Unique Features

Walking

You are very likely to spend a fair bit of your time walking (even last year’s winner, Alicja Barahona, did a bit and she finished in 63 hours). At the very least a combination of walking and running is good because it varies the considerable repetitive stress on your legs. It is probably a good idea to train by walking as well as running. It’s worth bearing in mind that a number of runners end up with tendonitis because of the unaccustomed stresses caused by walking.

Medical

It is important to keep the lid on preventable medical problems, both the obvious one such as blisters but also your hydration. Staying hydrated is not just a matter of water intake. It is vital to maintain your electrolyte balance in the desert heat, otherwise you will go down with cramps and vomiting. You need to find an isotonic powder that you are happy with and use it liberally. You may also want to supplement your intake with salt tablets, though this is a matter of personal choice.

In an event as long as this it is important to eat. You are likely to be out there for between three and five days and expending enormous amounts of energy, but you may well lose your appetite. It is important to keep up the intake.

You should also be aware that using anti-inflammatory drugs and painkillers when you are severely dehydrated can lead to kidney and liver damage.

Sleep

In some ways this is the most vital and strangest one of them all. Unexpectedly (to anyone who has not raced a long, non-stop event), it is perfectly possible to continue on a race like this on extremely little sleep. Trans 333 2000 winner Claude Hardel slept for 3 hours in 62 and in 2001 Alicja Barahona slept for just two in 63.

There are two sides to the issue. The first is the ‘sleep monster’, the undefiable need to fall asleep, to lie down and doze, literally wherever you are, which usually strikes within the first 48 hours and then reappears repeatedly, particularly at night. It can be dealt with (obviously) by the act of falling asleep. The unexpected thing is that even ten minutes of sleep at this stage is enough to get rid of the sleep monster for next few hours. You may not feel like getting up again so soon (ten minutes is also enough to stiffen up), but after moving again for a few minutes you will find that you feel (relatively) normal.

The other side is gradually increasing exhaustion, for which you do need to sleep more (and which will definitely make you want to sleep more). And remember the slower you are going the more time you are out there and the more exhausted you will become (in this at least, it is easier at the front). As the race is a maximum of five days this only just comes into play. Perhaps allow yourself up to three hours asleep in the latter stages. It will still be hard getting up of course, but you should try to stick with it or you might find yourself bumping the maximum time limit. Unless you are confident that you can keep moving very fast when you are out on the course (8-10km/hour, which is faster than a walk), you should probably not reckon on sleeping more than 10 or 12 hours in a 100 hour time.