The Marathon Des Sable: A Lesson

Some of you that I send this blog to won't have heard about this race so here is a quick low down:

The race takes place in Southern Morocco through the Sahara Desert and runs annually (excuse the pun)over March/April with approximately 800 competitors (120 from the UK).
The distance can vary slightly year on year but tends to be around 250KMs over 6/7days.
It is a stage race which means that each day there is a start and a finish.
Each stage is around one marathon, apart from the 4th which is 50 miles.
One or two of these stages takes place over the famous Moroccan sand dunes.
Each competitor must carry their own food and kit however tents are provided at the end of each day.
This is the typical kit a competitor should carry:
Survival gear

* Backpack or equivalent (best suited to each participant)
* Sleeping bag
* Flashlight with spare batteries
* 10 safety pins
* Compass with 1° or 2° precision
* Lighter
* Whistle
* Knife with metal blade
* Tropical Disinfectant
* Anti-Venom pump (insect poison remover)
* Signalling mirror
* One aluminium survival sheet

A survival kit will be supplied by the organisation and will include the following:-

* A Distress flare
* Salt tablets
* luminous signal stick (non-stop stage)

Why am I doing this?

Well that is to be decided.....I'm still not quite sure!

First of many many many posts. The training starts

So. Here we go. The start of 2 years and 2 weeks of training before the big day, or should I say, big 7 days. My training started on Monday which was fantastic because Monday is always a 'Rest' day so it wasn't too tough! This week hasn't been too tough, just three 6 mile runs and a touch of cross training. I'm slowly easing myself in since my race in Phuket 6 Months ago.

Races to date? Not many. I ran the 2009 London Marathon, a handful of Reading Half marathons, a few 10K's and the Phuket Half marathon (at 4am!) 6 months ago. My race portfolio should take a jump over the next year as I concentrate on perfecting my marathon distance ready for Ultra-marathon training in 2011/12.

I'm off for the Saturday 6 miler. Shame it's raining...