Marathon Des Sables
The Chips are Down ...
David Campbell / 06.05.2005
The common knowledge was to do this in one hit if at all possible, as this would do two things, dramatically improve your time and also give you a proper rest day. You could wake in the knowledge that you had a full day off, not snatching a few hours rough before finishing off what you were too exhausted to do the previous day.
My strategy was to do the first 22km as fast as I could as the temperature would still be ok, then to take the extra bottle of water that you could take at this point and sit in the shade for an hour before moving on. I figured that by the time that I got to that point the temperature would be so high, a little time spent resting would stand me in good stead.
So as we set off I was surprised to find myself getting choked up. I suppose that today was the real back of the race, we would have covered well over half of the overall distance by the end, there would be one more big day, but I would have had a break and would have lost another few kilos from my pack.
I had struggled to get my breakfast down, partly because porridge was becoming rapidly unpalatable, but also because I still felt decidedly ropey from the day before. I realised that I had come to ask questions of myself about how I react when the going gets tough and to be honest, I couldn’t think of many missions that were tougher than the next 24hrs. That having been said, I normally am so hectic and have to juggle so many things in my normal life, having one monumental task that I could focus on completely was invigorating.
I met up with Ollie from the tent as I was preparing to leave checkpoint 2, so we agreed to set off together. As we were leaving the first of the elite runners came through at an effortless pace. They weren’t sprinting (I don’t know why I had this idea in my head), but they were eating up the miles fast, taking the tough rocky terrain easily and just floating over it. A truly impressive sight.
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