Marathon Des Sables 2004 race diary entry
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Day 5 by Simon Puttock
Well here we are again, it's the rest day after a very tough 76km leg yesterday. Starting at 9am it was already very hot (30 deg) and the organisers through in the additional challenge of 20-25k in the dunes again which sapped a lot of energy. Overall we had 6 checkpoints roughly at 10k intervals and as normal getting 1.5 litres of water at each.
For the first time on the run we went through a village between cp3-4 which was great, all the local kids in the tiny dark streets as we ran through hanging onto our belongings for dear life as a few people had gels, flares taken as they ran through.
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I reached cp5 at around 7pm as it started to get dark. Head torches and glow sticks on we then had 10k to cp6 once again over the dunes as the sun set. Quite hard to navigate on a compass bearing whilst still trying to avoid going over the top of the dunes if possible. Looking back and forward on the other runners was great seeing this long line of head torches stretching for miles into the distance. I also me up at cp6 with a guy I had met in London on a training run and also had met him towards the end, quite a coincidence. cp6 to the end was 6km, very hard but the company helped and we even manged a 2k push to the end to finish off. Total time 12hrs 55 mins ish. A lot of people stayed at the cp's overnight and resumed at first light and some are still coming in now. Cut off 35hrs.
It's great to have the long leg out of the way with no real damage done. I have a couple of blisters but nothing too bad. Just been to the medical tent and they give you a scalpel, iodine etc. and you can get on with it. Other people are a lot worse.
Out of the 7 in the tent 2 have pulled out now which is a real shame as the tent spirit is very strong. One missed a time cut off with bad blisters as he was going slow and the other had a bad day in the dunes eventually firing off his flare and getting airlifted out. Amazingly after a saline iv followed by a glucose one he was looking fine and back in the tent. Both the guys have decided to stay with the ent rather than leave. Great.
Well nearly there now. Marathon stage tomorrow but no dunes according to the road map and then a "simple" 20k trot to the finsih on sat.
Special hello and thanks to Mary, Claire, Christopher and Callum , long suffering family as I have trained for this event. Miss you all and back soon.
More tomorrow
Simon
