News from Nick - Set up day and Stage 1

An email from Nick sent Sunday evening:
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Yesterday (Saturday) was a lot of getting kit ready and a final inspection and deciding what should be sent back to the hotel. My inspection went smoothly and I was given the all clear and weighing in with 10kgs! After that foll0wed a sandstorm which was pretty nasty especially blowing through the tent. Today (Sunday) we ran 31kms including 14ks through beautiful dunes. Then we hit the open flats which was v.v hot. Ben and I kept pushing each other to drink and take salt which seemed to work. The last stage took us back through dunes,which was tough back to the bivouac, we finished in 6hrs45mins. We were v happy with the time and just demolished a spag bol! We're feeling good and I only have 1 small blister but the gators have lost their stick, so off to do some repairs now and enjoy a choccie mousse and a good sleep hopefully.
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...go!

A photo from the official MDS website of the dramatic scenery surrounding the start this morning (they're in there somewhere...) :

On your marks... get set....

It seems like an eternity since Nick and Ben 2 years ago first thought this adventure would be a good idea, and just as long since we have known a weekend without running silly distances, so it is with great anticipation and excitement they are very nearly starting the race! All seems to have gone well with the Check-in day and they are now ready to go (...although I think Nick at least has been itching to start for a few weeks now).


It looks like the base camp has been situated a few km north of Merzouga, close to the famous Erg Chebbi dunes. These dunes are the first obstacle that they will have to face on stage 1, which will be a tough test, but at least they will have fresh legs to tackle them. Tomorrows stage is 31.6 km in total ending at another very much smaller set of dunes. This is a photo from the official MdS website of where they have been staying for the last 2 days -what an awesome view with the Erg Chebbi in the background!


You can check out the route for the 1st stage tomorrow here, along with links to some photos from todays Check-in day and press release.

Claire

Chicken Tikka Anyone?

With only 5 weeks to go, we have nearly all the equipment but the one issue that isn't completely resolved is the food!

For the past week at lunch I have been trying a variety of freeze dried meals from Expedition Foods. So far I have tried the Chicken Korma, Chicken Tikka, Chilli Con Carne and the Tuna Pasta. The first three were really good and I will be taking these but the Tuna Pasta seemed like 80% sweetcorn, so this one is definitely off the menu!

Their freeze dried meals are brilliant because they are ultra light (140g) but are packed full of 800 Kcal. With the added bonus of being that the label has no sign of preservatives or other bad stuff.

For breakfast I will be having hot porridge, with some raisins and banana chips. What I am trying to nail down at the moment is my food for the remainder of the day. At the moment it looks like being made up of nuts (cashews and peanuts), biltong, peperami and energy bars. I have lived off this stuff for a day and a night but not a 7 whole days! Those multi vitamins are going to come in handy!

The aim is to have all kit and food finalised by next weekend for our final race before the MDS - 2 marathons in 2 days.

Training has gone well over the past week, but this weekend will be tough as we're aiming for two 20 mile days back to back.

UK Race Numbers Are Out!

UK participants of the MDS 2008 were notified of their 'dossard' (race numbers) today. I got very excited about this as this signifies the race getting really close now. For local UK events I've entered in the past, the organiser sends out an envelope with a number, some brief instructions and some pins maybe but this is a much bigger deal!

There are a total of 254 competitors from GB, of which 25 are woman and the remaining 229 crazy people being men! Our numbers are:

Nick Summers - 832
Ben Ragless - 807

Here is the full list - http://www.darbaroud.com/detail.php?pub=265&langue=en

Tring2Town 40 Miles Report

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The alarm went off at 05:35 on Saturday morning. I got dressed in shorts, a couple of layers on top, had a cup of tea and filled my hydration system with a 2Ltr supply of water and was in the car for 06:00. Claire had been brilliant again and got up to drop me at the station so I could catch the 06:20 from WGC to Finsbury Park.

I met up with Ben who had stayed at the hotel where the race was due to start and got my race number. Approximately 130 runners congregated at the start for the race briefing, which lasted all of a minute, something like "go down this road, turn right in 800 metres and follow the sign that says 139 miles to Birmingham"!

The race started at 08:15 and we headed for the Grand Union Canal, which we would follow the whole way to Tring, Hertfordshire.

From the outset we both had the feeling that everyone running was an ultra veteran, its seemed like the event was sponsored by Raidlight, every other bag was the same as mine! Within a few hundred meteres we started running with a lady from Cornwall and we got chatting about the MDS and it turns out that she is the oldest British lady running this year. Needless to say we're pretty sure she beat us to the finish! Women seem to have this great ability to run for longer that men, every race we've done it's been the case.

Anyway on to our race...this was training for us we never intended on running the whole thing, its not what we'll do on the MDS. We were both carrying about 6-7 kgs again and the plan was to run the first hour and get 7-8 quick miles under our belts. We then alternated 30 mins walk, 30 mins run. We thought this would give us an average speed of 5.5 mph over the 40 miles. As expected this worked well for the first few hours but we both started to feel our legs getting stiffer by the minute after 20 miles. The 50 mile TPU two weeks previously was starting to take its toll. We both felt fine at the start and pretty fresh but our legs hadn't fully recovered.

We flew through each checkpoint, only stopping to grab some more water and some much needed haribo's! We battled through the tough last 12 miles and finished as hoped under 8 hours in a time of 7hrs 38mins, which we were very happy with.

As I mentioned in my previous post, there was an option to run back from Tring to Kew on the Sunday. Don't ask me why but Ben took them up on the challenge and ran back on Sunday. Brilliant effort and great mental toughness to get out of that comfy hotel bed at 07:00 on Sunday!

First kit installment - Backpacks

With Christmas came less than 100 days until the start of the MdS2008! So with that in mind Ben and I have started to get our hands on some pretty professional looking kit.

Last year Ben was very organised and got himself a backpack that has been recommended by a number of people. I on the other hand didn't and have since found out that they don't make those backpacks anymore! So after lots of emails to other competitors and manufactures, reading of blogs and forums I decided on a Raidlight Runner R Light backpack. So very fortunately Father Christmas knew exactly what I wanted and delivered the exact backpack (thanks Claire : ) )! Reading around it appears to be the french competitors pack of choice but I'll find out soon enough for myself!

First impressions are just how light it is compared to my Berghaus rucksack of the same size (30 litres). I am also slightly worried about the size and whether I can fit a weeks worth of kit and food inside!

I am hoping to do a run at the weekend and give it a test run with 8-10kgs of weight. I'll let you know how it goes.