Running time: 7h16m
Feet fine so far. The male winner of the MdS last year dropped out today.
Fiercest Sunday morning I’ve met in a while. We are woken by Gurkhas who – in order to wake us, pull the grandly-titled ‘tent’ down from above us. A pole in the head later, I am naked and freezing in the Sahara-6am, and scrabbling to find and wear, as many belongings I can lay my hands on.
Rehydrating my freeze-dried 800-calorie porridge, with the added luxury of dehydrated strawberries drew small comfort. Looking like cement and perhaps unsurprisingly, setting in my stomach like a brick, it didn’t feel like a great start. Nonetheless, without alternatives, we consume, we obsess about the science of back-packing detail to the nano degree and nth order, and then we are off.
The length of the first day caught most of us by surprise. At 37.2km, it was about 15km longer than any previous stage 1 and from about 20km in, it was not uncommon to pass guys being sick as the heat and distance started to cause problems.
Despite finding it uncomfortable myself at times, with hindsight, I am glad to have got a greater distance out the way early and it also makes the km distribution for the days to come, a little more even (‘double day’ excepted!)
No blisters to speak of but I am carrying far, far too much weight – which, after the first 10km, made it very difficult to run without quite a bit of pain. So far, so stubborn, I refuse to jettison any of my luxury items (reading book, journal, camera, Blackberry.. among others..) And have instead made the brunt of my bag reduction efforts from bailing a ridiculously large honey-roast nut collection and also disposing of dried mango, made quite wet by a mid-stage water bottle incident. Coupled with consumption of dinner portions tonight and breakfast tomorrow, this should mean I start out about 1kg lighter and (no guarantees) hopefully faster!
Running time: 7h16m
Feet fine so far. The male winner of the MdS last year dropped out today.
Fiercest Sunday morning I’ve met in a while. We are woken by Gurkhas who – in order to wake us, pull the grandly-titled ‘tent’ down from above us. A pole in the head later, I am naked and freezing in the Sahara-6am, and scrabbling to find and wear, as many belongings I can lay my hands on.
Rehydrating my freeze-dried 800-calorie porridge, with the added luxury of dehydrated strawberries drew small comfort. Looking like cement and perhaps unsurprisingly, setting in my stomach like a brick, it didn’t feel like a great start. Nonetheless, without alternatives, we consume, we obsess about the science of back-packing detail to the nano degree and nth order, and then we are off.
The length of the first day caught most of us by surprise. At 37.2km, it was about 15km longer than any previous stage 1 and from about 20km in, it was not uncommon to pass guys being sick as the heat and distance started to cause problems.
Despite finding it uncomfortable myself at times, with hindsight, I am glad to have got a greater distance out the way early and it also makes the km distribution for the days to come, a little more even (‘double day’ excepted!)
No blisters to speak of but I am carrying far, far too much weight – which, after the first 10km, made it very difficult to run without quite a bit of pain. So far, so stubborn, I refuse to jettison any of my luxury items (reading book, journal, camera, Blackberry.. among others..) And have instead made the brunt of my bag reduction efforts from bailing a ridiculously large honey-roast nut collection and also disposing of dried mango, made quite wet by a mid-stage water bottle incident. Coupled with consumption of dinner portions tonight and breakfast tomorrow, this should mean I start out about 1kg lighter and (no guarantees) hopefully faster!
