Mauritannienne 200 by Cassandra Davies

Cassandra Davies writes:

What would make a women participate in a desert race in 48°C of heat covering 200km in her own company?

Cassandra Davis the Time-to-Run's Women's Editor describes her long slog to victory in the 1st edition of the extreme desert event Mauritanienne 200 which she completed in 58 hours in March 2003.

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Running in the desert for me is a cathartic experience. With three children and a full-time job, every now and again I deserve a break on my own and feel the need to give myself an ultimate challenge. As an ex-international athlete I am no longer able to achieve the times I used to run on the roads, so running marathons and road races have little appeal. Having never run longer than 100km in one go, the concept of 200km in one stage in the desert really attracted me. So I enrolled myself in the 1st edition of the Mauritanienne 200 race across the Mauritanian desert. One month before departure I pulled a hamstring which resulted in nearly three weeks rest, so naturally the week before I was feeling very edgy and wondered what I was thinking when I decided to enter into the race. . Fly out of Paris

I left Sunday 9 March, on a daytime charter flight from Paris. This was nice, as the plane flew fairly low, and in crystal clear weather conditions so that I could take in all the landscapes from the Pyranees to the start of the endless desert from Morocco down.

We landed in Atar, in Mauritania which itself is in the middle of the desert, no buildings are at all visible from the sky, just huts. The landing strip has electric light bulbs crudely strewn together with the electrical wire over the ground (of course it has not rained here in 3 years so this is not a problem) and electricity it seems is only the luxury for those with private generators.

In the airport building, I was immediately solicited by a raving person repeating over and over again that he represented the only ligitimate bank in Mauritania for changing money. I changed a 10 euro bank note and received about four dirty bills in exchange including one which was in half and stuck together back-to-front. I said I wanted another clean note, but he already had my 10 euros confiscated and was not in the least bit interested. I was thereafter reassured, when I saw that this was the normal state of the money bills in this country.

The drive from hell

We then got escorted to a big open truck outside which had old airline seats with the cloud patterns still discernable on them placed inside. The first taste of the heat was quite a shock, 4pm and 46°C. The truck took off and we immediately got a first mouthful of dust and sand. The truck belted along the poorly conditioned roads and when suddenly we got to a road deviation, which was diversion into a ditch, the truck didn't seem to slow down at all, of course the airline seats had long lost their seatbelts, so I was hanging on for dear life as the thing swerved into the ditch

Auberge

We arrived at an Auberge, and everywhere signs straight out of Tin Tin with curious variations of French spelling "" and very funny sign "proche de la ville mais loin de son stress" (Close to the town but far from its stress)!

This was very simple rustic accommodation, little collective huts for sleeping and two big tents (beautifully embroideredpatchwork on them) with mats. These served as shaded relaxation areas or alternate restaurants. Two loos and two showers, with hot water only on tap 24/24 heated to the outside temperature! No fridges. We were immediately seated down to a welcome meal.
In Mauritania there is only one course, which is served in a deep enameled style dog bowl consisting either of couscous/pasta or rice with the same vegetable sauce and if your luck is in, a piece of meat/chicken might be floating therein. They also serve round pita bread which I witnessed the fabrication for after the race: two women in one tiny hut with two clay ovens for which they continually collect sticks to fire them. Inside it is like putting your head in a furnace, they bake up to 150 breads per day depending on the demand, it was very impressive.
Monday was spent doing the bag control checks, making sure we had all the necessary compulsory survival kit, checking the medical files and another medical check by the medical team. Also handing over of our food bags for the different Check Points (Check Points were every 20km along the course consting of a tent manned by one French organizer and one Mauritanian local, with hot water available for food preparation and mats for napping) .
Tuesday morning saw the start of the race. The start time of the race was brought forward to 8am instead of 9am due to the extreme heat, but this did not really make much of a difference. First 50km the terrain was extremely rocky ground with a lot of downhills, that with alternate soft sand and in extreme heat conditions made that my feet were already blistered very early in the race. I also fell also early in the race, but luckily had only knee bleeding and grazing, but the pest about this was that for the rest of the race even when these sores were dried to scabs the flies were buzzing constantly around my knee! I got to the third check-point having to cross about 10km of dunes to the 60km just before nightfall.

Nightfall

At this check point there were many lodgers and all seemed in a very sick state. I was actually just fine apart from a few bad blisters. I ate up my food quickly and decided to move on to get away from the sick people (not to psyche me out) and try to cover as much ground as possible into the night as it was cooler. It turned out a very clear beautiful starry night. The course route was marked out with luminous batons, but because this section of the course also had other lights (lights from huts) this from time to time became a little confusing. I got frustrated when I realised that I should already be at the 4th control point and seemed to be lost. Also the visibility earlier in the night was fading. Finally I made my way back to some earlier luminous markings. I decided I would go about one more hour and if I did not get anywhere I would stop and sleep on the ground. I was lucky in that I found the 4th control point fairly quickly after that. At control point 4, I decided to give into some sleep and slept about 2 hours.

Sand storm

I reset off again in the early light of morning. All was well, but then suddenly a sand storm started up from nowhere, fortunately at this part of the race I had a partner who had tagged along with me (a mad religious freak who told me he was doing the race to represent the 40 days and 40 nights Jesus spent in the desert, he also ran with a leather hat and for some reason I could not get the Joe Cocker song "you can keep your hat on" out of my head).

We pursued through stinging sand coming at an oblique angle and somehow the sandstorm wind felt even hotter than without it. We finally made it to the half way mark 100km at about midday. We realised that we would not be able to restart out in those conditions so we ended up spending about 5 hours lying under a 4x4 truck, two other competitors (2 sisters, these sisters were equipped with everything under the sun from perfumed wipes to clean themselves to choices of food and spares of everything, when my camel backpack sprung a leak, hey presto they had another one to lend me) joined us at this stage and so we spent this frustrating time altogether under the truck.

It was so hot we were really cooking and with the wind and the sand it was very unpleasant (apparently I looked like a panda bear when I took my glasses off, rest of me caked in sand), totally impossible even to sleep which was a pity as we could not make use of the time to catch up on this.

On the move again

Eventually at the end of the afternoon, we were able to start out again. So once again, I set off in the late afternoon making headway into the night. The visibility of the second night also not ideal, as the sandy haze made the sky dark and the batons difficult to see, also with many dunes some of the batons behind the dunes, it was not so reassuring. When you light your lamp against a dune, it is like coming up against a barrier like a wall! I was never afraid out there alone in the night, except once I flashed my beam onto something and it turned out to be a dead dromedaries, so I cried out in fright and felt so silly. So I went all through the night and finally in early hours of next morning, I slept for one hour at a check point. I had covered about 52 km the second night in the dark and over many dunes.

At this stage of the race you have one thing now going through your mind and that is to push on and try and finish as quickly as possible. So you just plough ahead. There were beautiful landscapes at this stage which I don't think I will ever forget, climbing a long steep desert escarpment and seeing miles of dunes and incredible geological shaped mountains.

Final stage

The very last leg of the race was the hardest. It was on the Thursday afternoon and my back had totally seized up. I think the belt of my pack had gotton too tight as my tummy had swollen from the constant drinking and liquid foods and I had not thought to loosen it. So I got a big swollen muscle across my back and I was finding it very hard to keep in an upright position.

The last 8km were amongst villages and it seemed endless. I was having a real struggle to get to the finish line and kept having to stop even though I was at snail pace walking, to try and stretch myself and alleviate the pain. Fortunately, a large group of people joined up in the last 4km and encouraged me every step of the way. Among them men that had already finished, villagers, the race organisers, the staff from the Auberge and the race medical team. What a good feeling to finish that race.

First woman

I was the first woman, but the two sisters were not far behind. The only other fourth woman competitor had abandoned and of the four of us, she was the one I would have said looked the strongest! Of the 30 competitors, half abandoned due to the tough atmospheric conditions which is, apparently, very unusual to have such heat at this time of the year.

I recovered very quickly after the race and was up and in the shower about 25 mins after arrival, the next day my back swelling had gone down and no pain. The day after the race I actually felt fine, ended up joining a 4x4 trip to an oasis. We first climbed a monumental dune in the heat with the jeep and had tea at the top, then we went down into this oasis which was like out of a movie. You leave a wall of heat and walk into a sort of sensation of absolute paradisical freshness, the smell of water and sounds of water trickling over rocks and palms etc. Then there were pools of water with small little fish in for bathing. Blisters and all we all climbed in and floated in the pools for about one and a half hours. Very quickly though on leaving the oasis you are hot again. On Saturday evening evening we had a super folklore show and prize giving ritual with traditional dress and a feast of lamb offered. The whole village came for the occasion. Running in Mauritania as a women is extremely moving all the village children learn you name and the desert human telephone wires spread it far and wide, so that after the race I felt like a celebrity. For them it is very unusual to see a woman running and suffering from the effort at the end.

Consumption during the race

40 litres of water
9 Bolinos
12 soups
6 Hot chocolates
6 packets of crisps
An energy bar every hour

Cassandra's training tips for such an event

Running in the desert under extreme heat conditions, is not something you can simulate by running on a treadmill in a sauna for example. Coming from Winter in Paris the heat certainly is a big shock. However I was raised in South Africa and I think my body adjusts better than most Europeans to dry intense heat. I also don't transpire a lot. The desert terrain is also not something you can train for, unless you live near the beach. Soft snow is about the closest to soft sand. Also there are a lot of dunes you have to tackle and so I incorporated some stair running into my workouts which I think really helped to strengthen my legs. For this kind of race I think you have to be mentally very strong as well as fit, there is of course a very strong desire to quit when you have blister pain and patches where you feel sick or weak. I do all my running alone and so I am used to pushing myself, in this kind of race you have to like your own company a lot and keep self-talking real positive all the way!

Contacts for the Mauritanienne 200 Race

Next edition of the race to be held on 7 -14 March 2004

Internet : here

e-mail : jppmds@club-internet.fr

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