THE SAHARA DESERT - 3 Marathons in 3 Days

The day had finally arrived and I was on the London tube heading towards Gatwick airport carrying my running rucksack with two empty water bottles conspicuously attached to the front. I was trying to decide how nervous I was when I realised that it still hadn't really sunk in yet.

I arrived at the airport to see lots of other people carrying rucksacks adorned with water bottles. Not a single one of them looked as unfit as I felt! They were all straight off the page of a runners magazine. Thin and muscular with a determined look that comes with the self confidence of long training runs and acclimatization sessions....By comparison I felt fat, unfit and panicked.

Luckily for me, another female runner (Sue) tapped me on the shoulder and we fell into easy conversation whilst we were waiting at the gate. This not only dispelled some of my nerves, but also found me a space in a friendly group of tent mates.

After the flight we were all shepherded into coaches and driven for 3 hours to the first bivouac. I ended up sitting next to an RAF pilot who was also a friend of a friend demonstrating the smallness of this world. The bivouac was exactly how it looked in pictures and I even managed to re-find Sue and we waited together until the other tent mates arrived from the second flight. The tent itself (number 137) was of traditional Bedouin construction consisting of a single black cloth held up by sticks....I huddled into the side to shelter from the cold night.

The toilet arrangements at MDS are not for the faint hearted. You are provided with a brown plastic bag to poo into (which can be done inside a dedicated poo tent for a bit of privacy) but peeing tends to be carried out wherever. On the first day most of the females walked a good few hundred meters away from the camp before squatting for a wee. But by the second evening, the circle of wee had decreased in radius and people even started squatting in groups whilst continuing conversations.

There was an email tent where you could queue up outside (usually for around 30 minute) before being allowed to send one text email to one recipient. This arrangement worked well as my (long suffering) mother was good enough to forward my ramblings on to a number of my friends and family. However, as I discovered, standing in the queue for 30minutes after a day of racing in the desert was really hard!

Day 1:

Lining up at the start was incredible- the atmosphere was positively electric and as they played “highway to hell” we all ran off the start line with helicopters flying over head! After 3km on flat, rocky ground we were faced with 12km of sand dunes. This was hard....Really hard. Four hours of screaming calf muscles, suffocating heat and constant thirst. It was impossible to eat even though it was advised to take 200 calories every hour. I watched flares go off in the distance in all directions and helicopters pass overhead to evacuate lost, injured or dehydrated runners.

After two check points and endless internal battles involving questions of sanity, when to drink, when to slow down, when to speed up, what to think, whether I still had strength to think etc. I eventually made it to the first check point (CP1) and forced myself to eat, check my feet and then move on. After CP2 there were 3km more sand dunes to navigate before I reached day's finish line and the 2^nd bivouac with 2 hours to spare before the cut off time... This still didn't leave me much time to recover and do my personal admin.

I found my tent, added water to my expedition dinner and left it to soak for 10mins whilst I checked my feet again. I then put my trainers back on (which was horrible) and walked to the email tent where I had to stand in line for 30 minutes to send my email update before returning to my tent to spend the night tossing and turning in my sleeping bag: cold, then hot, then up for a wee, then repeat.

0530 soon came around and we all rushed breakfast and admin so that the logistics team could dismantle the tent at 0600hrs. Once again I allowed myself to soak up the inspiring atmosphere of the start line with the concurrent awareness that minutes later I would be fighting an internal battle with my body and mind. Standing at the start we discovered that 27 participants had dropped out after that horrible first day. It was at this point that the realization that I had already accomplished something amazing started to sink in.

At CP1 I noticed that my feet where wrecked....Blood was seeping through the top of my left shoe and I was in agony. I consequently spent 1.5 hours at the medical tent getting my feet looked at by 4 different doctors who all agreed that “this is not good” as they poked my bleeding feet to drain the infection.

By the time I could see the day's finish line ahead of me the light was starting to fade and I knew that I would need to push the last few kilometres. I crossed the line with about an hour to go before the finish line cut off time having fought a nose bleed for the last hour of the race. I later discovered that my poor mother had managed to watch me cross the line on the webcam and recognised me as “the one who asked for tissues”...Great! It was a marathon length “as the crow flies”, but considerably more “as the dunes undulate” and “as Tam zigzags in a haze of dehydration”.

Day 3:

At the start of day 3 we learned that another 30 or so competitors had dropped out. By now I had started to really enjoy the atmosphere at the start line and, although it was weird standing there knowing what you were about to feel like, it was still a real thrill to be there.

Because I had got back so late on day 2, I had only glanced at the route for day 3 before we left. I knew that is was going to be another hard day with three sets of about 3km dunes and one massive climb. However, I wrongly assumed that we had a check point (CP) between each of the dune systems. So, when I set out with only 3litres of water on me, I was in real trouble after the massive climb when I looked at the view from the top only to see a dune system stretching out into the hazy distance and no CP2.

It was unbelievably hot by the time I was in the middle of the second dune system and I had run out of water. The only thing that got me up each dune face was the thought of the slight breeze at the top. I was alone through most of the system as my pace had slowed considerably due to the state of my feet although there were still people behind me. At the top of one of the dunes I had to walk along a thin ridge before I could descend in the correct direction. However I was struggling to aim each step so that my foot would land on the ridge and not on the shifting sand down the side of the dune. After a few steps I blacked out...

Next thing I knew my knee was agony and I was lying about 200m from the top of the ridge at the bottom of the dune. Thank God that the pain in my knee had brought me back around. If I had collapsed there for long I would have been in real trouble because there was no air and no shade down there! Lying at the bottom of the dune felt like I was slowly suffocating and cooking at the same time. I pulled myself up and scrambled up the dune and continued zigzagging up and down the dunes for another hour before finally reaching CP2.

I was asked the standard “C'est va?” and could do nothing but stare in return. When a doctor walked up to me I fell into his arms and was frog marched to the doctors tent where I adamantly refused to be put onto a drip. I stayed for 30 minutes and as soon as I could talk, I stood up and continued on my way.

My pace was depressingly slow, but I refused to believe that I couldn't keep going. I stopped once in the shade of one of the support vehicles for ten minutes and then again when I was stopped by another support vehicle. This support vehicle had followed a trail of blood to find me....I had another nose bleed but I didn't want to stop to find tissues so was just walking on and bleeding into the sand. They stopped me for 20 minutes until I stopped bleeding and they let me keep going.

I arrived at CP3 at 1820hrs and was told that I wouldn't be allowed to continue as the CP cut-off was at 1815hrs. This was news to me. We weren't told about any CP cut-offs. However, I was so numb I just followed instructions blindly. I couldn't process any of it. They took away my bloodied race number and I waited in the doctors tent as I was joined by around 6 others who were behind me and were also told that they were too late to continue. In addition, there were around 8 people at the CP who had pulled out for other reasons.

In retrospect. 5 minutes late, 5km from the finish line and not being allowed to continue really sucks! But, at the time I didn't feel a thing!

We were driven the 5 km back to camp where all our food was taken away from us (so we couldn't share it with our tent mates) and I spent the night next to my new found friends feeling completely numb. In the morning I said my good byes and good lucks and went to the canteen for breakfast where I chatted to other people who had finished the MDS on day 3. Most had fired off their flares in one of the dune systems or pulled out from exhaustion. I was so proud to be one of the few who didn't give up!

At this point we discovered that by the end of day 3, a total of 80 people had finished early. From what I understand, this is a really high number compared to previous MDS years.

We were loaded into 4x4's for a 3hour drive across the desert and then transferred onto a bus for a 2 hour drive to Ouzazarte after a lunch stop in a Kasbah.

At Ouzazarte we were given our bags and abandoned by the side of the road with the option of taking the bus to the MDS hotel. Luckily I had realised that I would be dumped at an overpriced hotel (from talking to my tent mates) so I had spent the bus ride texting our fantastic second mate who organised a hotel for me to stay in for two nights and booked my flight home!

Then I had to get to the hotel. This involved limping along the hot streets until I found a cash point to get some local money and then limping around aimlessly some more until I found a shared taxi (the third driver new where my hotel was). However, I was so was so grateful for this as everyone else had to pay £225 per night and I got to relax in a hotel away from other MDS people knowing that I already had a flight home....

Of course that wasn't the end of my adventure as I took a couple of walks around the town and managed to be the victim of an attempted mugging on the second walk. (A teenager on a bicycle grabbed at my pockets and got hit over the head with a large bottle of sprite that I was holding and left with nothing whilst I ran off up the hill- feet throbbing).

My feet were still hurting when I reached the UK and I discovered that they could be described as: 3 broken toes, 4 toenails waiting to fall off, multiple blisters and both severely infected all through the balls of the feet....whoops. Note to all future competitors- take foot preparation seriously!

As I contemplated my achievement back in the UK and as I continue to reflect back on it now, I am still filled with a great sense of accomplishment. People often say “I'm sorry to hear about your MDS”, but I am really not sorry at all- I couldn't have tried any harder and I am so proud of what I achieved. When I discussed my (lack of) training, non-existent foot preparation and Antarctic acclimatization with fellow MDS runners, they were amazed that I completed the first day let alone three! When people ask me what it was like I simply say: “Amazing”. It was, of course, the hardest thing I have ever experienced in my life, but it was also the most humbling and inspiring thing I have ever done. Past runners always used to tell me that it was “all in your head” once you were there and now I understand what they mean. I just can't describe what goes through your mind when you are that hot, that exhausted and that close to collapse and still having to force yourself on through burning sand and suffocatingly dry air.

I know that I have come out of the desert a better person than I entered. It gave me a perspective on my physical and mental efforts that I couldn't have got anywhere else. Also, through noting the things that were going through my mind during the race, I have an idea of what is really important to me and what I need to do to move on with my life.

Next I will be sailing STS Lord Nelson from Uruguay to Brazil, then onwards, and upwards because Peter Pan was right:

Life is a very big adventure...