So let me talk you through the last 26 hours -
Yesterday morning we woke at 4.30am - already fairly testing. Got all my gear ready, taped up feet, gagged on freeze dried breakfast, ran to loo tent but usual stage fright so nothing happened, panicked it would happen in first 5 minutes of race surrounded by 128 race companions. Ran round looking for mum while five minute bell sounding in the distance. Find mum faffing in tent, way behind schedule, panicked we'd be left behind. Grab mum's rucksack, haul it to start line, try not to sound like a plonker shouting "mum, hurry up!!". Mum comes hobbling over, one shoe on one shoe off "Darling let me take a quick picture of you near the camel" shit! scramble over to camel, smile and say cheese,
"5...4....3...2"
"Mum quick get your shoe on" sweating profusely, quickly chuck her pack on her back,
"1....go" and we're off. I am completely exhausted and we have 86.5 km ahead of us.
First 40km not too bad. There was a bit of wind and we did it in 6 hours. This may not sound very quick but in this heat with a backpack on, in soft sand and 46.5km still to go, you just can't go too fast or it's over before it begins.
Conversation is pretty limited along the way as major effort is being put into just moving forward, even thinking is minimal as it just takes up too much energy. I thought I would be having some seriously profound thoughts during this trip but most of the time it's just 'Gosh it's quite hot.' 'Crumbs my feet hurt.' 'Wow that sand dune was further away then I expected'. 'Funny, I thought more time had gone by.' That sort of thing, except replace every first word with an expletive.
Mum felt nauseous throughout the day so it was incredibly hard for her to eat anything which was a real worry but the medics gave her a pill at every check point and she ploughed on like the trouper she is.
We crawled into checkpoint 6 at 8pm, the last 2 hours and had been deep soft sand and we were completely shattered, 14 hours on our feet! There was hot water and a tent so we made pot noodles and climbed into our sleeping bags.No sleep was had as leg ache was so intense so at 1am we got up again to prepare for another 6 1/2 hours of walking through the night. It was very cold and our legs were killing us but we marched on. Mum put Dolly Parton on her ipod and I ( ipodless) tried to do some thinking - see above.
 The last hour was excruciating, up and down sand dunes forever and I finally lost my cool, I know, can you believe it? I just cracked and started openly swearing, kicking sand around and shouting at the miles of empty space around me where there was meant to be a campsite. Mum was finding the whole thing equally unfunny and at her absolute lowest she crumbled and said "oh bloody hell, this is ridiculous!" at which point I knew she'd reached the end of her teather. At 8.35am and some 26 hours after we started we saw the camp perched right on the top of a humungous sand dune - hilarious. I thought it was going to be a scene out of the Perrier advert with mum and I crawling up on our elbows but somehow we managed to muster enough energy to climb this thing and arrive in camp in a dignified, utterly exhausted fashion.
Would I do this again? Absolutely NOT!!!!!!!!
Cannot wait to come home. Craving rice and soy sauce with stir fried vegtables. Miss my children like crazy. Miss you Nicko and never want to spend a day away from home again - except possibly small trip to The Farm?
I'm coming home YIIIIIIIPPPPPPEEEEEE!!!!!!

We made it!!!!!! Never, ever, ever, EVER coming back to the Sahara again, EVER, possibly will avoid Egypt altogether, infact think I will stear clear of  the whole of northern Africa just to be safe.Hell! Will go into graphic, sordid and incredibly smelly detail later but they are sending out all messages now so no time. Mum is legend, super gran, oldest woman to ever complete a Racing The Planet desert marathon and 100% banned from doing another!
Miss my family so much dying to come home, planning to resume life as alcholic, layabout as soon as I return.
xxxxxxx

Day 4 - terrible start, really awful, thought it was all over. Last night had a quick visit to the medical tent as hadn't been to the loo properly since arriving. Was given a laxative and all through the night had bad cramping so slept appaulling. In the morning  had to rush to the porter pottie (that's what the American's call it!) and the expected happened - explotion! Thought everything would be fine after that but no - full on stomach cramps for the first four hours of the race.  The sun was burning down, no wind, full blown nausea, horrendous. Got into check point two and was given two Tums, 1 Zantac and something else I didn't know the name of. Anyway came out of the check point feeling terrific - glad there's no drug testing in this competition as I am way over loaded.
Check points are a bit like pit stops - you charge in, chuck the backpack on the ground, chug water, down a power bar, put backpack back on, throw excess water over your head, stuff camelpack water hose in your mouth  and back out you go. Well at least that's what most people do, Mum and I chuck our backpacks on the ground, fall on top of them and groan for about 20 minutes then stagger up and waddle on.
We have a 4.30am start tomorrow and then we are looking at a casual 22 hours of walking. It is a little hard to get one's head around the idea at the best of times but sitting here, knackered out of my brain, every muscle in my body aching, feet finished, it seems near impossible.
Nicko I miss you like crazy, please give the kiddies a big squeeze from me.
Off to get my laughing gear around a truly disgusting freeze dried meal - ugh.

Day 3 - nailed it!! - in a sort of slow, methodical, painstaking kind of way. 11 hours of walking. Have debeloped some blisters which are to be expected I guess but was hoping to get away with it all the same. Feet were agony coming into check point two but luckily found our tent mate Dave there who is a great bloke and offered to pop my them for me. Poor guy stuck a pin in and the liquid squirted out and hit him in the chest. He was fairly horrified, all I could think of to say was 'lucky it wasn't a zit!' but dont think he was mollified.
Anyone thinking of doing this my advice is 'dont bring pamesan cheese to the Sahara'. I know this will seem incredibly obvious to most of you but you would be amazed how many people recommended it. I know as far as dairy products go it's one of the tough ones but in this kind of heat it gets ugly. I located mine in my backpack last night as had forgotten I had it and when I bought it out there was a collective gag from fellow tentmates. Put it this way, if I'd let go of it it could have run around the tent by itself - big yuk.
We are down another tent mate - Ken, so we are now 5 girls and 1 guy (originally 4 guys) - little bit gender revealing.
Mum is feeling strong and we are planning to get through this. Domingo we are not last and we are fiercely competitive so no plans to relinquish our position which may not look too impresive but we are dead proud of it.
Nicko I got your emails and the kiddies ones - bit tear jerking.
So knackered must go sleep in the sand....

I thought yesterday was hot but we reached a whole new level today when my thermometer read 49 degrees. Yes 49!!! And what was even more hilarious was there was absolutely no breeze, NONE. Mum was brilliant today, way stronger and we chatted away happily about how brilliant we were, would have given eachother a pat on the back but shoulders were just a tad stiff.
I have now done two marathons in two day which ain't bad as never walked more than 25km before that. If I think about tomorrow I go into a blind panic and as for the 90km day, well then I'm breathing into my freeze dry meal packet to calm the fear. The sand was soft for most of the day and not a scrap of shade anywhere just miles and miles of open country. It is vital to drink pretty much every minute. At one point I forgot for about 15 minute and felt chronically dehydrated for about two hours after that no matter how much I drank. There were some quite low moments, check points further away than anticipated, ruck sack digging in and feet burning up but I dug deep like you told me to Luce - nearly reached California at some moments.
Have no idea why people do more than one of these. This is going to be a tick the box (hopefully) and move swiftly on situation.
We have a great tent, everyone really looks out for eachother. We also have Erica - the fastest girl in the race with us so mum and I are sharing all our secret tips with her. Sadly two people dropped out today, one with strep throat which is a worry as I slept next to him last night. the good news is that I was very short on snacks so he has now given me his - sounds a bit callous I know but what can you do? I was so hungry today I had one of those awake dreams while I was walking along. This local guy came along with his camel and I said 'can I have your camel?' and he said
'sure do you want it on or off the bone' - definitely will take more food with me tomorrow!
Thank you for all your lovely messages I focus on that all day and rush to the cyber tent -"rush" was a bit of an exaggeration, can hardly walk, to read all your encouraging words. Can someone show Nick how to write an e-mail.
Very excited about tomorrow - NOT!

Ist day -Not easy  by any stretch of the imagination. When I  heard the it was going to be 34.5km I thought 'well how hard can that be?'  let me tell you - so bloody hard it makes you want to cry except youre so dehydrated tears aren't an option so you get mildly giggly and hysterical - or at least I did. Imagine putting a two year old on your back and walking up and down the beach in 39 degrees centergrade and doing it for 8 hours! You are going to stop smiling at some point right.
Mum and I did a very slow steady pace as the  heat was really overwhelming. We tried to drink as much as we could but still only peed   twice in thhe whole day - not good enough apparently. There wasn't  much chat during the hottest part of the day but I tried to keep things light by singing a bit of John Denver  and Neil Diamond- thought mum would appeciate something  from her era but I think she had actually zoned me out.
Hardest part is knowing most people are back at camp chilling out while we were still out there.
Best bit of the day was first 30 minutes when I thought 'my god I am going to totally nail this!'. Favorite snack was Haribo Tang tastic  jelly crocodiles- award winning. Worst was dried pork - yuk! should have known better, really disgusting.
Golite shoes are genius, no blisters so far and all 10 toenails still present and correct -yippee. Poor mum is down to 9 already but she doesn't have such a toenail loosing phobia as I do.
Absolutely dreading tomorrow, serious, dreading it.Do not know where mum gets the strengt from  but se is hanging in there. Don't worry family I am by her side every step of the way.
Off to take 42,000  Voltarin  in the hope that it might ease the pain.

14 hour bus journey into the desert got things off to a good start. Had to fight off temptation to eat through a weeks worth of snacks. Didn't succeed so arrived feeling mildly sick, if I ever see another raisin I won't be very friendly to it. All a bit knackered so straight to bed after brief "Hi I'm Christy, I'll try not to fart too much but ate quite a lot of dried fruit on bus" then popped heaven sent Stilnoct and passed out.
Woke up just a tad disorientated. Breaky around camp fire all quite fun and reminiscent of Duke of Edinbourgh awards except no sneaky fags behind the tent.Slight hiccup is that at one of the bus breaks my ipod got knicked so have no music which is gutting and also means have to talk to mum for next 70 or so hours!
Apart from that everything going brilliantly, wearing all the right kit, feeling one of the gang just a bit nervy pants about the actual running bit.

The surprise worked brilliantly. My mum had absolutely no idea I was coming to do this with her and was completely blown away, tears, hugs, the works, it was great. Immediately hit the bar to celebrate.
The journey here wasn't too bad but long. The plane from Hong Kong took off at 1.50am - why do they do that?! Kept falling asleep in the airport lounge but eventually staggered on and crashed out for the entire journey. Think the nerves of the last few days had caught up with me. Sad farewell to Nick and the kids, I'll miss them like hell. Had to kill 8 hours at Doha airport. First three hours, easy peasy, after that things started to slow down, by hour 5 I was going insane. There are only two shops in Dohar airport, TWO! One selling sunglasses the other perfume - opted for sunglasses, can never have enough pairs of Mari Jims. Sorry tent mates, I didn't go for perfume but think perfume and sweat mix quite vomit making.
Only three hours from Dohar to Cairo. Had small panic attack when remembered that worst turbulence of my life happened in small plane over Sahara when I went to watch my Dad do the Marathon Des Sables (sorry to mention the competition) but luckily all pretty smooth. There were some tears however because the person two away from me was watching the saddest movie - Japanese love story. I kept reading the subtitles and ended up in floods which the guy from Kenya beside me was suprised by as on my screen was The Proposal which is a pretty lame movie and a comedy at that.
Ate gigantic pizza, packed and re-packed my rucksack coz read other blogs and that's what everyone else seems to be doing now off to bed......