Hi All,
 
Again, Thanks for the blog reply... glad to see people follow my "sufferings":)
 
Yesterday I had absolutely no energy for updating my blog, as I was busted after 76,5 km through the desert... But amazing how strong the mind is, convincing you to go for another 76 km after 4 days of 160km running. At not time I felt like being in real trouble, though joints, feet and muscles were sore and stiff. The worse part was when in bed. Hips and feet just kept hurting and I couldn't fall asleep for quite some time. But managed to and when i woke up thiss morning, I was happy to see that all my tent mates made it through. Andrew, an Auzzie, was so excausted when i came in, than he fainted on his was to the toilets. So congrats to all of the and looking forward to drink a cold beer with them tomorrow, biting our big gold medal:)
 
But had a good, but long day on the long stage. Started with around 20 km of running over the crusty salt flats before the sun got warm, then slowed down to a fast walking pace for the next 35 km or so, as running in that heat would have killed me in the long run. Seems like the sun yester was warmer than the earlier days. Maybe because I spend so many more hours being baked by it:). We went by some very beautiful areas, which mostly looked like something taken out of the moon (not many pics though, as my camera ran out of battery... so hope some of my tent mates have some i can get:)). But to get to this very scenery area we had to climb a 400m 45-60 degree sanddune to get there.Tough, but worth the effort!
 
At the CP around 55km I hooked up with the 2 remaining chilean guys from my tent (their team mate dropped out due to severe blisters). So for the remaining 22 km we kept leading the running, at a pace around 10 km/hr, when we had flad or downhill sections... all uphill was walking. Simply to tired to run uphill. We came to camp after 13 hours on foot and did the last section through "Valley The Luna" with headlamps as the sun had set... Beautiful section doing in the moon light, but tough as lost of soft sand and climbs. Had to stop a few few times to empty shoes and stretch the back.
 
Overall it has been an amazing race... and no shit, I would do it again!
 
As it is now, before the final stage tomorrow, which should be a 16 km run, I am overall placed as number 30. So will see if i can do a final "sprint" tomorrow and move up a few places. Feet and legs are still ok, though i got blisters on my heels from the walking yesterday (puninshment for not having been doing some long walks during my preparations for the race). But i should be able to run tomorrow as today is a rest day (for those of us who finished after not too long - the last competitor came in just around a hour ago, being on the run for 27 hours or so ... RESPECT, as that is much tougher and much more demanding than getting to camp early and being able to rest for the next.) Most people hide in their tents or the medical tent, recovering for the final stage tomorrow.... And do i look forward to the big dinner at night and the snaks, softdrinks and beers waiting at the finish line!!
 
Anders, my Danish tent mate, did it again. To races in a row he has now won. Huge respect for that achievement, as there has been some really tough competitors to beat. Will surely join him for a or some races in the future... Cool guy, with a good "jysk" humour. He is from Julsminde, not far from my town. Funny how small the world is.
 
Alasdair @ Yes, this race is much "easier" and friendly on my feet.... Would rather do two of those in a row, than one Auzzie run!
 
 
Ulrik @ Ja, det gaar super... er SUPER tilfreds og ser frem til at tage erfaringen fra dette lob med til fremtidige. Mangler bare at faa dig overtalt til at tage med paa et af dem:)... Saa skal fodderne bare have 7-10 dages ro og saa igang med traeningen frem mod cph marathon:)
 
Amdi @ Yes, uden din supervison og tid til smaa snakke pauser under traeningen i centret ville jeg aldrig vaeret naaet saa langt... Ser frem til en sludder dernede, mens ojnene i al beskedenhed smug kigger paa de trimmede tosepigeborn :)
 
Mutti @ Dejligt du hepper.... tror sagtens jeg kunne klemme en karbonade ned naar jeg kommer hjem :)
 
Min @ Thanks, you too keep up that good running. Might join you for a race in Thailand soon! :)
 
So, now i am off to the tent, eating my last freeze dried meal for a long period! Damn they get boring after a few days and so do gels and bars... almost vomitted during the last par of yesterdays stage after living on gel, bars and powder for 6 days.
 
See you all in Denmark on Monday/Tuesday.
 
Have fun until
 
Cheers,
 
Martin

Hi,
 
Today was a hard day.... first 22 km was mostly soft sand, which i really do not fancy running through and on top of that i had to stop every 30 minutes or so to empty my shoes for sand. So i came in 66 at CP 2... not satisfied at all, but couldn't do better due to all shoes off - shoes on - shoes off downtime periods.
 
After CP 2 the surface was runnable, though it was crusty salt flats... So i cought up with quite a few runners and finished this stage as number 36.
 
Tomorrow 76km awaits us, so I am out of here.... dinner, foor care and then hopefully a good nights sleep before the long stage tomorrow.
 
Have fun
 
Cheers,
 
Martin

Hi All,
 
First of all thanks for the support by e-mails and replys to my blog...!!
 
Dissaster happened last night... When I wanted to put my shoes on to go to the toilet, I found out that the mesh on the top of my shoes do not keep the fine sand out, which the inner mesh does. So what i believed was my svollen feet making them hurt a bit at the end of 2nd stage, was actually the sand building up between the layers of mesh... arghhhhhhh!
 
So i had to cut open the top of the shoe to get it all out... which sucks! So after having my shoes on the operation table for an hour or so, I had emptied the shoes and taped them, hoping they would hold for some while today.... But no! We started on very rough terrain, crusty salt flats, which best can be discribed as a huge field of frosen brocolli, huge cornflakes and small bushes and add to that that only the surface is crusty, so every few steps you foot/calf sinks in and the desert tries to rip of our leg! So with 5 km over this, my legs were getting heavy and my back sore from slipping and tripping every so often. So I was very pleased to get out on some runnable surface so I could speed up.
 
That only lasted for so long though, as I got a hot spot (beginning of a blister) and had to stop for a while a CP 1 to tape it... so lost around 10 minutes there and left that CP as number 44. Over the next 2 CP's I had a quite good pace, the terrain taking into consideration... hard surface, rocky surfarce and soft sand, which really kills me! It feels like running with your feet in a bucket of concrete... feels like every step I sink i 10 cm and have to push reallt hard to get going.... Painful!
 
So while in this soft sand, Gerard the italian stalion, cought up with me.... hugely helped by his trekking poles (those, I left at home... dammit!). So chasing him through the soft sand was tough, but good to have someone to keep me up in pace. To my relief we came to 3-4 km of hard surface, so i could speed up and was for a while ahead of him, until another section of sand dunes were to be crossed... 4 km, which really killed me... totally sold out and I was passed by 4 other runner before we had to climb a monster hill up to the final CP... I was on hands and feet a few times to keep going as I had a competitor right behind me... Almost vomited of excaustion! But I crossed the finish line as number 22 for this stage, which i am quite happy about, since i  had to stop for a few times to empty my shoes for sand... propably lost 15 minutes on this, which kind of sucks as that was 25 minutes totally lost on this stage, due to the shoes, which normally is excellent trail shoes, but obviously not build for fine sand...!!!
 
Not sure what my total placement is, as it has not yet been updated as competitors are still coming in. But happy about the race so far...except them bloddy shoes. But do hope the will last a bit longer tomorrow, where there rough terrain that rios the tape, is a the end of the stage (enough bitching about them... just had to let it out:))... But nothing is for sure in this race and we might having brutal terrain on the fist few legs aswell.... one leg of 9,5 km is classified as Extremely Difficult, so that will for sure be a killer as tomorrow is a 42 km stage!    
 
Thomas Hagemann@ Yes, det gaar ok. Ingen naevne vaerdige vabler og benene foeles ok, trods oemme de foerste par km...Men jo ogsaa et brutal terraen. Det skulle efter sigende vaere stort set samme rute de bruger hvert aar, saa taenker du kan nikke genkendende til dette:)
 
Ulrik Hvillum@ Gaar sku ok, og haaber at kunne holde tempo paa morgendagens 42 km, men er endnu er haard etape, so vi faar se. Eneste fordel for mig er at jeg endnu ikke lider under lede vabler, som mange af de andre gor... saa det kan gaa hen og blive til min fordel. Gi den gas derhjemme og ser fremt til at fylde svaelget med kolde ol i det selskab i Kbh den 8.-9. april :)
 
Mutti @ Ja, det gaar sku nogenlunde godt for din lille erotisk buttede dreng:) Haaber at kunne holde gassen oppe.... Ellers maa jeg taenke paa Sebastian og bruge hans raad om at blive staerk som en Ninja Turlte/Bakugan :) Hils dem alle... knus.
 
Everyone, have fun and enjoy your week at work... while I explore the world by foot:)
 
Cheers,
 
Martin

Hi All.
 
Just finished stage 2 and what a killer! Started with 16 km of flat running through a river canyon... and as we are at the driest place on earth, who would expect there to be much water? But for the 16 km we were in and out of the water every few minutes... a good way to get blisters, but luckily I did only get two very small ones on my toes. So lots of Hydropel, Injinji and Teko socks seems to be a good combination (so far). So the small blisters will be glued later with some Friar,s balm and then I can start stage 3 "without" blisters.
 
Then on to few hills of the brutal category... felt like running with a pair of socks in my mouth, plus the legs was burning like the californian forest fires. But again the scenery made it much easier and was a good was of getting my thought away from the pain.
 
Was having a good run from start to check point (CP) 2, where I came in as number 21. Then a stage with soft sand was ahead of us... and damn do i hate that. So decided to do that leg walking. Kept a good 6 km/hr pace and came to CP 3 as number 27. Could see some other competitors ahead, so head down and went for it. Came up to a 20th position, where i meet with Gerard, the Italian guy i meet at the airport... no one behind us, no one infront us... so decided to do the last km with him, as I at this point had been dissy and excausted for a few kilometers and wouldn't risk ending up vomiting and having cramps all night, just for getting in a few seconds infront of Gerard, who is a very good runner and propably would have outrun me if it came to a sprint (i am 10 kg heavier than him, but same hight...:).
 
So came in on a split 20th place and happy about it... 19 positions better than yesterday. Tomorrow should be even tougher stage, so will see if I can keep the good trend... Time will show!
 
Anders once again came in as number one, now around 13 minutes ahead of number 2.... Well done!!
 
Yospeh the third dane withdraw today due to a sprained muscle in his calf... sad, but shit happens when yoiu less need it!
 
Jacob@ Jeg jagter ham, med med hans 17 kilo svaever han jo afsted:) Men jeg er pt godt loebende og haaber det holder resten af loebet!
 
Michala@ alt super her... varmt, smukt og hyggeligt!
 
Hope you all are ok and enjoying life...
 
Cheers,
 
Martin

Hi All,
 
Arrived at San Pedro de Atacama 2 days prior to race start... and had a good travel out here, though long. Meet up with a few runners at Calama airport. An italian and a spanian, both speaking as much english as i speak italian and spanish. So, in a few minutes we had taken care of the world situation:)
 
San Pedro is a VERY small city,so i had no time to do some real sightseeing due to the minor delay going off the rig... but managed to walk around the city some 350 times, saying ''Hola'' and then as I had to pie big time, paying 5$ to get into the local museum to use their toilet and have a look at the museum, but of course everything were in spanish, so i just looked qround... so that might have been the most expensive toilet visit ever,haha.
 
So after gear check/food and medical check, we went off to the first camp last night, sharing a tent with Anders (another Dane), a Chilean team of 3, 2 Auzzies and an american. Good tent, good humor:)
 
Did not sleep much last night as I had to go to the toilet 3 times and still had a little jetlag... but woke up at 6am after a short nap, and were ready to go for the first stage, which started at 8am.
 
Stage 1, a 36 km run, with various surfaces, mostly loose rocks, soft sand and some more rocks, that at times felt like my ankle was about to be broken to a million pieces, and lots of steep downhills and lots of long uphill sections. But all that was easily forgotten as the scenery was absolutely amazing. Most the time we had the snow covered mountains to look at, combined with some beautiful canyons and dried out riverbeds we had to go thru. Sometimes a few bones and leftovers from animal (hope no humans:)) distracted one focus on running... make me think the this place really is a brutal as it is said. The driest place on earth are not friends to anyone or anything!
 
It was warm, especially as it was blue sky and no really shade to find anywhere.... I did not really struggle with the heat or altitude, but guess that is due to training a sea level and under freezing conditions in little Denmark (or not)... but thing a 3-4 cups of Coca-tea i have been drinking for the first 3 days helped alot here. I am not even have been running, but might have been floating over the rocks and a stoned junkie in his wildest dreams:)
 
First stage enden well and I finished 39 out of 110 runners and still within the time range I set for myself before departure. Anders the Dane from my tent, continued his success from Sahara 2011, which he won and came in first on this stage!... Well done tent-mate:) Yoseph, the third dane here, who run for/is sponsored by his birth country, Palestina, came in around 30 minutes after Anders (not sure about his rank'but should be top 10... well done).
 
So overall a good warm day... Legs are still feeling good... though they got a ''bit'' heavy in the warmth buring the last 10 km of this stage, but hopefully they will be ready for tomorrow, where around 42 km awaits us!
 
Hope you all are having a great time at home, where ever you are killing the time with...:)
 
 
Take care and have fun!
 
Martin

It is starting to become a RTP tradition for me, that every time I have to get off the rig to go for a race, mother nature decides to get in way of my plans. When I had to go for RTP Australia the volcano in Iceland erupted and delayed all flight from Europe. This time she decided to put a heavy fog around the rig and icing on shore, so the helicopters could not fly. So this time I had to delay my departure 3 days. I will still be in San Pedro 2,5 day before race start, but do miss the sightseeing in Santiago and around San Pedro. But at least I will there a few days in advance and not arrive 5 minutes before race briefing and departure for camp 1, as it was the case in Australia.

Guess these last few days all us excited competitors have been running through our gear multiply time, checking is everything is there... Du I bring enough / too little food, is my gear the right to bring etc. All questions we will get the answer to in a few days when it

4 weeks to go!

Soon we around 110 competitors for this years Atacama Crossing will be running through the baking warm Atacama Desert with warm sand underneath our feet... maybe get a few blister, boiling feet and struggle to get to the next CP. This will be during day time, as the night will be "freezing" cold, and some will be shivering like little wet puppies, not getting much sleep. But what we al have in common is, that once the race is over we can all look back and say "I did it"... I just ran 250 km through the dries desert on earth ... yihaaaa ... Good luck to everyone!

This blog will be the last before heading to Chile on February 27th and also a tester to those of you who will follow my race blog.

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