Mad Dogs and Englishmen - 16th Marathon des Sables by Chris Phillips

This is the diary of my attempt to complete the 16th Marathon des Sables (MdS). The MdS is a 240km endurance race across the South Moroccan Sahara Desert.

29 March 2001

Woke early and set off for Gatwick, arrived at the check in three hours before the flight was due to leave. There were already lots of very excited people there, all looking frighteningly fit.

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I was hoping that that I was going to be fit enough to see things through, my training had been going well until about seven weeks ago when I strained a hip flexor on a long run. Since then I had been unable to do any running and had been limited to cross training in the gym in an attempt to retain what fitness I already had. My leg was more or less better now and I just hoped that it would hold up during the event.

As we flew in, the Atlas Mountains gave way to the desert and we got the first glimpse of the terrain we would be up against for the next week or so. For the first time, the magnitude of the challenge ahead of us really began to sink in.

We flew into Ouazarzate (Wah-za-zat) and had a slight scare when customs began searching our bags for food because of the Foot and Mouth problem, apparently they weren’t going to allow any meat products in. All of my dehydrated food was American so I was sure it wasn’t a problem but was quite worried they might confiscate it anyway. This would have been a disaster as I had spent months planning exactly what food I would take to gave me maximum calories with minimum weight. In the end the crisis resolved itself, the Moroccans searched a couple of bags and decided it would be too much trouble to do all 150 of us and we were waved through.

We spent the night at the comfortable Belere hotel and made the most of our last night in civilisation.

30 March

Had a 6 hour coach journey to Erfoud, close to the race start. From here we were herded onto military trucks for the final few kilometres to our desert camp site. Here 73 Berber tents awaited us, these were nothing more than sacks, sewn together and propped up on sticks. Each tent accommodated nine people, back at the hotel a group of 8 of us had decided to try and share together, so as the trucks arrived Steve ran off and “bagged” an empty tent in the British sector. The other occupants of the tent were :-

Steve Partridge – IT project director and desert veteran
Jimmy Durrance – Company director
Simon Dannat – works in IT
Tony McColley – Builder
Sarah Raynor – Personal Trainer
Louise Gurnell – Event Management
Alex Wright – Mother of two
Louise Jordan – Book Editor

I thought it was good that we had a high proportion of females in the tent. Hopefully they would be a civilising influence and might help reduce the farmyard noises in the tent at night. Also, being a male chauvinist, I was hoping that they would be keen to get on with the domestic chores around the tent J.

We had now been given the “Road Book”, the map detailing each stage of the race. Up to this point the route had been kept a closely guarded secret to prevent competitors storing supplies along the way.

From the road book we could see that two of the stages would be exceptionally difficult. The first would be the second day where we had to cross 18 km of dunes through the Erg Chebbi dune system. These dunes were about 15 miles away from our camp and could be clearly seen rising 1000ft above the Saharan plain. These dunes were the highest in Morocco and second highest in the world so we had plenty to be worried about. The other hard day would be the fourth where we had to cover 84km (52 miles). This is an awesome distance in the UK never mind in the desert, carrying a 30lb pack and in temperatures of 40 degrees C.

Spent the remainder of the day sorting through our equipment and making final decisions on what to take and what to leave behind. Everything had been pared to the bone, basically if you couldn’t eat it, sleep in it or fix your feet with it then you didn’t take it, there was no room for luxuries.

March 31
,br> Final day before the off. Didn’t sleep well, it was quite cold during the night and some people realised their sleeping bags weren’t up to it. In an attempt to save weight one chap had just brought a thin sleeping bag liner. He had spent the night shivering and was pretty glum. Fortunately for him someone had a spare and was kind enough to lend it to him. Someone else awoke to find a scorpion on his rucksack, he’d flicked it out of the tent several times but it insisted on scuttling back each time. After being given quite a few chances it became an ex-scorpion.

Worryingly, in our tent, all of the farmyard noises came from the female side of the tent. What’s more, they were showing no signs of tidying the tent or making my breakfast. Perhaps I’d made a mistake.
,br> Today was set aside for scrutineering, where the organisers checked all of your kit to make sure you carried the compulsory items and had the minimum 2000 calories per day of food. They also inspected medical certificates and ECG’s.

After this all your other equipment was taken away and you had to be self sufficient for the remainder of the race. My slot wasn’t until 4:30 so I spent the day lazing around, resting as much as possible. The temperature in the shade was about 35 C, OK for lazing inside a tent but I wasn’t sure how enjoyable running in it would be.

Eventually I was called in to have my equipment checked. I presented the compulsory items, anti venom pump, whistle, compass, signalling mirror and somewhat bizarrely 10 safety pins? I was then issued with a parachute flare and survival blanket to be used in emergencies. The all up weight of my pack including 1.5l of water was 13 kg, almost 30lb.

Finally the doctor looked at my medical certificate, ECG and asked me a few questions, no problems.

1 April – First Race Day

Didn’t sleep well and woke to find that Sarah had been up all night with sickness and diarrhoea. She looked awful and we were very concerned. Although today wasn’t very long, about 25km, it was going to be very hard in her state.

As the start approached everyone began to get more and more nervous and excited. Eventually we all lined up behind the start banner, most people sporting national flags of various sizes. We waved excitedly at the TV cameras whilst Patrick Bauer, the race director gave a rambling speech in French. Mercifully the English translator was able to reduce 15 minutes of French to a couple of sentences which we were very grateful for.

Finally we were counting down to the start….. cinq…. quatre…. trois…..deux…. un …… Allez. The media were out in force and helicopters made low swooping passes over the runners. The adrenaline rush was immense and we all set off at a sprint.

The doctors had warned everyone to take today very slowly and I quickly slowed my pace to something more sensible. The first part of the route was pretty straightforward along a gravel track and after 11 km we reached the first checkpoint and were given 1.5l of water. There was a reasonable breeze blowing which had an effective cooling effect on the body. Even though I was sweating heavily, it was evaporating immediately in the dry heat and I was surprised to find that I felt quite comfortable in the heat.

The final stage was through a small erg (dune system). These dunes were quite small but the effort involved in climbing them was appreciable. Even though it was more difficult, the scenery was fantastic and was exactly like my impression of how the desert would be. Eventually I crested the last dune and spotted the camp a couple of kilometres away standing impressively at the foot of the Erg Chebbi dunes.

I taken it very steady today and at the end didn’t feel too tired although I did have a couple of small blisters on the ends of my toes. I popped and drained them and covered them in iodine which stung painfully for several minutes.

Gradually the others came in. Sarah eventually made it and was looking a bit better although she described it as the worst day of her life. Most people had blisters to some degree or other and immediately set about sorting them out. In the UK, a run of that length wouldn’t be a problem but the heat causes the feet to swell and makes blisters much more likely.

April 2 2001 – Dune Day

Today the fun factor took a real dive, this is where the race got serious. Sarah is now much better and in good shape to continue which is great.

After a gentle first 2km we were into the Erg Chebbi dunes. Running up dunes is impossible, you have to walk up and run down the other side. Even so the effort involved is immense and it wasn’t long before I came across people who were really struggling. Just before the first checkpoint I came up to an Italian, staggering drunkenly, a victim of heat exhaustion. Medical staff at the checkpoint pulled him out and I suspect that for him the race was over. Forty minutes further on, whilst plodding head down up a dune, I heard a whoosh and looked up to see a flare shooting into the sky to parachute slowly down. About 400m away I could see some figures looking after the fallen runner and recognised one of them as Tony Kitous and Algerian born London restaurateur who I knew quite well. Apparently the first flare he set off he had held upside down and had shot into the ground almost killing the poor chap he was trying to help. A few minutes later the helicopter arrived and the medical team set about evacuating the casualty.

Later I came across Michel Bach, a famous French veteran of the race, staggering and vomiting with every few paces. His wife was with him who appeared totally unconcerned with the whole thing and was marching off without him. I later discovered this was normal for him!

After about 3 hours I was out of the Erg Chebbi dunes and although it had been hard it wasn’t quite as difficult as I’d feared. The effort involved had been more than made up for by the staggering scenery we were passing through. It was a fantastic feeling to be in such a dramatic situation and was comparable to being high on an alpine mountain climb. The only slight difference being the temperature differential!!

After the dunes we had a long, flat boring section of about 15km followed by a final dune section of 3 km before the camp. I put my head down on the flat section and walked and jogged it as fast as I could. It was hot now but there was still a gentle breeze which made things feel reasonably comfortable. Eventually I reached the foot of the last dune section, only 3km to go. I was feeling pretty tired now and wanted to get the dune section over asap. As soon as I started up the first dune I realised how tired I was and my pace slowed dramatically. By now the heat was intense, over 40C, and in the bottom of the dunes there wasn’t a breath of air. I could feel my body temperature rising and I developed a blinding headache. I plodded on feeling weaker and weaker. Now I was feeling light headed and was having to make a conscious effort to keep going in a straight line, I felt as though I was on the verge of heat exhaustion. I was now down to a snails pace and couldn’t even run down the far side of the dune and began to have serious concerns that I might not make it.

In front of me now lay a large dune that I was going to have to slog up, one step forward, two back. I really wasn’t sure if I could do it I was running totally on empty. Mercifully, a Frenchman in front of me reached the top and shouted excitedly “Le campe, le campe”. The fact that the end would be in sight once I made the top magically lifted my spirits and I worked my way up the dune. I plodded the last kilometre, there were lots of photographers and medical staff around and I made a real effort to keep walking in a straight line so as not to attract their attention.

I was surprised to find that I was first back to the tent and collapsed into it and didn’t move for some time. I hurt all over, especially my shoulders which had had to carry a 30lb load for about 6 hours. Lou arrived after about half an hour and said she’d found the last bit easy and had run over it. I could have killed her!

The others came in over the next couple of hours and again starting sorting out their blisters. Again I had a few small ones on the ends of my toes but nothing dramatic. Simon’s were really bad and we started charging people to come and take photographs of them! One of his toes was completely encircled by a blister, I’d never seen anything like it before. Jimmy’s feet were also quite bad.

By now my clothes were in a bit of a state. My pristine white T shirt was now stained a grey, brown colour and my shorts had so much salt in them they could stand up on their own. Also we were all covered in a layer of sand and dust which gave the impression that you had a great tan. Unfortunately none of us wanted to waste water on washing, so we just had to live with it.

April 3 – 38 km

By now we were starting to become more acclimatised to the heat and were beginning to pick up the pace. I ran and walked most of the way to the first checkpoint but by now it was very hot and in contrast to the other days there was hardly any breeze at all. If the wind did blow the air was hot and it was like having a hairdryer blowing in your face, not very pleasant. We were now crossing a large dried up lake bed and the temperature was oppressive and everyone was really feeling the heat. Just before the third checkpoint we had a mountain pass to cross involving an ascent of several hundred feet through soft sand. In the blistering heat the effort involved was enormous as we slogged our way up. Everyone was visibly wilting and as I crested the pass I heard a gasp and saw the Frenchman behind me collapse into the sand. I offered him a hand up and then pressed on to the checkpoint just a few hundred meters away.

I was encouraged by the fact that I now had only 3 miles to go and started to feel stronger and despite the heat managed to run most of the way to the finish. About 500m before the line I could see two runners approaching me fast from behind. My competitive instinct was to press on and outrun them but I was pretty tired and decided not to bother and slowed to a walk. They caught me and yelled “Come on, don’t stop now, run with us”. One was Peter Mild, a Swedish ex legionnaire who I’d met before and the other a German. We ran together to the finish and crossed the line holding hands.

For me this summed up one of the main essences of the event. People weren’t here solely to compete against each other but to help each other out. In most road races that just would’nt have happened, they’d have gone past me, glad to have improved their position.

I’d had a good day and finished in about 6hrs, feeling strong but others weren’t so lucky. Jimmy hadn’t felt great at the start and as the hours ticked by he still wasn’t back. Todays stage had a cut off time of 11 hours and with 10 hours gone there was still no sign of him. Alex and I went to the finish line to wait for him and asked other finishers if they had seen him. Eventually someone said they had, he was about 10 minutes behind and in a bad way. I went back to the tent to get a brew on for him and Alex waited for him at the finish. He eventually arrived at the tent and promptly collapsed on the floor, exhausted and close to tears. He described, voice quaking with emotion, the titanic struggle he’d had to complete the stage. Suffering badly and unable to keep down water the medics had tried to pull him out at each checkpoint. He’d refused and soldiered on, he would only accept defeat if he actually collapsed and was physically unable to continue.

It was clear to us that he needed to go to the medical tent but he was reluctant to do so. We eventually persuaded him that he had to and he was immediately put on an IV drip whilst they also sorted out the blisters on his feet.

Today really took its toll on many competitors, quite a few people dropped out and the camp site in general is like a scene from MASH with people hobbling around using trekking poles to reduce the pain from their blisters. Fortunately my feet are still OK (relatively) but Simons have degraded again and we also had to persuade him to have them looked at by the doctors.

April 4 – The Long Day – 84km

This was the day that everyone had been dreading, 52 miles, more than twice as far as any of the stages we’ve already covered. Although the stage starts at the normal time it is so long that inevitably you are out during the night. There is plenty of time allowed for the stage, 40 hours, which means you can take it at a very gentle pace and rest at the checkpoints. I wanted to get it over with asap, the reward would then be a whole day off to recover.

We’d left Jimmy in the medical tent the previous night and I awoke to find him back in his sleeping bag, sitting upright. I asked how he was and he answered but a babble of unintelligible words came out. He’d been in the medical tent until 2am and had 4 bags of fluid put into him, even so he was clearly still in a bad way. Simon was also looking very bad and was in huge pain with his feet. Jimmy managed to perk up before the start and I asked him if he wanted me to carry any of his kit for him but he wasn’t having any of it.

For my part I was very apprehensive, although I was still relatively fit and healthy I had no illusions about just how difficult this was going to be. Physically, this was going to be the hardest day of my life.

Based on my experience of the first 3 days I knew that I would be able to do very little running today, I would need to pace myself very carefully and just hope that I could hang in and survive. I set off at a march, “tabbing” as the military would call it and quickly fell in with a couple of Para’s going at my speed.

At the first checkpoint I met Simon, he’d made it the start line and then abandoned shortly after and been given a lift in a landrover , he was in too much pain to continue. I pressed on with the Para’s and the temperature got hotter and hotter and again there was no cooling breeze. Initially we had been chatting but now we just plodded on in silence concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. Occasionally we would ask each other how we felt and checked that we got a coherent response. The distance between checkpoint 3 and 4 was longer than normal and I had to ration my water to try to spin it out. On and on we went, we were all feeling shattered and close to going down with heat exhaustion. My water finally ran out with CP 4 in sight but about 10 minutes away. When I finally made it there my mouth was so parched I was unable to speak.

Worse than that I had started to feel cold and was shivering. These are classic symptoms of heat exhaustion and show that your heat regulation system has stopped working. To press on at that stage would have been a huge mistake and fortunately I was sufficiently in control to recognise what was happening and decided to rest in the shade. I slumped exhausted into one of the rest tents and caught the eye of a spaniard who looked how I felt, we both shook our heads, “Crazy” he said, “this is crazy”. I knew exactly what he meant.

After 30 minutes Geoff and Tsim, the Para’s, decided to press on. I was feeling better but decided to rest for a bit longer. Fortunately it was now becoming dark and the heat wouldn’t be a problem for the remaining sections. It was just as well because I was only just over half way and already more tired than I have ever been. I just had to stay positive and concentrate on getting to the next CP. After lying down for a while I came out of the tent and sat watching people arrive to see if there was anyone I knew. Everyone arriving looked utterly exhausted.

Sandra McCallum, a Canadian from the Yves Rocher Team was about to leave for the next CP and had decided she didn’t need her water ration and asked if anyone wanted it. I gladly relieved her of it.

After resting for about 1hr 15mins I felt OK to carry on to CP5. It was now dark and we were issued with Cyalume lightsticks to attach to the back of your rucksack. We looked like a chain of glow-worms stretching off into the distance as we plodded off into the night. The route to CP5 was initially a sandy uphill slog and I had difficulty maintaining the pace of the people in front and people began to overtake me in droves. I was alone and began to get more and more depressed, I was exhausted and just wanted the thing to be over so I could rest but at this speed I would take forever to finish.

I eventually finished the uphill slog and started onto a flat dried lake bed and was suddenly struck by a great idea. The obvious way to get it over with quicker was to run rather than walk, silly me, why hadn’t I thought of it earlier! I began to run and surprisingly found it easier than walking, certainly the pain in my feet was less. I ran all of the remaining distance to CP 5 where I stayed for only a couple of minutes and continued running halfway to CP6 the last checkpoint before the finish. Where the energy came from to do this I will never know but it had now taken me to within striking distance of the end and my spirits were much higher. Unfortunately in the process I’d totally exhausted myself and arrived at CP 6 at about midnight, barely able to walk in a straight line and virtually going to sleep on my feet.

I was now faced with a difficult decision. I could plod on alone the remaining 8.5miles to the finish or I could take a rest here. I desperately wanted the whole thing to be over, but if I continued I risked collapsing and being eliminated. Eventually common sense got the better of me and I decided to rest. I crawled into a tent and into my sleeping bag. Soon after Sandra McCallum, who had given me her water, came in. She was in a terrible state and proceeded to vomit all over the floor of the tent, apologising profusely, she needn’t have bothered as we all knew exactly how she felt. The whole event was captured by a TV crew with a camera about 6“ away from her which I wasn’t very happy about, it was just too big an intrusion into her suffering.

I fell asleep and woke about 2 hrs later. Sandra was on a drip in the corner but outside the tent I heard the voices of Sarah and Lou my tentmates. I went to see them and they were babbling excitedly, as I slept they had been caught in a sandstorm which had reduced visibility to nil and they had to use their compass to keep on route, they were very chuffed with themselves.

Lou was doing incredibly well, she’d had diarrhoea for the last few days and was now having to stop every 20 minutes or so. We decided that we would do the final section together and I packed up my kit and we trudged off into the darkness.

The final 8.5 miles is a period I would prefer to forget. By now my toes were totally trashed and each step produced a searing pain in my feet. Putting one foot in front of the other required a huge effort of willpower and time was dragging interminably slowly. I had calculated that at our pace it would take us around 4 hours to get to the finish and I continually checked my watch to see what progress we were making. After walking for what I thought was about half an hour I checked my watch to find that in fact it was only three minutes! Now I was really depressed! We plodded on stopping every 20 minutes or so for Lou (now known as “Lou the Poo”) to do her stuff. Starting to walk again after even a brief rest was hugely painful as my tired, throbbing feet had to get going again.

Eventually the camp came into view and we struggled in at about 6 in the morning. A TV cameraman was there to greet us and he asked us how we’d enjoyed it. I don’t remember my actual answer but I don’t think it was very polite.

April 5 – Rest Day

As we approached the tent I saw Jimmy sat outside, he obviously had’nt got there before us on foot so I knew he must have withdrawn. Even though he must have been massively disappointed he was very philosophical about it and in good spirits and was already planning next years attempt. He helped us with our kit and we got straight into our sleeping bags, hugely relieved to be able to rest. My feet were killing me, even though I was no longer walking and after a couple of hours I eventually summoned up the courage to have a look at them. The first problem was that I couldn’t get my socks off. They were semi welded into my feet, eventually I got hold of a pair of scissors and cut them off. The sight that met my eyes was quite frightening. The tops of all my toes were rubbed raw and they were also badly swollen and oozing liquid. In other areas my feet had taken on a plastic, shiny sort of appearance. I think it was probably trench foot and I was beginning to be concerned that I was seriously damaging myself. They were now well past self repair and I went to the doctors. A nurse initially had a quick look to see if I was a worthy enough case to go into the medical tent. She pulled a face and said “Ooh la la”, based on the sights she must have already seen so far they must have been pretty bad.

However, the doctor didn’t seem concerned at all and just gave me some antibiotics which I suppose I was encouraged by. We spent the rest of the day resting and sleeping whilst the remaining competitors came in. My feet were still painful and the prospect of doing 26 miles on them tomorrow was appaling.

The 40 hour cut off for the stage meant that competitors had until midnight tonight to make it back to camp before being disqualified. As darkness fell there were only two people left out on the course, Shirley Thompson and Paul Coombs, both Brits and we began to become concerned that they were OK. Then at around 8:30 as we were settling down for bed their lightsticks could be seen in the distance perhaps half a mile away. Word quickly spread round the camp and everyone rushed to the finish line to see them home. We all clapped and cheered as they approached and the Land Rovers sounded their horns. It was an exceptionally emotional moment and there was more than one person who admitted to having a big lump in their throat. Shirley had really struggled and and had to have IV’s out on the course. She was back now but only had a few hours rest before having to make ready for tomorrows marathon. I didn’t envy her.

Overall I think that about 60 people have abandoned so far.

April 6 – Marathon day

Todays stage was an exact marathon, 26.2 miles. For me, and many others, just getting my trainers on was a major trauma. Fortunately I’d managed to get hold of some Voltorol painkillers which were top class stuff, I think that the Para’s called them Godzilla pills.

Tony’s feet were also quite bad and I gave him some of my extra strength Ibuprofen and he took a double dose. They had an incredible effect on him and within a few minutes was impressively jumping up and down on the balls of his feet.

Everyone hobbled across to the start line and we were away. Unfortunately one poor chap collapsed on the start line and was carted away by the medics.

Tony, who was normally very steady, took off like a scalded cat, obviously the pills were doing wonders for him.

Personally I found this stage very hard, I still hadn’t recovered from the 50 miler and I just had to grit my teeth and keep going as best I could. Again it was brutally hot with no wind. Lots of others were suffering, I came across Sandra McCallum again, crashed out in a tent looking bad. Lou was also really suffering with her diarrhoea and came very close to having to pull out. Fortunately for her she’s a very tough cookie. Lou has sailed round the world and been in lots of difficult situations and was able to pull through and keep going.

Again, on one stage, I had to ration my water and limited myself to two sips every 5 minutes. After 2 minutes my mouth would be parched dry but I had to resist the temptation to take in more.

About mid way through the day I came across Tony. The pills had obviously worn off and he’d slowed to a crawl. “Never mind” he said as I approached, “only 15 minutes to the next checkpoint”. “You must be joking” I replied, “I make it at least an hour, maybe more, I’m concerned that I might run out of water”. Tony immediately offered me some of his and got out his water bottles but when he shook them there was only a pitiful tinkle of water from the bottom of each one. I already had a lot more than him, so I refused his offer.

When I reached the next checkpoint, over an hour later, I was gasping for water. I’m really not sure how Tony made it.

I eventually made the finish and realised that the whole thing was now in the bag. I only had 22km to go tomorrow and I could crawl that if necessary.

April 7 – Last Day

There was a party atmosphere at the start line and people had made banners of the “Hello Mum” variety to hold up to the TV helicopters filming the proceedings. After hobbling for a while on trashed feet, they warmed up and the painkillers also kicked in, so I was able to make reasonable progress. I’d had a bad day yesterday and wanted to get today over with asap. By this stage all I wanted was to get back to the hotel and civilisation. We were all filthy, stunk to high heaven, were exhausted and in pain. I ran to the first CP and fast walked most of the remainder towards the final finish line. With 2km to go we hit a tarmac road and the desert gave way to the town of Tazzarine. The local kids were out in force begging pens and sweets and we slowly raised our pace towards the finish line. Suddenly I turned an corner and there was the finish 200m away and I ran to the line.

As I had predicted the finish was an anti climax, there was no great feeling of elation as I crossed the line, just huge relief that it was now over and my body could now rest. I was given my medal and went to meet others who had finished ahead of me, there were big hugs all round as we congratulated each other on the achievement.

There is no doubt that the MdS is the hardest venture I have ever undertaken and I was very proud that I was able to complete it. But the greatest enjoyment came not from my physical achievement but from the pleasure of sharing an amazing, almost surreal, week with an amazing group of people. We were all in this together and made sure that we looked after each other as well as ourselves, often selflessly giving up equipment to help out others. The bonds formed under this sort of adversity are very strong and I’m sure that I’ve made friendships that will be very enduring.

I was also impressed by the strength and determination of some of the others. Although I’d found it difficult I’d at least stayed reasonably healthy throughout. Others like Sarah and Lou had been seriously poorly and still managed to finish. Even Jimmy, in defeat, had shown a lot more courage and determination than I’d had to and it put my own efforts into perspective.

For me, the MdS was also a demonstration of what can be achieved if you put your mind to it. Two years ago as an unfit, overweight, 20 a day smoker, the prospect of completing this would have been laughable. But through persistent effort I was now able to complete the “toughest foot race on earth”.

Would I do it again? Right now the pain is still too clear in my mind and I wouldn’t even consider it, but I know that memory is very selective. Ask me again in six months time and you might get a different answer.

Would I recommend it? Only to those that are completely insane.

Chris Phillips
April 2001

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