I have received many great questions from people regarding my quest to run the 2011 Marathon des Sables–an ultramarathon in the Sahara Desert.   I appreciate your interest in what our Team Endure to Cure members and I are doing to help the fight against pediatric cancer.  That being said, I figured this would be a great opportunity to write a quick post answering a cross-section of questions I have received over the last few weeks.  If you have more questions or comments, please let them flow.

I know nothing about this event other than it is in the Sahara Desert.  Can you describe how this event works? The Marathon des Sables (trans: “Marathon of the Sands”) is a 150-mile ultramarathon in the Moroccan Sahara Desert consisting of six stages over seven days.  The first three daily stages are about 20 miles each, the fourth stage is around 50 miles with a 40hr time limit, the fifth stage is always a full marathon of 26.2 miles, and the sixth and final stage is usually somewhere between 9-12 miles.  The reason I use approximations is because the course changes every year and we will not know the course details until we arrive in Morocco.  In fact, at this point we do not even know where we start the race.  We simply have a “rendezvous point” in Ourazazate, Morocco and then we take a bus trip possibly up to 8hrs from Ourazazate to the start location.

How does your gear get transported throughout the run? This event is virtually self-supported. Each competitor is required to carry all of their essential gear, food, sleeping bag, and clothing for the week.  The event organizers provide only two things: water rations, and a traditional, two-sided Berber tent each night for groups of 8 people to sleep in between stages.  Keep in mind these are not tents like you think of for camping, but tents that better resenmble the medical tents at a marathon that provide “general shelter.”

What will the weather be like when you run in the Sahara Desert? Temperatures will be rather extreme and so too are the temperature ranges.  Daytime highs could reach around 125°F (with sand temperature being even hotter) while nighttime lows could dip down below 40°F.  Additionally, there could be some sandstorms thrown into the mix. We simply have to be prepared for anything.

What is the terrain of the course; is it just sand dunes? Surprisingly, the terrain at the Marathon des Sables is not endless waves of gargantuan, micro-fine sand dunes.  In fact, over the event’s 25-year history, only about 15-20% of the course is run on sand and sand dunes.  The remaining 80-85% of the course is run over salt flats, dried up river beds, rocky desert plains, and ancient, dried up lakes.  It is also common for the course to pass through a remote desert village or two.  Again, we won’t know the course until we get there, but this has been the historical tendency.  Here is a cool shot of one of the dunes on last year’s course:

What will you eat and drink out there in the desert and where do you get water? Race organizers provide us with about 10L (the actual amount is completely dependent on the length of the stage) of water per day which gets rationed throughout the day at various checkpoints.  I will have 2 water bottles and mix an electrolyte powder into the water in one and have straight water in another.  I am sure I also will consume a fair share of electrolyte and salt tables.  As for food, I probably will use the freeze-dried meals to which you just add water.  I am still experimenting with and fine tuning my food, but one thing that I believe is highly imperative is to select food that is the most calorie-dense per unit of weight.  In other words, the smaller and lighter the food, the better it I should be because my pack will be lighter.

How much will your pack weight? At our pre-race check-in, our pack is required to weight between 6.5kg (14.3lbs) and and 15kg (33lbs).  I expect my pack to weigh somewhere between 20-23lbs at the start and as my food supply gets depleted over the week, the pack should get down to no more than 4-5lbs by the 7th day.  My pack itself (INOV-8 Race Elite 25L) weighs only 12.8oz and my sleeping bag (Western Mountaineering HiLite, rated to 30°F) weighs in at only 1lb.  I think it may be the lightest bag made for that low of temperature rating. In other words, once supplies are depleted, I won’t have much weight left in the bag.

What type of shoes will you wear and how will you keep the sand out? Mizuno has been one of my sponsors and as of now, I plan to use the same shoes I always run: the Mizuno Wave Ronin—a durable racing flat weighing 7.5oz.  I realize this seems counterintuitive given the rough terrain, but I have experimented with traditional running and trail running shoes and they still beat up my body too much.  Racing flats and minimal shoes always seem to work the best for me.  Moreover, I think the Ronin’s will allow my feet to breathe better in the hot temps than they would in the heavier trail shoes–this also should help to reduce risk for blisters or emaciated feet.  As for keeping out the sand, I will have gaitors covering my shoes.  These gaitors are attached by velcro that goes around the bottom edge of the shoes and extends up to the high ankle.  Here is a peek at what they generally look like:

Are there any dangerous critters to contend with out there? Yes. By most accounts, scorpions seem to be rather prevalent, but the race organizers claim they never have seen snakes.  We are required to carry an anti-venom pump as one of the compulsory items on the gear list in the instance we get bit or stung by one of these guys.

What are the biggest limiters for this event? From all of my research, it seems to me that care of the feet (e.g., minimizing/preventing acute blisters), improper hydration and/or nutrition, and lack of necessary mental toughness are the primary reasons most people get knocked out of this event.

How hard is Marathon des Sables? Who am I to say; I have never done it so I have no clue.  What I can say is that it consistently appears in those “Top 10 Hardest Endurance Events in the World” type of lists over time.  While I generally find ordinal ranking systems to usually be biased and arbitrary, I do think more can be gleaned from the annual consistency at which something appears on such lists.  I am about 100% confident that this will the the most physically and mentally challenging physical activity I have attempted in my life–although, surprisingly, my first year working at Morgan Stanley as a research analyst out of undergrad took its toll on my mind and body.

What concerns you most about doing this event? Three things: wondering how my body will adjust to the 80-90 degree spread in day and night temperature, taking proper care of my feet, and the possibility of getting hit by a scorpion while sleeping at night in the “generally protected” tents.

How do you train to be ready for Marathon des Sables? I will soon write a post covering this in greater depth, but I will say this: in my opinion, one of the most important aspects of training for an event like this is building up my body’s durability and to train it recover quickly.  If you fail to do so, then everything else will be more likely to fall apart at the seams after the first day or two.  Again, I will write some stand-alone posts on how I am doing this in the coming weeks.

And last but not least, I have received a handful of the critical sort of emails; most of which can best be summarized in a question like the one that follows:

I think you are _____ (insert here: insane, crazy, etc.) and I just don’t get it. You regularly claim your disdain towards running, yet you are going to run farther in a week than most people probably will run in their entire lives, and do so in inhospitable conditions.  Why, what is the point?

With all due respect to these opinions, I would like to pose a question: what would you call me if I spent great lengths of time in a position in which I felt generally unfulfilled, yet failed to take the actions necessary to change my course to pursue what truly excites me in life?  I think that would be insane!  I wrote my first blog post titled “Why I Founded Endure to Cure” and it continues to be the answer to this question.  I refuse to believe that carrying out my mission in life–doing what motivates and excites me, possibly inspires others to reach for new heights in their own lives, or maybe even ends up making a small contribution towards the discovery of cancer cures–is insane.  I will assure you, for me, running the Sahara Desert is not about the running.

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