Hi all,
I usually say it, but this time I have to say (with emphasis)….alot has been happening.
The main issue for me for the last year was the fact that I did not complete the Marathon des Sables (MDS) 2009. This was not due to lack of training. Oh, believe me when I say that I had trained like a madman. It wasn’t through the effects of my Parkinson’s, which at that time was pretty minor. No…the protagonist that took me out was viral pericarditis. Just a tiny bug that made me so ill that had I continued, I would most likely had a heart attack and could have died. Those of you, who have read the press page article on the BBC website know the facts, so I won’t go into it here. Save to say, I returned to the UK with a desire to right that wrong and change the way that I have approached my life and make change happen…so I decided to do it again. I called Quent (who completed the MDS in 09) and although he had paid a serious deposit to run the Gobi, he elected to lose the deposit and come on a bit of an adventure with me. Talk about top bloke!!!!!! Owe you bro!
So here I sit, one year on and I have just had one emotional roller coaster ride of an MDS 2010, got to thank those that saved my life last year and completed the race too!!! I am a very happy guy!!!!!! So what was it like?
Quent arrived right on time on the 1st April. I was in the typical pre-race fashion of check and re-check, grab my meds and finally crash out of the door and pile into the car. A great sunny day and we were so positive about the race to come and the banter between us just made the time fly by. We got to Gatwick…and you could tell it was MDS departure day. A sea of Raidlight backpacks a multitude of family members, and the well trained and soon to be unwashed. I was sporting an OMM 25 Litre Classic in yellow and felt conspicuous but kept the packed OMM 25 Litre in the hold bag (a massive black SueMe bag, which worked a treat). The wait for the plane went by quickly and apart from Jennifer rushing by with a worried look on her face…seems that she had left her passport in a café…luckily it was still there when she got back!
The flight was smooth and I sat next to Steve the MD of the Best of Morocco; a really interesting conversationalist, all round decent bloke and rides motorbikes too (all year round). We landed in Quazazate and did the queue for rooms. Would you believe it but Quent and I got the same room at the Berbere Palace that started the first trip out here…and that was when I knew that this year would be alright. Food, beer and sleep…sleep in a bed. The last for the next seven days…..
The following morning were bussed out for hours with a new road book. Thankfully the weather was excellent and the course in the road book looked the business; tough, long and loads and loads of dunes. If you get to participate in the MDS, the busses will take anywhere between 5 and 8 hours to get you to the start, dependent on the course. Once near the first bivouac, you need to be transported on military trucks to the tents. Quent had made friends with five other guys and sorted a tent out. Tent 99 was to be a total laugh for the duration of the race. Sleeping under a sackcloth tent on a rug is really not that bad. As long as you remove the thorny stuff that always seems to get under the sleeping mat, foot…etc, its fine. One thing that I noticed is the complete lack of noise and the huge night sky…full of stars. Thousands of stars!
First day was hot. Humidity for the race hovered around 18% which, with the heat, made the feet suffer. Mine were ugly after the first stage (IRHS / KHERMOU – 29 Km). However Dave Rae and Alastair really started to have a bad time with blisters. However…despite this they continued and completed the whole race. That is a lot of pain. The same can be said of the rest of us in tent 99 to a lesser degree (Ali, Quent, Comedy Dave and me). Sprint finish was always the form and one which I did not fail to at the end of every stage!!
Beforehand, I felt under prepared for the Sahara…maybe a bit hesitant due to getting lost last year. Once out under the hot sun and on the move, things just seemed to take on a rhythm of their own.
Day two (KHERMOU / JEBEL EL OTFAL – 35,5 Km) took me over miles of dunes and across dried river beds. I linked in with Jess (sorry Jess for forgetting your surname) across the dried stony ground after check point 2. The stretch was so amazingly hot; averaging 140º. At check point 3. I stopped for a minute and Jess pushed ahead. In front of me was the El Otfal jebel; a climb of 1000 metres at a gradient of approx 25º off of vertical, with sand reaching up two thirds of the slope. The trek up the sand was exhausting, followed by a further climb up a rocky trail; scalable only by holding onto rocks and inserting hands into small crevasses. I tried hard not to think about scorpions and snakes. A highlight of the rock climb was reaching for the next handhold and realising that, due to the pinched nerve in my neck, I could not feel the handhold. To add to this my Parkinsons made my right leg dance about as if it were on strings…just bloody marvellous. I had to laugh. The end of the climb was a haul up a rope to the summit. I was shattered and there was still the route down to go. This was not too hard. I just mashed my toes, busting the toenails and cursing to pass the time down a gorge where the rock walls, heated by the sun all day, were now pumping out the heat like an oven. More dunes followed with the sprint finish. We all made it back to tent 99 in reasonable time but Peter (whom we referred to as dad) was late…really late. Ali, comedy Dave and I waiting for him at the finish line and welcomed Pete in a little late, with Comedy Dave discovering that Pete had brought everything including the kitchen sink in his backpack.
Day three was a 40km super hot jaunt (JEBEL EL OTFAL / TAOURIRT MOUCHANNE) the routes highlight was a 10km dried lake. I was marching across the lake as it was again hot as hell. The organisers on route recorded the temperature spiking at 57 degrees (over 140ºF)!! I felt a bit wobbly and took on extra electrolytes and water. It was bizarre seeing the camels unaffected by the heat. They are amazing animals…unlike the competitors, who were finding it hard. I felt like my feet were going to fall off on this part of the MDS. The toes that I had mashed up were complaining all the way and the OMM backpack had cut right into me. On the kit front the Orca clothing was excellent and my Polaroid sunglasses were amazing and kept the sand and sun out of my eyes. Still…I stank like shit!
More to follow….