I've been inundated with calls this week from folk competing in this year's Marathon des Sables. With just 92 days to go 'til race day, it's not surprising. I must admit to being just as apprehensive myself following last year's 'blockbuster' edition and I'm getting to grips with the new rules and administration. It's also 25 years' since I first did the race, which I wrote about my first in my book 'A Rebel and a Runner' which can still be found on eBay and second-hand outlets. (I'm going to reprint very soon).
With that in mind for those going out for the first time, I thought I'd share Chapter Five and share how I saw it as a fresh faced 37-year-old, (with all the wrong kit) and hopefully you'll see how it's become etched into my DNA ever since.
There's nothing better than being challenged, broken, reconstructed and having the time of your life in my book...Anyway here it is...
CHAPTER FIVE – The Marathon des Sables - Highway to Hell – AC/DC 1979
If ever a race had a song that described it, the Aussie Rockers did just the job for the Marathon des Sables. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve sung along to this classic in the start pen of the MdS while Race Director, Patrick Bauer, sang along in Franglais, ‘Ighway to ‘Ell.’ I laugh every time it’s played as it’s so heartily sung along to before people are literally taken to hell and back. It was the last album featuring lead singer Bon Scott who died in 1980 from consuming too much alcohol. This seems quite poignant. It's possibly the best of all of the AC/DC anthems helped along by a huge dose of magic by Music Producer Robert ‘Mutt’ Lange.
Back in 1999, the Marathon des Sables was still a well-kept secret in the running community. I’d read about Chris Moon MBE, a former soldier who very unfortunately became a lower-leg amputee in 1995 when he was blown up by a land mine in Mozambique. In 1997, just two years after this tragic incident, he ran the MdS with an artificial leg. He was, and still is, such an inspirational guy and in many ways is the original figurehead for Help for Heroes. He's certainly the guy that most land mine amputees looked up to for guidance.
In 1998, after reading about Chris' incredible efforts at the MdS (and realising that we were actually the same age), one of my friends completed the race. I thought, ‘That looks INCREDIBLE!’ Not long afterwards, I was further bolstered by a sports programme I was watching on TV called Trans World Sport. It’s shown on Channel 4 on Saturday mornings and always shows highlights from bizarre sporting events around the globe - the MdS just happened to be featured! I thought, ‘I need to do that. I’M IN!'
By this stage I was a seasoned marathon runner having completed over 100 marathons in the previous year alone. Some of these had been very gruelling indeed, so I knew that I was suitably committed to the task ahead. I often returned from races completely wiped out – I raced hard seeking that euphoria of setting a new PB. Tough and mucky trail runs have always been my favourite - those two magic ingredients that both make you incredibly fit and also make you realise how fit you are.
There was just one tiny problem - I knew nothing about what running this race entailed… absolutely nothing at all. I thought, ‘Hey, it'll just be like running on the beach at Clacton-on-Sea, only a lot hotter.’ I’d run marathons in the height of the UK summer which hadn’t killed me yet, but not in the overwhelming heat of the Sahara.
Still, I was very much up for the challenge. So, in my innocence, I went and bought a giant rucksack from my local outdoor camping shop and filled it to the brim with all the different kinds of food I reckoned I'd need together with an assortment of pots and a huge cooking stove. Then I thought, ‘I'll also go in fancy dress, why not?’ After all, I'd run a few marathons in fancy dress up to this point with Big Dave - mainly the big city ones like London and New York. We’d had a complete ball – both of our outfits were made entirely from Union Jack material by my wife’s sister who was a seamstress by trade - mine was a top hat and tails whereas Dave was a jester. So for the MdS, I thought I’d wear a lightweight desert version of that and jazz it up by carrying an eight foot pole with a massive Union Jack flag hoisted on the top. I felt sure it was in my range and was pretty gung-ho about doing it, because I was only 37 years old at the time, and super-fit. Armed with my costume and enough kit to break Buckaroo’s back I headed to the airport.
I boarded the plane at Gatwick which was full to the brim with MdS participants. Our destination was Ouarzazate in Morocco, so for the next few hours there was a whole new crowd of people to talk to and find out what kind of running they'd done to prepare for the event. It meant I could ascertain whether they were more out of their comfort zone than I was and also gave me an opportunity to find seven other people to live with for the week. Eight people live together in a large open-sided Berber tent in a large circular chorale. It was like picking a football team back at primary school - joining up with people you liked the look of, assessing whether you could live with them.
The people I ended up sharing a tent with were amazing. I was with three Cambridge rowers who'd raced in the famous university boat race. There was a printer from Yorkshire who was of a very similar age to me and in a similar kind of lifeboat to me as he was divorced with three kids. Interestingly, there was also a lady married to a Greek businessman who said she was only doing the MdS to prove to him that she could do it. She was super-tough and carried on even though she’d broken a bone in her foot early in the race. The way people rebel against the negativity others bestow on them still fascinates me to this day. She smashed it and proved him wrong all the way to the finish!
So imagine the scene. It’s the day before the race start and we're all sat in our tent chatting, wondering what to do with all this kit and food and all these energy powders we've brought with us… wondering what we should and shouldn't take. Then it dawned on me, ‘Hold on, I'm carrying 13 kilos of equipment!’ These days I take half that weight but it was my first MdS - I had no idea what to expect or what I'd need. This would be my baptism of fire.
And boy did I learn the hard way. Back then I didn't wear any sand gaiters - something everyone at the race now wears. This meant that every 400 yards in the dunes I’d have to take off my shoes to tip out the sand. I soon became desensitised to running with shoes full of sand and the distances between the tip outs got longer as the race went on. Nonetheless, I repeated this over and over again for 150 miles of the race which was totally tedious!
When I say I ran it, I really mean it: I ran that race! It was so liberating. As races go, it was a total revelation. My world at that moment changed from black and white to 4K colour vision. It was the same feeling I experienced when I saw a man land on the moon at the age of seven. The incredible desert landscape, the boiling temperatures, the way it stripped you down to your very core – it completely blew my mind. It didn't matter who you were, how much money you had or what you did for a living - you were completely stripped bare, turned inside out and turned back again. All you had to do was get from A to B… and survive! I’d found my place in the world.
After each day's running I’d head straight back to my tent - the people I was living with turned out to be even better than I'd first thought. They were lovely people who were just like me - they were positive, can-do people and they were there because they wanted to be there. We didn’t get to know the other tents at all. It was just me and my tent buddies. These seven people became my support mechanism for the week - we shared a special ‘Dunkirk Spirit’. There were foot problems in our tent too. One of the Cambridge rowers completely trashed his feet and they ballooned to the point where he couldn't even get them into his shoes on the last day. To add insult to injury, on the last morning one of the guys accidentally trod on his toes. The moment it happened his head practically went through the roof of the tent - he was in pure agony. That was just one of many typical moments that we experienced together in the tent and of course all but two of us split our sides laughing.
I also got to massage my ego a little bit while I was out there as ITV were making a documentary about the race. So as well as me having an amazing life experience, I even got to do my show pony bit in front of the cameras. They kept coming up to me and asking, ‘So how's it going?’ expecting to hear tales of woe and I'd just say, ‘This is great, I'm loving it. It's fantastic!’
Remember this was my Christmas Day. I was living my very own heroic adventure out there. This was how the New Rory - the non-smoker, non-drinker – wanted to get his kicks. I was doing exactly what I wanted to do at that very moment in time. It was phenomenal. It made me reflect on how much I despised my old group of friends that enabled and encouraged me to go drinking with them. Out here I was free. I was also making it up as I went along which felt great as it was so spontaneous.
That’s not to say there aren’t a number of rules you must abide by whilst taking part in the race. For instance you have to carry 2,000 calories/day of food provisions – that’s a whopping 14,000 calories of food you need to carry on Day One which means you have to be clever and carry very lightweight, energy-rich provisions. There’s also a certain amount of compulsory kit you have to carry such as your sleeping bag (temperatures drop considerably during the night), a distress flare (in case you're just that – distressed) and, crucially, an anti-venom pump in case you're stung out there by a scorpion or spider so you can self-administer first aid until you get proper medical help.
In addition to the compulsory kit there are other things you might want to take such as a camera or a mobile. You have to weigh up all of these considerations very carefully during your race preparation. Over time I’ve managed to reduce my pack weight down to the minimum 6.5kg allowance but it takes experimentation and practice.
On top of that you've got to think about your running kit - what will you wear whilst crossing the desert? For me the decision was simple - everyone else seemed to compete in their regular running gear so I wanted to stand out from the crowd wearing my Union Jack outfit complete with flag. This added that extra stamp of toughness to my own personal race… gave it that extra oomph.
What I was thinking taking that massive cooking pot I'll never know. It was like something a character out of Blazing Saddles might use. Then of course there was the large cooker I took with huge blocks of hexamine – not only was it superfluous to requirements but, these days, it's considered so dangerous you're not even allowed to take something like that on the plane! Likewise, taking that eight foot pole with the Union Jack flag on top wasn't one of my better decisions, but it was one of my most fun - out of all of the 600 people competing at the MdS that year, I was the one that got noticed - and noticed to such an extent that to this day the organisers still refer to me as the nickname I was given that first year: 'The British Bulldog'. Even now the organisers say, 'Ah. Bonjour, Bulldog!’
Nothing can prepare you for the heat once you're out there running. The running distances at the MdS are generally broken down into four marathons over four days, with one 50-miler and then a shorter stage to finish. So for the day of the 50-miler, I ran half of it alongside a guy called Charlie who owned a milk farm in Sussex. He was running wearing a hat adorned with horns as a way of highlighting the Milk Marketing Board who’d sponsored him, and there was I in my Union Jack outfit. It was great just the two of us bounding along… until the sun set and we moved into the night section of the race. That was when it became a real physical and psychological test. In the dark you have no idea where you're going because all you can see is a disc of light on the floor from your head-torch. In reality you have no idea whatsoever where you are.
The experience of covering all this ground in the dark was bizarre. You relied on people manning the checkpoints to tell you how far you’d run, ‘You're at 50 kilometres,’ or even better, ‘Welcome to 60 kilometres - keep going!’ In the dark it feels endless - it's pitch black apart from other runners’ torchlights and the lights you can see as you approach each checkpoint. The lights aren’t always helpful – on the contrary they can be very misleading. You glimpse the lights and think, ‘I'm nearly there!’ An hour and a half later you're still going, ‘I'm still nearly there, only it's not getting any fucking closer!’
The night section is part of the ‘Black Magic’ of the MdS though. Every 500 metres there's a glow stick attached to a post or a rock. The latter checkpoints actually shine a green laser along the route to the finish line which bends with the stratosphere. It's a real spectacle. One year, the moon was so bright that the whole deserted landscape in front of me was illuminated - there was a surreal bright lunar ‘daylight’. I was running on my own so I turned off my head-torch and my only focus was the crunch-crunch-crunch of the gravelly sand beneath my feet. I was completely alone following the laser and felt totally at peace with the world. It was just me, running at ease, at ease with my life, at ease with the world, following the laser and following the markers. I had found my special place and moment in time. Ouarzazate, Merzouga, Tazzarine. These places in the Sahara Desert may mean nothing to most people - but to me they're the most special places on earth.
Meanwhile back in Charlie World, his sunburn was really beginning to get to him. He'd gotten severely sunburnt on the back of his legs during the day section so a medic had wrapped them up like a mummy, all the way from his ankles to his groin. Throw in the fact that he was also beginning to get very dehydrated and the stuff he started coming out with after about 26 miles was really very strange indeed. At one point he was talking about his death… I just thought, ‘Well, we're going at about the same speed and he'll do as a companion to get through this section.’ This might sound a bit callous, but back then we didn't have iPods to keep us going. In 1999 we still relied on CD Discmans and as they weren’t an option, we all used each other to provide some form of entertainment.
My tent-mates, for example, all had a very diverse range of jobs which I learnt about. One guy was a computer expert; another was a lawyer whose main client was the British Government. I felt like I was a planet discovering all the other planets like me in our shared solar system. It was great to finally discover that there were other like-minded people, and here we all were together experiencing this adventure in the desert.
The MdS is always full of memorable characters. That year, there was a blind guy called Miles Hilton-Barber who spent the whole race climbing sand dunes and huge jebels with his guide, Steve Cook. It was amazing to witness. Steve would direct him over the sand and the mountains telling him exactly where he should tread and how fast he should run saying, ‘Go up, go right, go left, go slow, mind that rock!’ He had Miles on a leash like a dog for the entire race. Miles got the credit for completing the race, Steve got my credit for his selflessness as he had to manage everything for Miles 24/7 for the entire race.
Equally as extraordinary is Patrick Bauer, the Race Director. In the world of ultra-running he is simply God. He’s a former French legionnaire who dreamt up the race and still directs it to this day. The MdS is his passion – even nowadays when there are 1,200 or more participants he always picks me out, says, ‘Bonjour Rory!’ and gives me a big bear hug and cheek-kisses like old friends do. Maybe part of my affection towards Patrick is based on gratitude. In my mind, it's like he created the race for me because it's given me the best personal and emotional moments of my life so far.
Maybe that’s another aspect of the MdS which I treasure – the bond you develop with all the other characters out there who are experiencing the same things as you – the exhaustion, the feeling of accomplishment, the lows and the highs. Then there’s the lack of facilities out there - you can't shower and you have a limited amount of water. The first time I completed the MdS, water was capped at 13.5 litres/day per runner. There were days when actually I didn't pee much at all because my body was trying to hold onto as much water as possible - I was totally dehydrated. The fact that I was also running in a cotton t-shirt didn't help and neither did the sub-par socks I was wearing. I had to customise my Union Jack Suit and Tails on the run too by taking off the buttons at the back with a penknife – they were beginning to rub my back under my heavy rucksack. That was what made the MdS special - making all these mistakes and then not even being able to brush your teeth, take a shower or have a shave in the desert. This was my apprenticeship. I loved learning on the hoof. I've never failed to get to the end of any race and that was my mentality back then. Throw me in at the deep end and I’ll finish, I knew that.
Other runners out there that year weren't as open-minded as me - particularly when it came to one guy's snoring. His tent-mates said it was like sleeping next to a diesel generator and got so frustrated that they took all of his belongings and dumped them half a mile out in the desert. In fairness I had heard his snoring and it did sound like someone was doing some late night hoovering. It’s a common problem out there – for some reason the snorers always seem to go to sleep first, so I’m told.
There's no question that spending all that time out in the desert has helped me to make my mind clearer. During those long, hot days of running I’ve realised that actually the things we cherish the most don’t have a monetary value. I’ve learnt that money isn't important. I’ve learnt that my job isn't important, that possessions aren't important. You realise that people are important, as are relationships. It's thoughts like these that make the MdS my spiritual retreat.
Those 12 days at my first MdS gave me clarity. That’s what makes me want to keep going back - to recapture that same feeling. I always say that people who do the race are either running towards something or they're running away from it. At my first MdS I was in the throes of going through a divorce from my first wife. It eventually led to me quitting my job which may have been highly paid but didn’t give me satisfaction anymore. That's probably why I put so much into my first MdS. Other parts of my life were falling apart so I put more effort into the parts that weren't. The collapse of my marriage actually turned me into a better runner because when you’re in a tough situation, going for a run makes you feel a whole lot better about yourself. By running across the desert and setting multiple running world records, as I did in that year before my first MdS, I was succeeding at something amidst some very dark times.
The MdS has had such a profound effect on me. It does every year yet when I’m back in the UK post event it feels like it was all a dream. I always get that strange feeling that the MdS is an imaginary world like the Enid Blyton story, The Faraway Tree. In this story lands revolve around a tree and the children go to different lands for different adventures. I'm here, right now, at my home in Cardiff, but how do I know Ouarzazate is still there? Is the desert still there when I’m here? Have I really done the MdS? It's like running but also it's like having been part of a fantasy too. Even now, when I watch videos of the race finish on YouTube for example, it strikes me profoundly, like, ‘Gosh, there I am!’ It's hard for me to explain that outer body worldliness that the MdS makes me feel, but it's also hard to grasp that it really exists. That's how surreal it is to run across sand dunes in brilliant moonlight with seemingly no-one else in the world.
Reaching the end of the race is also like an experience from another world. We ran into the town square of a place called Erfoud that year but no matter where the MdS finishes, the experience is always the same. You have your own euphoric moment as you cross the finish line and then you watch all the other competitors come in - it is unlike any other marathon finish imaginable. The finish at the London Marathon is great but the finish at the MdS is electric, literally. You can literally hold your hands up and feel the electricity; it makes my palms feel really hot. It is magical. Even describing it now makes me so emotional I feel like I'm going to well up at any moment. Every day of my working life clients say to me, ‘Yes, but at the end, what's it like?’ and I can try to describe it but it's like describing colour to a blind man. You have to see it for yourself. How hot is it? If you've got a fan oven, turn it up to 200° then open the door. It's unbelievably hot. How steep is it? Imagine climbing Mount Snowdon in Wales at over 1,000 metres, then imagine doing it three times whilst trying to cover 50 miles in one day carrying a 6kg rucksack. It's intense. And that’s why I love it.
The first time I completed the MdS I found it very difficult to return home. I’d just been to the best party in the world and was coming home to… I don't know what. This is the state of mind I now refer to as ‘Post-Traumatic Race Disorder’. Email was in its very early days back in 1999. It was a time when people used it more often than not just to send jokes. It was particularly thought-provoking, therefore, when one of the participants emailed all his fellow British competitors saying simply, ‘Work is Shit.’ Even more so when everyone replied in complete agreement. I felt the same.
I spent a month with my feet up on the desk. I didn't want to be back in the real world at all. I just wanted to be back in the desert. There was something deeper about being over there, something more real and far more spiritual. Back in the UK in my desk job world I had so many problems and concerns - my wife, the kids, money, everything it seemed. When I was in the desert it was all about running from A to B - all you needed was shelter at night plus enough water and food to keep you going. They were the only things you needed. Then you return home and… Whoomp! You collide with a massive wall of issues. I had to beaver away at things that no longer excited me and I had a real downer. I really missed the desert.
At work there were clients to deal with, at home there was maintenance to do as I’d been away. I remember I had to mow my garden lawn. Looking at it, I just stood there and thought, ‘Why am I so keen to put stripes on it each time and make it look perfect?’ That bemused me.
At lunchtime, I'd usually head across the busy High Street to Marks and Spencer but this time I thought, ‘Why am I pressing this button to cross?’ I stood and stared at it for ages then went back to work. That night I went shopping at the local supermarket, filled the trolley as usual but then froze in one of the aisles and just left it all there and went home. In Morocco, life was so much simpler. I had massive Post-Traumatic Race Disorder.
I'd returned from something totally unique and sublime and descended into a period of mourning. I needed a new challenge to give that same scintillating feeling of the MdS. I needed to run hard. I needed to push myself to the limit again. I needed an event that would test me… push me to the very upper echelons of my own limits. I needed to run on more sand.
1,174 Marathons - 276 Ultras - 16 Marathon des Sables - 9 Guinness World Records
