Day 5....first day running!!!

woke at 5.30am and FELT SO DAM HAPPY!!!!!!

Got ready and was on the bus for 7am and at the start line area for 9.30am. Man it was cold hanging around the start but god it all felt good, chatting with official photographers and getting our first ration of water! This was real baby!!

The race started just after 10 and man it was awesome, hugging and kissing anyone and everyone, wishing new friends and strangers good luck, listening to Patricks speech, helicopter hovering overhead, race countdown 10, 9, 8, 7, 6.........2,1 GOOOOOOOOO!

We were off and the dunes were a couple k in the distance. God they were beautiful. Me and chaz ran together for all of day one and it was awesome. Few problems with the straps holding my roll mat on but Stocko did me proud and the adrenaline and smiles were still brimming over at the first checkpoint which signalled the end of the largest dunes in Morocco! We def ran from Checkpoint 1 to CP2 a bit tooo enthusiastically but what the hell it felt great! When we got to CP2 it was set amongst some beautiful ruins and the helicopter swooped low over us. AWESOME!!!!!

CP2 also gave us the funniest quote of the day. When taking a leak before setting off again Charlie, calmly delivered the following unforgettable line: "there is a fly on my peanus". We laughed. Alot. The next stage was a mix of kind of grassy hills followed by another Dune field which was smaller but even more stunning than the first. Happy days. Arrived at the finish line around 5 and a half hours after we had started.

More water rations and finally assigned to a tent. Tent 65! A couple of people tent mates were already back and one of them (Tim) had smashed the first day - he had been back ages! On a more worrying note, one of the people we had befriended Penny had gone down with salt depletion and was very ill - she was not overly interested in continuing the race. Yikes, felt really gutted for her.

Got some recovermax down me and got cooking. Managed to have two pouches before dinner and was in bed at 7.45. I have dreamed about laying under a desert sky for years and the night sky in the desert did not let me down!