If anyone had told me last night that

Well that was incredibly tough, to say the least.

Too exhausted to post

Halfway! Last night after spending one hour in the medical tent getting my shoulder taped up and 3 toenails drilled, I questioned how I was going to make it through today.

Turns out pain is a great motivator. Decided the only way to survive the day was to go as hard as I could and minimize the amount of time I was out on the course.

The Good:
Beautiful out of this world scenery! Vast white desert, canyons like Mars and volcanoes in the background. Lovely bit through a river gorge which we had to cross about 30 times, sometimes thigh deep. Took a long stop at CP1 to change socks and retape feet but still have a massive blood blister under one toe. Best part of the day: running down a massive steep sand dune halfway which was one of those Life Is Wonderful Moments.

The Bad:
Extreme temperatures. Freezing sub zero at night. Woke up at 2AM again shivering and could not sleep again. So cold - thank goodness I had 2XU thermal compression tights. And boiling hot during the day. Very hard to manage. I was sucking water out of my bottle and spitting it into my hand and pouring it over my head.

The Ugly:
It was only a matter of time, lugging around a heavy pack but my trapped nerve in my shoulder caused me a lot of pain today. The medics strapped it up as per my physio's notes - and there I not a lot to do apart from try to manage the pain.it was a ridiculously long day today as much of the terrain was very technical. Rocky river beds, crunchy salt plains and an uphill vertical sand dune we cursed (seriously, after 44k in extreme heat and hard terrain, they send us up a 45 degree dune...??).

Tomorrow is going to be long again - just hope shoulder copes.

Today started in utter misery - I woke up at 2AM freezing cold and could not get back to sleep. Lay there shivering, listening to one poor tent mate throwing up and another snoring like you would not believe. My sleeping pad sounded like a bag of Walkers crisps being opened every time I rolled over (apologies to tent mates).

We got up at 5AM and huddled round eating breakfast and feeling exhausted, cold and miserable. Best moment was when Mart looked up and said "Livin'the dream"- at which point we all burst out laughing.

By contrast, running nearly 40k in the hot desert across rocks and canyons was quite good fun. Until the last 10k when I had a sense of humour failure and just wanted to get it over with. I ran the first leg with a great girl called Rosemary who has run 197 marathons including 10 marathons in 10 days !!! We had fun chatting together for around 10k but it's hard to maintain the same pace as someone else over those distances and in those conditions, so I ran the rest alone which was not as fun. We went through some amazing canyons (and almost tripped over a dead donkey).

Got to camp in 42^ndplace overall, 6^thwoman. A good day but there is a long way to go !

Best part of this race is I have some great tent mates. Ryan and Scott both did brilliantly, finishing in the top 20. Charles and I played tag, taking it in turns to overtake each other. (Mark, do not believe a word he says in his blog!). We are having so much fun - when we're not running...One of the best parts of these races is the camaraderie.

Day 1: tick.

Heading off to camp today - at 3,200 metres altitude. Did 3 high treks this week which all went well until yesterday with massive headache and nose bleed lasting 10 hours! Hopefully ticked that box and will be ok now...??

My strategy is to take it slowly on Day 1 and not blow up early or suffer for the rest of the week.

So, despite the fact that this is my 4th RTP race, I have allowed myself to get pretty stressed and anxious over the past few weeks about what lies ahead. This is partly a good thing, as you can never take it for granted that things won't go horribly wrong in such extreme events. But it's also a bad thing, as you need to maintain a positive mental attitude to get through each day.

My anxiety even manifested itself in physical symptoms of tension headaches, tight chest, stomach cramps and a flu-like feeling.

Off to Chile soon to attend to unfinished business!

Having signed up for The Gobi March in 2013 as a one-off desert race, I cannot believe I am now about to embark on my 4^th Ultra in the 4 Desert series. Utter madness!!

I have no idea how I ended up running across the Jordanian desert last year, let alone Antarctica, which struck me as the height of insanity. But here I am about to do it AGAIN...!! I may as well finish what I started...??

So I asked my ultra friends for some tips on running Atacama. Here are some of their words of wisdom:

"Giant sand dunes, extreme heat, sharp salt plains, a 10km stretch that takes place IN a slot canyon river. So expect blisters like you would not believe. You will love it."

"It's the hardest of the 4 deserts. My favourite!"

"It has the highest attrition rate of all the races, about 25% drop out rate. But don't worry, you'll be fine."

And my personal favourite: "It's absolutely horrendous. You have got to do it!"