Day 3 of running

So, there I was on the start line staring down the barrel of nearly 60 miles across the Sahara with diarrhoea. Does immodium even work??? Insanity, but what were the options? Between the ears I felt great, I just had to make sure I did not dehydrate and keep moving forward. If I could do that glory awaited! Sure it was going to hurt more and take a lot longer than I had planned but hey, I was actually pretty at ease with the whole situation.

It was so inconvenient having to stop and shit every 30 minutes or so but mentally I felt fine. I would bump into familiar faces at CP's and most of them said I did not look great. Oddly I felt a little offended because mentally I felt fine. I had already started considering a decent rest after CP 4 though to make sure I was not pummeling myself into the ground too much. I cant be arsed to talk about the details of the route but if we got to CP4 (50km) within 16 hours we were quids in. CP 4 also blessed me with a pack of tissues from another runner who took pity on my request for toilet paper. Thank you.

The stage between 4 and 5 was pretty brutal, we got this monumental rock climb that required being on all fours at times and would of been hard on fresh legs in daylight. I found out the next day that someone had fallen and had to be helicoptered out. Ouch! After this climb they hit us with a really hard set of dunes, navigation was hard and I was dead pleased to have my super bright little torch. These Dunes went on forever and I mean forever. This was the time I asked myself some of those serious questions about how much you want to finish. I remember having a little sit down on one of the sand dunes and wondered if it was steep enough to slide down on my bum! It was, Hooray! With this little morale boost I pushed on. It was at this point an Austrian gent and me teamed up. It was obvious that all we could think about was the next checkpoint. My brain was constantly asking where is this FUCKING checkpoint. The Austrian gent with me was in his 60's and I was feeling too polite to swear in front of him. With thinly veiled desperation I said; 'where is this checkpoint'. He replied with; 'yeah where is this fucking checkpoint'. Perfect. I smiled to myself.

The dunes eventually ended and in the distance I could see CP5 (64.5km). I marched on but 10 metres before the line I had to drop my shorts again. Heartbreaking. Even worse I was running very low on toilet paper. It was too cold to be standing there bollock naked and trust me when you squat on feet after 16hours of walking/running they hurt. I mean really hurt. My feet literally felt like they were going to burst. It was yet another miserable few minutes.

After crossing the line I got my water and requested more. This incurred a time penalty but after the day I'd had I was hardly heading for a podium finish. Better that I avoided dehydration. CP5 gave me the best treat of the race, perhaps my life! A campfire!!!!! I sat next to that bad boy and took stock. It was 1.20am and I had been on the move since about 9am the previous morning. My feet were hurting and the balls of my feet def had something worrying going on. I boiled some water on the campfire and made a meal. I ate and dozed, ate and dozed. The heat from the fire was bliss. A little after 2am I got up and went to the medical tent for more immodium. I felt a little funny and had to concentrate, nope, still felt funny so walked back to my fire and rucksac and collapsed. Blackout baby!! The worrying thing was I was not sure if I had fallen on my bag or the fire. Genuinely scared for a second but my pretty face got to live on.

I layed in the dirt for a while with the wind blowing and wondered why I was not feeling cold. I was also hoping no one had noticed my faint. The medics might of pulled me out the race if they had noticed.

The faint was not an unpleasant sensation, it felt quite nice in a strange way and it made decisions quite easy. I had time to burn until the final cut off and 'only' two stages to go - best to rest and let my body find some kind of equilibrium again. I got my sleeping bag out and slept under the stars, every so often I would wake to see more sleeping bags had appeared around me. Naturally I had to get up and answer natures call a couple of times and within a minute of getting out of my sleeping bag I was shaking uncontrollably. It was cold but it meant my PHD Minimus sleeping bag was doing me proud!!!! In the morning light I remember watching sand blowing off the top of a Dune about a km away, it flowed off in a clear vortex and it looked amazing. I wont ever forget that.

Morning came and a vid camera was shoved in my face, I tried to look cool and relaxed, not sure what they wanted from me. Then Louise shouted my name out! Nice to see a familiar face. She had arrived at CP5 at around 4.30am! I would not of swapped places with her for all the tea in China! I was dead chuffed with my sleep!

I decided seeing Doc trotter about my feet made sense and joined the queue just as she went for Brekky and ended up waiting for an hour and finally got going at around 7am i think, or maybe 8?

The final two stages were hot and I was glad to finally hit the finish line at around 2.30pm in the afternoon. With tears in my eyes I hugged Angelique and Charlie at the finish line. Angelique smelt a lot better.