I reach behind my back and hold the pack up with one hand, water bottle firmly clasped in the other. Then I switch and put a thumb under the strap at the front, releasing a bit of the weight for a few moments. I alternate until the pain subsides, then readjust the straps to fractionally shift the weight until a new spot on my shoulders starts to scream at me. Other than this, my Ultimate Direction Fastpack 20 is absolute brilliant. Light, robust, pockets where you want them, strong zips, doesn’t bounce when you run. Even after training with the pack fully weighted, I wasn’t prepared for just how much it dug into my bony shoulders. The pain was excruciating at times, not rubbing or chaffing but bruising
This was going to be a long day. I am yet to reach CP2 and had already started to recalculate my earlier estimates of a seven hour finish. The plateau and wadi’s leading to CP2 seem to drag on forever, the temperature gradually rising as the midday sun continues to cook us. I am entering another low spot. Maybe I should have rested a bit at CP1. No, then it would be even hotter now. Is that possible? Just how hot can’t it get. When I eventually review my Garmin after the race, it tells me the temperature was 41degC. In the shade. Except there is no shade. The water bottle I am carrying is now empty and I am rapidly drinking through my two chest flasks.
As CP2 comes into view, I realise I have a new issue to deal with. Thus far, both feet have held up remarkably well. In fact they have been outstanding. The time I took practicing taping toes, testing differing tapes (Hyperfix and Hapla Band), time spent decanting Benzoin Tincture into a tiny recycled hotel pillow-spray bottle, time to get the Velcro for my gaiters professionally glued and stitched on by Kevin Bradley at Alex Shoe Repairs…. all time well spent. Nevertheless I could now feel a blister. Or something equally painful under one of my right foot middle toes. I recall advice from James Cracknell, who completed the MDS in 2010 finishing first Brit and twelfth overall. Something along the lines of fixing any issues there and then, not letting them fester or get worse.
Shading from the sun in one of the tents at CP2, I carefully pull the gaiter off my right shoe, the male and female Velcro hooks ripping themselves apart. I am relieved to find only a tiny amount of sand in my shoe and doubly relieved it hadn’t penetrated my trusty Drymax sock. As I peel it off, the tension mounts. Blister or something worse? A small blister under my fourth toe. I had taped my big toe and the next two, which had always worked – including during South Downs Way 100. But this was the Sahara. Bugger. I swing across into the Doc Trotters tent opposite. Valentine, one of the medics is smiling as I lie on my back, foot up on a stool. I wonder how many trotters Valentine has treated since the start of the race. She cleans and disinfects my toes, unwraps a miniature scalpel blade from its packaging, drains the culprit and injects a squirt of iodine. I wince momentarily as the sting bites, then smile as if to say pain is good. Valentine speaks good English and asks is it OK? I reply
‘bon, c’est ça’
– an overused phrase William and I constantly say to each other at home. Good, that’s it! Valentine checks the blister is fully drained, then tapes my toe with the speed and precision of a Formula One driver through a chicane.
The short but pleasurable time stretched out on my back, shaded from the sun is a welcome relief. I appreciated the foot repair even more. Nothing is worse than knowing you have a blister while running, in the sure knowledge that it is gradually getting worse. Valentine had clearly perfected her technique on many trotters and within a few hundred metres I couldn’t feel a thing. Naughty blister became a distant memory. I refill my water flasks, gulp the rest of my first bottle and a third of the second one. The rest goes over my head and clothing as usual. I take one swig from the final bottle to wash down a couple of salt tablets and head out towards CP3. It’s only nine kilometres with no dunes or soft sand to contend with. Happy days!
I manage a few macadamia nuts and start snacking chunks of dried mango. Calories. Any calories. I allow the nuts and mango to stick in my teeth, savouring the flavours a little longer. My stomach cramps have taken a hiatus. Relief. I reach into a front pouch and pull out a pack of Shot Bloks, squeezing one out. Tropical Punch with caffeine for an extra boost. Result. Even though the blister treatment took less than five minutes, the brief rest and recovery restores some bounce back into my lead-laden pegs. The bounce is short lived.
As I pass the village of Taouz with its mud buildings, more children approach looking for anything runners are offering up. I have nothing to spare, but smile and say hello. Further along, I cross a huge dried river bed, white in colour reflecting the heat back up. It feels like I am wedged in a combination oven and grill, heated from above and simultaneously grilled from below. Fearing the soles of my shoes might start to melt, I move across it faster, constantly throwing water over myself. [This was the hottest point I recall throughout the entire event, I’d estimate north of 65˚C. I really wanted to take a picture, but when I prised my iPhone out of my pack, it was as hot as an iron and not even close to working. The below picture I grabbed from MDS social media is what it looked like.]
Wary that I would need to stay disciplined and not let a five minute rest stretch to an hour, I start to plan a strategy for the Long Stage checkpoints tomorrow. Patrick’s mischievous plan to throw in some surprises for the 35e MDS Edition means we haven’t yet seen the Long Stage map. However we know it is broadly a double marathon and, that at some point we have to summit djebel El Otfal – more on this later.
Tomorrow I will find myself resting, eating, repairing and even sleeping at several checkpoints, without once looking at my watch.
As CP3 approaches, I briefly doff my Sahara cap and pour the remaining water over my head and neck. Zup zup at the ready, over the timing mats and into the funnel where one marshal ticks off my water rations, another records my number and a third writes my number on the water bottles, caps and hands them to me.
Ça va? You OK? How you feeling? All is good?
The marshal’s are always friendly and encouraging, while equally efficient and disciplined. The many rules may seem harsh, but are executed with empathy. I notice a runner who has clearly decided to withdraw. In the Doc Trotters tent there are IV drips hanging down like decorations on a Christmas tree. A row of people are on their backs, legs up, medics tending to their Sahara battered feet.
The ONLY thing I care about right now is how far. CP3 is approximately the same distance from the start as completing the whole of Stage One or Stage Two. My legs are acutely aware of this. So are my shoulders. ‘Just over five kilometres’ replies a water marshal. ‘Short kilometres’ he adds. ‘Flat’.
Thank F*** for that,
I say out loud punching the air in celebration as if I’d actually finished. OK Gower – parkrun. Three laps of Dulwich Park. I decide to dispense with the extra water. One and a half litres will see me to the end. Enthusiasm gets the better of me and I break into a slow run. It is short-lived and I revert back to a power walk. More wadi’s, more stony plateaus. I am determined to run and power up with more dried mango and another Shot Blok. Black Cherry. 😋
I run the last couple of kilometres giving myself an extra sense of achievement. No one else I see after CP3 is running. The elites and top fifty or so have long since finished. I walk to the live cam and hold up three fingers. Still here. Just.
The sweet tea tastes sublime. I repeat yesterday’s attempt to blag a second cup but Mr Tea Man isn’t falling for my puppy-eyed pleas and sends me on my way. I’ll try again tomorrow. Loaded up with my overnight water, I drag my feet back to Tent 59.
Simon is first back once again in under six hours. Although slower than his first two liaison stages, he finishes an incredible 57th – just two and a half hours after the leaders and is now placed 41st after three stages. This comes after a dose of Montezuma’s revenge yesterday and running plugged up with Imodium. There are positives and negatives to finishing first in your tent. A faster finish equates to more recovery time and the tent to yourself. However the unwritten rule also affords you the unenviable task of removing the rocks and stones from under the rug.
Having run a hundred kilometres in sixty plus degrees over the past three days, possibly not the most sought after task. Simon once again does a sterling job and my back is especially grateful as I collapse into the tent, spread eagled and managing little more than grunts for the next fifteen minutes.
I come in an hour after Simon, finishing 146th and climbing a further 92 places – up from 334th after Stage Two to 242nd. Rob arrives a further hour later, still jovial but crumbles to the floor. Tension is rising as time passes with no sign of Rich or Phil. They are both hard as nails and we are certain their legs won’t fail them. Only GI issues can possibly torpedo these guys.
Our daily post is a welcome distraction and massive pick-me-up. On day one I’d already received nine messages. By day two, this has grown to twenty and three sheets font ten A4. Today I count forty-seven messages, five sheets of A4 from friends and family across seven countries to smile, laugh and cry over. Race reports from friends who ran the London Marathon, more desert jokes, astonishment that I am still going after my day one challenges and IV, dozens of motivational messages, inspiring quotes, some brilliant sarcasm, an in-depth analysis of the latest race standings and several beautiful poems. Once again I am deeply moved by the outpouring of love and the knowledge that people took time to message me and many are dot watching or glued to the live cam.
There is an unintended but highly beneficial side-effect. We are rapidly running out of bum wipes…. Everyone in our tent except I think Rob, has succumbed to at least one bout of diarrhoea, vomiting or both. The extra paper may soon need to serve another purpose 😬💩🙈
The cut-off time for Stage Three is eleven hours. Phil mentioned he planned on taking breaks at the CP’s and with only nine hours gone, he still has plenty of time. The peak of the heat had now passed. We are suddenly surprised as Anna comes into our tent, her expression telling all as she hugs Simon in tears. I am shocked that the Sahara has claimed such a strong and experienced runner. Anna was 2nd women after both Stage One and Two, but the extent of GI sickness made it impossible to continue. My mind goes back to one of the speakers at the virtual MDS Expo in January: ‘Feet, dehydration, Gastrointestinal issues….’
Neither Aaron, Kev or Craig withdrew because their legs gave up or from monster blisters. We later find out that Rich has fallen victim to the D&V which is wiping out swathes of participants.
It is almost 6:00pm. Simon, Rob and I are busy managing our recovery and prepping for the Long Stage. Every so often, another participant passes our tent.
Yeeeeeeeeeesss. Singapore Phil. Get in there!
We simultaneously burst into applause and cheer Phil into our tent. Proper gutsy effort, almost ten hours since we set off.
I still can’t get anything solid down and only manage another chocolate protein shake. The banana one I had yesterday was disgusting although at least it stayed down. Just. I focus on two things ahead of tomorrow’s monster. Getting calories into me and ditching any remaining kit that is inedible or not mandatory. I offer out my Spaghetti Carbonara; as desperate as I am to eat, the risk of vomiting any remaining nutrients and calories still inside me outweigh the likelihood of success.
My first pair of socks is ready to be burned as is my top, however rules state you must hand them in to a bivouac marshal and only in the evening! I walk across to one of the administration tents and offer up my discarded clothes, adding to the growing pile of new and used items. They will all be gratefully received by the Berbers. My tiny tube of Super Glue goes. Seven grams. A few meters of Kevlar paracord. Five grams. Ear plugs. Two grams. I continued looking for packaging and anything else that can be jettisoned, within the rules.
I want to feel clean, at least in relative terms, before the Long Stage. The difference a fresh pair of socks, running shirt and a rehydrated wet wipe can make, is incalculable. I soak one of my ‘Pits and Bits’ towels – dehydrated face cloths the size of a couple of penny coins and weighing two grams. Face my first, then feet, arms, legs. I keep it to one side in the knowledge it may be needed again for something less pleasant.
Rich arrives back at the tent, his news disheartening. He has been in Doc Trotters for the last several hours on drip after drip. Like Anna, he was forced to withdraw at 3CP1 following even more severe GI sickness, necessitating numerous IV’s. Rich had completed MDS before and we are beyond gutted that sickness has forced him to stop.
Four of our tent are now out. Four of us remain.
The Road Book for tomorrow’s hitherto mystery Long Stage had been issued earlier. I flick it open and scan the pages. Eighty-two point five kilometres. Six checkpoints. Immediately beyond CP5 awaits djebel El Otfal. We will be climbing a mountain. At night.
Running All Over Cancer 