Dawn broke on the last competitive stage of the event and for the first time I had the competitive butterflies in my stomach. My goal had been to make the finish line and give a good account of myself and now I felt certain I would achieve that so I turned to the rankings. Before the event I had been secretly hoping I might be able to get a top 250 finish but now on the morning of the final run I had a chance of a top 100 finish.
The air in the camp though was light and breezy, everyone was relieved to have completed the long stage and today after all was only 42km.
Once again the stage had two different start times. This time the top 200 athletes would depart 1 hour after the rest. I was sitting 99th so went to the early start to cheer my tent mates off before heading back to my tent - which by now was just a rug as the tent had been removed.
The start line had a different air to the preceding days with only 200 of us. I had decided that today I would empty the tank and try to hold on to that top 100 finish. The start was quick, straight into an area of small sand dunes. The route on the last day is generally supposed to be more track based than previous days to allow for faster marathons and after the early dunes I settled into my groove following the tracks. It wasn’t long before I caught up with the two camels signalling the back of the pack and Abdulkarim on his bare feet. Passing by the walking competitors was an absolute treat as without fail they would clap, cheer and encourage us as we passed. That is the spirit of MdS, solidarity. I even managed to have a little chat with Spiderman.
Despite the morning’s feeling that it was just a marathon I still managed to pace my effort which I was highly glad about as we reached some enormous dunes about two thirds of the way along after which the tracks came back but seemed to climb endlessly until we reach the top and an old lead mine. The dust underfoot turned black. Just the other side of the mine we could see down the hill in the distance the white archway of the finish line. A quick glance at my watch to clock that it was still 5km away but by now I could ‘smell the barn’ and bounded down the hill managing to avoid twisting an ankle on the football sized rocks strewn across the desert floor. I crossed the line finishing 101st for the stage and 102nd overall. Not quite the top 100 finish but I’ll take it.
Partick Bauer is there to hang the finishers medal around the necks of every finisher, then mint tea, another ice cold coke and chance to lie down in the tent and reflect on what had been a magical week.
The final stage, the untimed charity stage was all that was left. I walked the final stage through the Mazouga dunes with my tent mates before we all pilled on to coaches for the long journey back to Ouazazate - if I did it again I would buddy up and pay for a taxi - the 7.5 hour coach journey was easily the toughest endurance feat of the event.
Early in the week, thoughts of arriving at the hotel were all based around getting a cold beer, the reality though was that I just wanted a warm shower to get clean… then a cold beer.
Top Tips Number 5
My biggest take-away from the MdS occurred to me on stage 2. Running across a huge flat plateau with the wind in my face, staring at the area just in front of my feet. I looked up and was caught by surprise by the vast, magnificent beauty of the place that I was running. I looked around and had to pinch myself to prove it wasn’t a dream. I think this is a microcosm for many things in life where we are only focused on the next step and would benefit from looking up every once in a while at where we are and where we have been. So my biggest tip from Marathon Des Sables; Look up.
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