Stage 1: Highway to Hell

Sunday 6th April 2014

Ouest Erg Chebbi / Erg Znaigui - 34 Km
Allowed Time: 10 hours

"Living easy, living free, season ticket on a one-way ride. Asking nothing, leave me be, taking everything in my stride. Don't need reason, don't need rhyme, ain't nothing I would rather do. Going down, party time, my friends are gonna be there too...I'm on the highway to hell, highway to hell..."

And with ACDC ringing in our ears from the speakers, we set off on the 29th MDS, our MDS.

It had been a busy morning. First I woke to the realisation that in a few hours I would be running through probably the most difficult terrain and temperatures I had ever experienced. Secondly, I had to 'cook' (rehydrate) my granola and raspberry breakfast and thirdly had to repack my kit away inside my backpack. All of this and I had to fill a 'sac-a-caca' before the start. There was a lot to do.

Around 6am each morning, the Berbers (the Moroccan staff who are responsible for the camp) begin to take down the bivouac, whether you are up or not. They are happy to remove your tent whilst you are eating or packing under them and do so without making a fuss exposing you to the morning sun in the desert. We had been up since around 5.30am. My granola was just about edible and I just about managed to finish it. I was not sure how I was going to eat any more of it in the days to come.

After a quick visit to the 'sac-a-caca' filling station and a rousing team huddle ending with "may the odds ever be in our favour " (thanks Anj!), we headed down to the start line. I was feeling a mix of emotions - excitement, nervousness, trepidation, anticipation - but tried to keep my game face on. Before I knew it we were ushered in to a large '29' so that the helicopter could take an aerial shot before the start.



The Competitors Forming A Giant 29 To Symbolise The 2014 MDS (I Am Near The Top Of The 9)

Patrick Bauer gave us our race briefing for the day's stage, outlining the terrain and how much water you received at each check point. His briefings, it was beginning to become apparent, would be far from brief and I had pity for the poor translator, who would sometimes have to wait a couple of minutes before actually being allowed to speak. How she remembered what she was translating is beyond me.

The key thing to note from this was there was a 10 hour cut off for competitors. How the Asian man dressed as a cow was going to complete it in that time with that heat was beyond me. There was also a 16 year old (yes 16) from Texas racing with her parents. What were they thinking?

Team Eire Before The Off

At this stage I was a ball of nervous energy and just wanted to go. Then came the countdown, the volume turned up, ACDC blaring and before I knew it we were off! "I'm on the highway to hell" blasting through the speakers as we crossed under the start line. The tune was particularly apt for one competitor, Ted Jackson, who had the fortune (as he would see it) to be given 666 as his race number. Ted, as you can see from below, took the bull by both horns (ha!) and went all out in his race gear. He had already appeared on Al Jazeera (UK) that morning from the bivouac.

Meet Ted - The MDS Devil

The first 3km were over  hard gravels, a nice way to warm up. That's where the fun ended though, as the Erg Chebbi Dunes came closer and closer and then suddenly we were on it - the soft sand, with miles of it to go. 

10 Minutes Into The 29th MDS - Erg Chebbi Dunes Approaching Fast

For the average athlete like myself, there's not a lot you can do in the dunes. Running is not only difficult but in many cases pointless and so it becomes a trudge, following in footsteps of others. Up and down we went, slipping and sliding and trying to push on. You could really only run the downhill sections and they seemed few and far between. On top of that, you had to ensure you were drinking and taking your salt.

For me I ended up walking with Niall Murphy (see previous post) and we continued our discussions on people we both knew, GAA (my limited knowledge being exposed), UCC, living in London and of course school stories. This was a major help in passing the time during the slog. 

Early Days In The Dunes (Hence The Big Smile!)

The dune section seemed to drag on and I was faced with having to deal with no water remaining in my bottle, when Checkpoint (CP) 1 came into view. Oddly though, we arrived at it from the side, rather than front on and immediately I knew we had taken a wrong turn in the dunes. We would later find out we had added 2km onto the stage and the temperatures were touching 47 degrees. "All I did was follow the guy in front of me" I thought, "surely they were following the leaders and I was following them". My assumption was correct but the leaders have their own way of doing things. Learn the lesson - don't expect anything.

CP1 was a welcome sight all the same - 2 x 1.5L bottles allowed me to fill my two front bottles (one containing water, the other had a High5 Zero tablet in for electrolytes), pour some over my head and drink what was left. Some of those I was walking with decided to stop for a short period of time and rest. My thinking was simple - keep going, even if you have to go easy for a little bit and get your rest in at the end of the day - the sooner I was home, the more rest I would get. It served me well.

I took off from CP1 jogging slowly. I shortly encountered the first of many 'oueds' I would see for the week. An oued is a dry river bed and nearly all of them were wide, very sandy and difficult to run in. Because of this, I was left with no option other than to power walk my way through it and try to find as much solid ground as I could to run on. 

After 20 minutes, Ann Marie came storming through, powering her way along the oued. She offered words of encouragement, I smiled and told her to push on - she did. Not long after a small group came past - it was Anj and Sian from my tent, along with a gaggle of Irish, including Paul, Eoin and Daniel (he of the tricolour and English flag in his hair). They were doing 5 minute intervals of running and walking. More encouragement led to more smiling.

After 6km of this, I finally hit hard ground. The trail led through a stony plateau toward the abandoned mining town of M'Fiss before a short descent to CP2. After the oued, I was pleased to be able to actually run for the first time in over 4 hours.

It was at this point that I experienced my first of what would be many emotional moments throughout the week. I was running a 1 minute on/1 minute off strategy and I caught up with a Frenchman, with whom I traded positions for a while as when I was 'off' he was 'on' and vice-versa. Attached to his backpack was an A4-sized poster with a  picture of a man who I assume was his friend or brother with the words "For Fabrice". I am not 100% sure if it was Fabrice or Patrice or Patrick (I really should have remembered given the fact that we would pass each other on most days of the race), but I thought what a great gesture this was as I passed him again. A few minutes later he came back and went ahead. As he passed, I could see the effort he was putting in was huge and he had an intense look of determination across his face. It made me think of some lost friends, particularly my friend Elmer (see earlier blog posts), and the tears started rolling down my face. It was a memorable and positive moment and it served to raise motivation and helped me to push on and start running again. 

I managed to catch up with the 5 minute on/5 minute off group and left CP2 with most of them, tears long gone at this stage. This left a couple of hilly climbs and descents before entry into another oued and a 3km section of dunes (you can imagine my smile at that stage). All I wanted to do was finish the stage as quickly as possible, so I ran the sections that were hard under foot and power walked the sections I couldn't. 

Daniel and I managed to reach the dune section together and we both put our head down and powered on. Tiredness was creeping in for both of us - at one stage we came to a narrow section of dunes to which I slowed down and gestured to Daniel that he could go ahead . "I can't" says Daniel! I was feeling the same way too.

With 2km to go, we came across our first victim of the heat - a competitor was lying in the shadow of an organiser's jeep and he seemed in a bad way. As we rounded another dune about 500m further on, the same scene, this time with 2 competitors down receiving attention. The medic looked at me and asked if I was ok, I smiled again and nodded - smiling was difficult at that point but we were almost home.

As we rounded the final dune, the finish came into sight and both Daniel and I marched our way in, joined by Paul at the finish line. Tired, hot, salty and uncomfortable - that's how I would describe myself and all I wanted to do was get my water and find my tent. As I was walking to get the water, I was horrified to be hauled aside for a bag check. Just what I needed. They had actually asked Daniel, but I made the mistake of sitting down first, meaning they only wanted to check my bag.

Poor Thierry - the pleasant grey-haired Frenchman who had the unenviable task of taking me through the bag check - I felt sorry for him in some ways but also wanted to punch him in the face at the same time. To his credit, he apologised and said he understood and made the ordeal as straightforward as possible. 25 minutes later and with my food being carried in a box and my gear falling all around me, I was helped back to Tent 140 by one of the volunteers.  

Ian and Patrick were already back and I took on some water and lay down to rest with my feet up on my bag. It felt good until I began to think about the following day. This was broken by the cheeriness of Anj as she arrived back to the tent like Mary Poppins. "Time to get some food in boys, this is the golden hour"! We all know about the golden hour, eating within 60 minutes of finishing an endurance event but I pretended not to hear and told her I was not interested in a 'golden shower'. Ah the laughter...

Anj had once trialled to be a contender on Gladiators (the Saturday evening family show, not the adult movie Glad-I-Ate-Her) and had kicked and beaten her way through all the physical challenges but lost out on the tv interview as she didn't have an underdog back-story. She certainly had the can-do attitude, which was infectious when she got going.   

I was in no mood to dig out my stove, fuel tablets, lighter and pot so I went old school. I poured coldish water onto my Chicken Tikka and Patrick threw it up on the roof to warm in the sun. I managed to remove my gaiters, shoes, socks and calf guards and had a chat about the stage to the tent-mates. We were all a little annoyed about the additional 2km we had covered and we agreed it had been a tad hot. We did not find out until later that it had been 47 degrees.

To add to my woes, I added too much water to my dinner, so I made Chicken Tikka soup. I cut the end of one of my empty bottles to use as a bowl and devoured my soup followed by a few nuts. Alex and Rich also arrived back in good spirits, forcing me to minimise the space I was using in the tent and give poor Alex some space. This was a common occurrence when Alex would arrive back tired and I would be sprawled out across his sleeping area.

So for Stage 1 it was 7 out, 7 in for Tent 140. We knew we were fortunate and that for some, making the start line for Day 2 of the 29th MDS would be impossible. Anj and Sian had stopped to see if they could help one of the guys who we passed on the way in receiving treatment, things were not good and it made me wonder just how many more were out there in similar states. The organisers admitted that it had been one of the toughest opening stages they had ever put on, but that's what we had come for.

That evening I managed to send an email from the email tent (1 email to 1 email address only!) after a short queue and we received our emails to the tent. It was great to get some encouragement from back home and lifted the spirits after a long first day. 

A quick check of the day's results and I finished in 519th. Happy enough. Patrick (39) and Ian (48) were the tent speedsters, both in the top 200, with Patrick bringing it home first for the day. Not bad for auld lads!

All that was left to do was a quick inspection of the feet - a couple of small blisters, but nothing to write home about (or put in a blog), a change of top and get ready to sleep. It was out with my cut-in-half toothbrush (saved 7gs!) and my mini toothpaste before a quick glance of the Road Book for Stage 2, a 41km stage including our first ascent of a jebel (high sandy mountain pass). Another deep breath and off to sleep. Little did I know what was coming...

Road Book for Stage 1:

Maximum authorised time : 10.00
Km 0 : Go E/SE (course 117°) until km 3.
Km 2,2 : Pass through a small valley.
Km 3 : Enter dunes of Chebbi Erg. Take course 127° up to CP1.
Km 15 : CP1 at exit of dunes. Roughly follow oued to avoid vegetation.
General direction South (191°) up to km 21. Sandy with small dunes and camel grass.
Km 21 : Leave oued. Fairly stony, uneven plateau up to km 25. Go South (184°) until km 24.2.
Km 24,2 : Enter old village of M’Fiss. Rocky climb up to mines.
Km 25,8 : CP2 800 m after mines. Go South and cross a fairly hilly terrain to reach sandy passage in a jebel.
Km 27,2 : Sandy passage in jebel. Go S/SE (153°) to cross a stony valley and go up a small gorge.
Km 28,1 : Summit of small gorge, turn E/SE (126°) and cross a stony plateau.
Km 28,8 : Follow Roub’in Oud Oued, which descends the small gorge.
Km 30,2 : End of sandy oued.
Km 31 : Enter dunes of Znaïgui Erg. Go 134° (S/E) until bivouac.
Km 34 : B1 finish line.