The long day is over, and Kate came safely in at daybreak, less than 24 hours after she started.  She looked in good shape, walking well, hydrated and if anything less sunburnt than earlier this week.  Sure she'll write about it, but she spent a lot of time helping one of the other competitors finish which will have helped give he something to think about at least...
 
Volunteers got to see a few breaking bodies today, but most dragged and or drugged themselves over the final 96km.  Having spent my time at the third of ten checkpoints from for most of the day, the 60km journey to camp in a large mustard coloured land rover c. 1972 nicknamed 'Thunderbird 4' took five hours thanks to its inability to get over anything approaching a small sandcastle without breaking down.  At which point the driver got out, lit a cigarette, a) filled a radiator, b) did up radiator hoses with medical tape, c) removed a spanner from tool kit and then replaced it in the tool kit, d)  tried to get mobile reception and failed, f) filled the radiator again, and then had another cigarette.  He then managed to drive into the marshes surrounding the lake that we're now camped at.  At which point he did at least get mobile reception, and called in a landcruiser with five guys to dig him out.   
 
Which leaves us sitting in phenomenal heat with tents but no breeze, and roughly four thousand flies.  Similar to Majorca then.
 
So, as there's not much chance of sending anything tomorrow: thanks for the emails and blog comments, especially those wishing Kate well.  They were all relayed and we would thank you all personally but there's a lot of hungry smelly tired people waiting for the terminal, so I will leave it at saying again: thanks.

One day as a runner, one day as a patient, today as a volunteer... Lots of water handed out, times taken down, and scenery to be enjoyed.  As well as a few kilometres in the back of a Toyota pickup going over the dunes at speed - more like skiing than driving and a lot of fun.
 
Kate just in after a strong and consistent third day, heat rash still there but doesn’t look bad enough to stop her starting what is supposed to be a 'runners' track' on day four.   Today was described as 40km of walking on a very, very soft beach, carrying about 8kg - not a whole lot of fun in the heat out here.  Maybe more solid footing tomorrow; more fun for Kate.
 
I'll be manning a checkpoint tomorrow; then help sweep the course on the long day.  It's nice to be useful here, it's good to help all the others suffering get in safely.  Almost everyone finishes and is immediately worried about everyone behind them which is typical of the spirit of the camp and lmost everyone here.  And this is a truly beautiful part of the world to be allowed into.  Scenery is astonishing; the huge rock outcrops that tower over the field are the residues of a sea floor; we can't see fossilised bones yet but we can see the sedimentary layers.  Not easy to imagine an ocean over our heads.
 
But I'd rather be running.

Heatstroke.

Last night was fine; meals, fluids, stretched, slept.  Woke up this morning and was vomiting any and everything.  No food or fluids stayed down but a nice flat first stage ahead with a breeze; started off and hoped I could walk it off.  Apparently, that doesn't work with the initial stages of organ failure.  Who knew...?  
 
So at CP1, two hours in, pulled myself out of the race.  Then spent four hours lying under a tent trying to get fluids in and trying to stay awake to ensure I kept drinking (c. 500ml in four hours...).  Which felt petty special.  Then another two hours driving to camp, stuck in a couple of dunes, and the med tent.  I now know a lot more about sports medicine than yesterday.  And it took an hour to get through the can of coke they made me finish...
 
Lessons?  Kit all worked.  No rucksack pain.  Running loose(ish) and easy.  Could have spent more time preparing for soft sand. Generally all under control.  But: none of it in heat or humidity. So the body was ready to run and move, and it did, and by the time I got in that first night I was presumably in the process of shutting down my kidneys and had no real idea. Couple of us in a similar position; too great a disparity between the physical preparation and the ability to take 48-50 degree heat (depends who you believe apparently).  Will learn the lesson and find a gym with a sauna before I come back... For now I'll volunteer and enjoy the scenery.
 
There is a happy (happier?) ending though.  This morning I got to walk the first stage alongside Kate.  The horizon stretched out forever; an unbroken rolling line of dull yellow meeting a perfect blue, with waves of black sand impersonating shadows on the dunes in front of us and no-one else in sight. And that was a very happy time. 
 
She finished in good time again; was in the tent eating and drinking before I made it back to camp.  Heat rash a little worse and skin running the risk of blistering despite the anti-histamines, which looks to be the biggest risk since she's tired but strong.  Personally think it's clear she can finish so long as the blisters stay away.  And you can't avoid the sun in the desert out here she may need a little luck from here.
 
Apologies to those hoping for a more entertainment from the blog.  Suspect there will be a fair amount of scenery to describe and updates on Kate's progress, but I'm hoping no more tales of personal suffering...

Day 1: joint 9th.  In ahead of noon, which was handy since the heat and soft footing seem to be hurting people pretty severely.  Notwithstanding other competitors' blogs: this was a pretty flat day with a pretty decent footing and no material elevation changes.  Probably could have been a 3h (not a 3h40) winning time. Except, except: 7am start and a breeze from the lake but the heat was still by far the biggest challenge. Recap for those playing along at home:
 
Stage 1: soft sand - foot down an inch before getting traction; two dunes that needed hands as well as feet; jogging three flags for one walked.  In about 15th.  Surprised...
 
Stage 2: nice and flat, odd minor rise, footing stabilising; longest stage of the daythough and the heat starting to creep up.  In about 11th.  A lot more surprised.  Though passing people who seem to have bust themselves for the day and are walking in.  Passed one guy whose "short cuts" are becoming legendary among the top few runners, but who missed the checkpoint by a good hundred metres as a result and had to backtrack...
 
Stage 3: similar to stage two; increasing number of solid packed trail and path but the heat becoming a real issue.  In about 8th, recognise this is about 7 places too high and I need to stop pushing.
 
Stage 4: decide to hike the last 7.4km with a Nevadan who I had only technically passed as he took a break at CP3.  On his first race.  Chatted away, walked in nice and gently, overtaken by two joggers but still end joint 9th. Too high, but then everyone that finished later seemed to feel the same way.
 
Far more importantly, Kate safely home by 14:10, with a broad grin, a blister or two, and the start of heat rash, but no joint or muscle issues, no vomiting and getting food and water as I type which is good.
 
Tomorrow is down for 6am start (good) but all soft sand (very bad).  Suspect I and most of the field are not going to be running as much as we'd like... And suspect we're going to have a fair few drops days 3-4.  Ho hum. 
 
PS: Annabel: have a great first day at Uni...

Campsite 1, three hour bus ride out of Cairo and the very nice hotel that has been placed randomly in between building sites.  The drive was all on tarmac roads (which is a nice change from other races) but the local driving seems to have been modeled on downtown Mumbai.  Horns rather than indicators and overtaking on all sides, including the centre lane, other side of the road, kerb, and probably underneath if possible...
 
We're sitting in soft sand.  Soft sand everywhere.  Soft because it's powdery dust that is clearly going to get into everything... Unsurprisingly warm, surprisingly humid, which could be fun tomorrow.  Humid because in the midst of the otherwise unending and rather flat sand dunes that reach to the horizon there is a single lake, which we will spend most of tomorrow running around.  So right now, barely need a sleeping pad or a bag, except to keep off the sandflies. 
 
Right.  Back to the campfire and the dancing troupe that has found its way out here to welcome us to the race.  And hopefully a decent night's sleep ahead of the 7am start...

Packed. Looking forward to explaining to Egyptian customs why the luggage contains white powders, herbs, pills and knives in a few hundred ziplock bags. Trust that a big "Sahara Race" sign will help...

From here on in the training log ends. It's now the diary of the race and the daily stages, which might be a little more interesting...

It does seem from other blogs that mine might go against established convention because it probably won't include my iPod "song of the day", nor an extended discussion of "why you shouldn't order dehydrated cheese or lard based foodstuffs however many calories they contain". And it definitely won't feature, in any way, shape, or form, the transcript of a soliloquy from the day's run entitled "why I will never, never, never, never do this ever again"....

A few weeks of poor training. Moved into our house, then started running c. 11 miles a day (to and from work) with 11kg and promptly developed shin pains. Since then a coupe of long and unweighted runs but nothing more. Probably the equivalent of starting the taper about a week or two too soon.

But at this point there's always more training that could have been done. Training never goes perfectly and there's nothing more that can be done about it now...

More important is that the kit is sitting downstairs ready to be bagged and labelled, the plane tickets are booked, and the body is getting rested, hydrated, and fed properly. After clearing the obvious stresses out of the way, the next step has been to start mentally preparing to be on my feet for extended periods, so every run for the last few weeks into the race will be gentle but long, 90+minutes. Thinking about getting water on board every five minutes, calories every twenty, remembering to make it all automatic so there's no danger of 'forgetting' to look after myself properly in the wee hours of day five.

Preparing to react appropriately to the odd physical pain that has been known to crop up on these events. No point in having an emotional reaction to pain - it isn't inherently important, it doesn't really 'matter'; however bad it is, it plateaus and the mind stops reacting to it. What is important is to react to the signal that one bit of the body needs to be better looked after than another, and not to ignore it. After all, it's a five day event.

And looking forward to getting out to the Sahara. Can't get started soon enough!

Normally, training for a distance event requires each 'hard' day to be followed by recovery to allow more/more efficient muscle to repair that damaged in training. Obviously, this is sensible. However, most (ultra) distance events are single efforts. The four deserts series requires multiple days of effort and so the focus of the event-specific training needs to be faster and more complete recovery. This translates to running hard(ish) days back to back to get used to the physical and mental effort of pulling on the rucksack when already fatigued. At present, this translates to four consecutive days of effort. For Gobi, the maximum was a week of back to back 13 milers at speed, with no weight. Might try that in a fortnight. Last week: 4x 60 minute unweighted runs during the week with a long weighted hike at the weekend. This week: same with weight.

Learned a lot from the last two events.  The temptation is to think that each additional piece of kit "only weighs..." This doesn't work.  Can be countered by stripping everything back to basics.  Luxuries for me are: iPod and toothbrush.  Necessities for me (but not everyone) on grounds of keeping my body healthy: spare running shorts, new pair of socks daily.  Other than that, it's all about weight.  

Some of the required kit (eg compass, knife) is barely used and so cheap light versions are fine.  Some can be minimised by taking only the exact amount needed (eg exactly 6 days' worth of factor 30+ sport suncream).  Some is personal preference (eg find walking poles unnecessary).  No caffeine, no pillows, no rechargers, no cameras, no snacks.

+ Clothing +
Shoes: La Sportiva Crosslites
Sandals: Karrimoor (would love to find old lightweight, velcro on top, Columbias but couldn't)
Socks: 7x Nike low-cut elite running
Shorts: 2x Skins ICE half tights, 1x nike running shorts
Running tights: 1x 2XU recovery
T-shirts: 1x Skins ICE compression (short sleeve), 1x Nike Distance (baggy long sleeve)
Fleece: North Face lightweight puffa jacket
Waterproof: North Face triumph jacket
Buff: White.  Far too hard to find, plain white.
Gloves: Nike running gloves
Hat: Nike running skullcap
Cap: 2XU running hat
Sunglasses: Oakley jawbones

+ Kit +
Rucksack: Salomon XA Sky 30
Water bottles: Raidlight 750ml bottles, attached on straps
Compass: Silva, attached on watchstrap
Lights: 3x Petzl e-lites (as have both red and white lights)
Knife: Lightest folding could find
Sleeping mat: Thermarest pro-lite
Sleeping bag: Marmot Atom

+ Food (exactly 2,500 calories per day, ) +
Meals: daily: 1x porridge w cinnamon, raisins; 2x rehydrated meals (no cheese/yogurt; no heat in foil bag); 1x energy bar (w protein)
Electrolytes: Accelerade powder (drinks), shot bloks (jellies), endurolytes (tablets)
Plastic bowl w lid (allows food to rehydrate properly without absorbing sand)
Spork

+ Medical / Hygeine+
Space blanket
Pills: 1x multivitamin per day; 6x endurolytes per day; assorted paracetamol and celebrex
Med kit: As required by medical team; have found need no foot powder or blister kits (health warning: this seems to unusual).  Generally need extra tape for back.  3 wetwipes per day, same in toilet paper
Suncream: factor 30+ in small Muji tube
Toothbrush: cutdown Muji w airline toothpaste

+ Miscellaneous +
iPod

Meanwhile the training has increased in intensity (12kg weight for all weighted runs, max 2h10m w no walking/stops) but need to add both duration and multiple days.  Duration for time on feet and not simply speed, multiple days to prepare body to recover faster and more fully after stress. 

Intention is to shift to (a) weekends: 2x 4-5 hours on feet with weight, searching out for sand and hills (b) weekdays: 3-4 runs of 45-90 minutes (12kg or unweighted) (c) daily: stretching and core.

Introduced running with weight; makes a huge and positive difference.  Find this makes non-weighted runs a lot easier, enjoying the time shuffling along with the rucksack (as I can have fluids and carbs to hand), and feels like a proper workout all round.  Hasn't been a problem going to 10kg weighted rucksack (5x 2litre water bottles) then adding kit and water bottles on top.  (Though equally not very fast....).  

All the weighted runs are using the rucksack for the Sahara (Salomon XA Sky 30); need to know how tough it is and whether it has any chronic defects before the desert.  If it survives for the next few months it should be fine: training with roughly 25-30% more weight than the race itself.  Raidlight 750ml drinking bottles on shoulder straps still work. Footwear an issue because different shoes suit different training runs; love Newtons for road running, using Asics Kinseis to protect joints when road training with weight, but will be using La Sportiva Crosslites in Sahara so will need to find some off road to trial them properly.  Maybe the sand trails in Hyde Park.

So: past week had 3 brief early morning runs, a sub 52 mins 7.5 miles around the three parks, and a 3h 10min rucksack workout (c 22km, roughly 2h20 running, with the 10+kg).

This week: aiming to add one or two weighted runs in the morning; extend the unweighted runs a little longer including another fast(ish) 7.5 miler, and another long weighted run ideally including some form of hills....

A solid week of travel and still in temporary accommodation. Multiple flights, multiple hotels, appointments for dinners and breakfasts, and the big move from Hong Kong to the UK. Tried running in hotel gyms and was reminded (again) that trying to follow the regular training programme just doesn't seem to work on the road for me, with the rare exceptions of getting a 2-3 hour long run in a city I already know. Otherwise too many uncontrolled factors (sleep, hydration, different treadmills, parts of the world where running outside is a non-starter) seem to get in the way.

Think it's time to get the most out of training on the road and that means a little more discipline. From here on, it's an hour running -or- 3x each of the following sets with 1 minute rest between each. (This came from a Royal Marine PTI who I'd asked for a 45 minute workout I could do in a hotel room without access to any kit).

+++
20x hand on hand press ups
20x hands on legs sit ups
20x squat into vertical leap
-
30x regular press ups
20x hands behind head sit ups
20x lunges (per leg) with rear leg on raised platform
-
20x wide arm press ups
20x twist sit ups (per side)
20x lunges (per leg)
-
20x scorpion press ups
20x hands to raised legs
20x hip raises (per leg)
-
30x tricep dips
60sec bridge
60sec squat against wall
+++

More prosaically, now I'm in London and flat hunting, it looks like running before and after work to get in mileage with weight. Will aim for a couple of weeks to acclimatise and then start to push the weight and the distance come late July. Not ideal but hoping that a slow run at 515am helps prepare mentally for the desert (ie cracking on when one might otherwise rather not...)

Welcome...

After completing two of the four deserts it seemed time to keep a more structured training log for the third.  Hopefully the lessons of the first two can be put to good use...  Before this gets boringly factual: the two races I've finished were literally awesome: the untouched beauty of the locations, the time and space in utter isolation on the run, the cameraderie and friendliness of the camps, the raw enjoyment of pushing the mind and body places they would never otherwise visit... 

Previous races:
Gobi March 2008 - 49th
Training: Singapore based (v high humidity) - some weeks running 2x30 mins carrying c 8kg to and from work each day; some weeks consecutive long treadmill runs (peaked at one week of 13 miles per day); added 4-6 hours hiking w 8kg once per weekend.
Result: First multi-day race; went out hard on day one and promptly wrecked my ankles trying to run over the bouldered terrain; heavy strapping and painkillers allowed for little more than a hike from there.  Learned that training on rough terrain matters, that water bottles on shoulder straps and ipods are critical (to me at least), and that absolutely anything that reduces weight is a good idea. 

Atacama Crossing 2009 - 19th
Training: Hong Kong - almost no midweek training; very occasional 15k over hills midweek; predominantly one 50k per week run over the Hong Kong Trail carrying 3-8kg (peaked at racing the trail in 5h 9m).
Result: day one was great, day two went out too fast and suffered at the end of stage, day three learned the lesson and great, day four started well and then realised the top of my feet had been rubbed raw which left me hiking from the end of the stage to the end of the race.  Learned that toe boxes need space above the toes (as well as beyond), that very long runs are crucial to training, that starting slow and accelerating through a stage always beats the other way round.

Base Fitness
As of today, (110 days to go...):
5k at 15.6kph
Yasso 800 (10x (800m +1min rest)) at 16.8kph
35k at 12.8kph
Plus hikes of up to 2 hours over hills carrying 10kg

Next steps....
Time to introduce: running with weight, hill work, rougher terrain, consistent core work; time to cut down on faster sessions