The journey to the desert

Usually I am most nervous when I have entered a race and I am starting my training. Usually these nerves reduce the closer I get to race day as my confidence around complete that event increases.

This was the same with the MDS as I ticked off the miles and my kit begun forming a pile on my bedroom floor. However, when I was sitting on a specially chartered plane at Gatwick surrounded by some of the toughest people I had clapped eyes on, my nerves came rushing out, almost out of every pore in my body. The nerves were palatable as I doubted my own credence to rub shoulders with these people. Was I really hardcore or was I just playing at the MDS?

These nerves only fully subsided when I took my first steps over the first days start line as, at that moment, I realised I wasn't playing at the MDS such that i felt that I could look my fellow competitors in the eyes as an equal.

As I commented on during a previous post, way before leaving for the desert, one of the reasons I enter these, mad, events is that 'drug' you get standing on the start line, questioning whether you will complete that event. It is during that sobering cold moments that you learn what you are made of. It is more intense than, what feels like, multiple years at home, at work or during education. 

In my opinion, you don't wake up one day mentally tough it is 'garnered' as a labour of love over many years of mini victories and defeats such that I knew that when I took my first step over that line that I would soldier on to the finish line, over whatever obstacles and challenges that lay ahead. 

Anyway, the specially chartered plan took just under four hours to arrive in Ouzazarte, a Moroccan town that relies on being the hub of local import and export; as well as tourism. The airport was similar to any small regional airport that you find in Spain or Greece, such that it took some people over two hours to get through immigration and be driven the ten minute transfer to our hotel: The Berber Palace.

Now if I ever return there as a tourist this Oasis-esq hotel would be brilliant, but most of us were too tortured and wracked with nerves to enjoy the five facilities on offer.

After dinner with my new found mates we all retreated to our rooms for a restless night sleep with someone who was a complete stranger only hours ago. Only on the MDS could you sleep in twin room with a stranger of the same sex and not feel sleazy. Not that I have done that in the real world. I promise...

We were instructed at dinner by our Reps to be up, bright eyed and busy tailed, the following day ready to depart for the first camp by eight am. We all were crusty eyed but everyone was up and ready for battle.

The journey to the start line consisted of a, circa, 5 hour coach ride through increasingly barren terrain being driven by a coach driver whose child ambition must of be to have been a rally driver later in life! We all departed the bus with queasy stomachs on arrival.

The two highlights of the coach journey was the excellent pack lunch provided by the organisers and the sight of nearly 300 men all relieving themselves at successive toilet breaks. The lowlight was Big Dunc falling off the coach atone of the said toilet beaks and scuppering his racing prospects before he'd even made one step.

When we arrived at our 'destination' we were presented with the sight of our first camp on the horizon as we well shepherded into army trucks to stomach the remaining 5-10k over dunes; terrain that we would have to run over only a few days hence.

Arrival into the camp came with the rush to get a good tent as the position of your tent in the camp was the same every night after you had completed that days run. As Mat, aka Radar,was on an  earlier bus he had already secured us our home for the next few days such that from that moment forward us eight were know as 'Tent 144'.

The next couple of days was spent alternating between getting used to 'living' in a tent, queuing for food, arguing with the other nationalities because they didn't queue for food and registration for the race.

Registration day was bittersweet. We were all relieved to rid ourself of the hold bags that would return back to the Berber Palace to be picked up on our arrival post race but we all wracked with nerves as we went through a succession of 'interrogations' about our kit and general health.

Poor Jo got the mucky end of the stick as the organisers had obviously researched all of us and recognised her as a threat to the reigning champion for 2012; who happened to be French...

Any how after three tumultuous days we woke on the morning of the 6th April from our sleep to the sound of the Berbers taking down tents and the silence of people preparing themselves for battle. The MDS was about to begin. Bring it on...

The next post will centre on stage one and then subsequent posts will centre on each successive stages until I conclude with a retrospective autopsy on what worked, what didn't and what I would improve if I ever, and trust be I won't, entered the MDS again.

TTFN...