Jump to content
WitchHazel

Marathon des Sables

Recommended Posts

Proud stepmum alert

 

My amazing eldest stepson is running it this year.

 

He tried to run it many years ago, but had to withdraw because his feet were in shreds. It's always bothered him that he didn't complete it.

 

It's known as 'the roughest foot race on the planet' and involves running 25 km across the Sahara in temps up to 50 Celsius. The distance is six stages over 7 days (with one day being a double marathon requiring them to run day and nighr). Competitors he to carry all their food and equipment.

 

He's completed the first 3 stages, 113 km so far, and had averaged 6.3km per hour. This puts him well in the top 300 (of 1000 competitors)

 

Tomorrow is the 80 km section.

 

He is just amazing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello again

Yesterday was stage 4 - the toughest day so far, with competitors running 81km (50 miles), which required them to run through the day and part of the night. The top athletes expect to run for about 10 hours, and the back runners expect to take about 30 hours to do this. The elite runners start 2 and a half hours after everyone else, but usually still finish first.

 

There were 6 checkpoints in between the start and finish times, so it was a nailbiting day (and we're only watching progress). Long story short: My lovely stepson finished a little midnight GMT (1am). I had gone to bed, but his wif stayed up watching the webcam was rewarded by seeing him cross the line smiling.

 

His time for this stage was 15 hours 8 minutes. It looks like he remains in the mid 200th positon although the results aren't complete yet. 941 people started stage 4 (1029 peope started the race originally).

 

it's a rest day today.

 

The technology has been good, but erratic. WHen it works, it's been fantastic. When it doesn't, it's almost worse than not having any. The first time we had a tech fail, was early on. The tracking for a group of runners wasn't updating - we watched all these people passed the checkpoints, but not our chap. We were seriously worried that something had happened.

 

The second time, we sassumed that it had been a tech fail.

 

There's never enough info, lol.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.




×
×
  • Create New...