He's done it!!

I am so pleased to report that Ian has crossed the finish line in 229th place in a total time of 38h 16m and 52s. Would you believe he finished today before the webcam came on so we were denied seeing the moment. I have just spoken to Him in the hotel in Morocco and he sounds great. 'I feel fine, it dosnt feel like I've done anything today'. The doctors have done a great job on his feet so he 'only has a couple of blisters'. I was relieved to hear he has just had dinner (well two dinners to be exact) and he was heading off to the bar............ I'm sure everyone will join me in saying well done, what an amazing, awe inspiring achievement. We are so proud of you. X X X Michelle.

I crossed the line with nothing left, though did make a feeble attempt at a sprint finish - must have looked like a pensioner running for the bus!

The last stage was underestimated by many, the first 6k were a steady jog along a nice sold wadi, however the final 10k was straight across some of the biggest dunes in Morocco.  They seemed to go on forever, and Adam, who had stripped to his 'hot pants' regretted it after over two hours with no sun lotion on his shoulders!

I finally crossed the line with a bit of a wobbly chin as I thought about looking down the webcam at Michelle and Jess, but soon toughened up when the packed lunches and bus tickets were being handed out.  Brilliant system where you got a ticket for the next available coach, so you had an hour at the finish line to cool down and chat to runners that had finished somewhere near you.

Utter relief and pride came over me, whilst the aches, pains and lactic acid start to kick in.  The bus journey back to the hotel was quiet, as most people were asleep.  It was a time for me to reflect and add up my calorie count for the week - 26,000 expended during the race stages, not including recovery.

Nearly there!

Stage 5 done! Amazingly (after last nights email from Ian) in a time of 5hrs 40 mins. Considering Ian said he was seizing up all day yesterday the mental and physical strength needed must have been immense. The email service to and from competitors is no longer available on the website so Im not sure if we will hear from Ian again before the end of the race. He does however appear in one of the photos.... Beware though, you may not recognise him... (photo removed, but see below).   The race certainly looks like it has taken it's toll and we haven't even seen his feet yet!! It is 16km (or thereabouts) tomorrow so will probably take Ian around 2h 30m so depending on the start time keep your eyes peeled on the webcam. That's all for now, the end is in sight... Michelle

After treatment at Doc Trotter's - cannot walk properly at this stage!

Owing to technical problems there was no email facility after the marathon stage 5.  It could've been a whole lot worse from what I remember, especially after the previous stage.  Many of the keen runners save themselves and hold plenty in reserve to get a good marathon time recorded, this meant that I finished well down the field compared to the other stages.

Straight from the horses mouth....

Stage 4 - 81.5k placed 259 - 223 overall.

Utter shocker! Today (yesterday) was one of the hardest things I've ever done. Most of the route was dunes or sand and seemed to be endless. I didn't waste any time at the CPs and cracked straight on. My feet suffered and I've had to visit the Doc's today for some iodine injections and minor operations! Hopefully will be able to walk, if not run tomorrow; not expecting to hold my race position!

The wait for the Doc was made more painful by the thunder storm that washed out the waiting tent and practically blew it down! Trying to navigate camp at a slow hobble has made today painfully slow and ceasing up happens after only a few moments in places.

Loving the emails thanks, only get this one/day to reply to everyone. Can't wait to see you all and gob off endlessly about it!

Full marathon tomorrow, then just 18k to finish. Dave S climbing into top 100, Ian G is 36 after finishing 24th yesterday - Amazing!

-----------------------------

Days 4 and 5 - 80km completed

Michelle here again. No word from Ian in the last 48 hours but info from the mds website shows he has completed the double marathon stage. Not only has he completed it but it was in a fantastic time of 15 hours! That means he reached the overnight bivvie just before midnight and has had the whole day today to rest and recharge. Hopefully he is ok and not suffering because of the amazing time.

Ian's training partner Iain is as speedy as predicted finishing in 28th place yesterday!!! The other news story from Morroco is that the leading athlete Rachid El Morabity had to set off his distress flares 1km from the end of the double marathon stage. Apparently suffering severe pains in his thigh he had to be 'rescued' by the medical team and has been re-patriated today for surgery to 'an important lesion on the quadriceps muscle'. How gutted must he be! If you were going to get injured surely 1km from the end of the 80km stage is the worst place!!

Only 2 more stages to go - 42km tomorrow and 15km on Saturday. I have asked Ian what his predicted time for the 15km stage will be so we can have a vague idea of the time he might cross the finish line on Sat - I for one will be glued to the webcam.

Ian's email:

At the top of a long climb after which I slalomed down this massive sand bank

The aforementioned sand bank - overtook about 40 racers coming down it

Stage 4 - 81.5k placed 259 - 223 overall.

Utter shocker! Today (yesterday) was one of the hardest things I've ever done. Most of the route was dunes or sand and seemed to be endless. I didn't waste any time at the CPs and cracked straight on. My feet suffered and I've had to visit the Doc's today for some iodine injections and minor operations! Hopefully will be able to walk, if not run tomorrow; not expecting to hold my race position!

The wait for the Doc was made more painful by the thunder storm that washed out the waiting tent and practically blew it down! Trying to navigate camp at a slow hobble has made today painfully slow and ceasing up happens after onlya few moments in place.

Loving the emails thanks, only get this one/day to reply. Can't wait to see you all and gob off endlessly about it!

Full marathon tomorrow, then just 18k to finish. Dave S climbing into top 100, Ian G is 36 after finishing 24th yesterday - Amazing!

The moment that felt as though it would never arrive, I could see the light for about an hour before reaching the line.

Day3-35k-5h05m

This light dust storm was pretty normal for the afternoons throughout the race

Day 3 - 35k - 5h05

So I was supposed to be taking it easy in prep for tomorrow's double marathon, but I had a real boost of morale, either from the MP3 player, the slightly overcast weather, or from getting ahead of Dave S for a while with some great route selection. Only came in 255 for the day, but I felt great and in a good place mentally for tomorrow. The new bivvy is just as dusty as the last and I got showered in dust with every gust last night; good job I haven't bothered washing since leaving the hotel!

Everyone from the tent was in quick today, so the combination of morale and nervousness should make for an entertaining night. Everyone is getting on well and I'm sure we'll all remain in contact after the race.

Some runners are suffering with their food selection, and I'm feeling a bit sickly with all the fluids. Luckily I have plenty of snacks for tomorrow, and won't need to drink so much once the sun drops. I need to sleep well tonight and take my time for 80k! 

Adam - morale

Day 2 - news from the desert

With Victoria, another Army officer at the start of the second stage

The good news is i have received emails from him (the bad news is i am still in control of the blog!). The messages sent via the official website http://www.darbaroud.com/ are getting through and i saw him cross the finish line on the live webcam today which was great. I have to say he looked in good shape. Tomorrow's stage is 35km so should take him around 5.5 hrs, depending on the start time (8.30 today) he should hopefully be crossing the line around 15.00 - 15.30hrs - I would recommend watching the webcam even for just a few minutes the picture quality is surprisingly good and you can get a real sense of the effort required.

I am handing over the blog reins to Julie (Ian's Mum) tomorrow as I am on-call. Keep the messages of support and sponsorship coming, it is really helping Ian to keep going.

Dave Spencer in front to the right, this was about the last I saw of him!

Michelle

Ian's email follows:

"Day 2 - 38k 5h 42m. 237th today - 213 overall

I was actually 192 yesterday, but who cares! All position ambition is gone; just want to finish. Thinking about the long stage is stomach churning, will be same as today followed by half M of dunes, then another 30k. 

Today was quite flat and I ran to the second CP, but kept my heart rate average down to about 148 compared to 162 yesterday. May have gone faster than the walk I stuck to in the second half, but thought Dave S was behind me! He must have sneaked past me at a CP somewhere! His kit was in the tent when I got back, he was at Doc's. Had a lie down to relax, but shat myself while trying to fart; according to reports from the med tent - I was by no means the only one. Doing well on fluids, breathing through my Buff to stop my throat from drying out seems to help a lot.

Tomorrow is 35k and looking like nasty terrain. Expect to drop into the high 200s, but not too fussed. Miss you all x"

Michelle's snap from the race webcam - I must have been shaking!

Race day 1

Michelle here again! Ian was hoping to email me his blog posts to keep everyone updated but no word from him yet, so it's me again I'm afraid. The good news is He made it round today's 33.8km stage and in an amazing time of 4 hours 45 mins which puts him in 191st place on the leader board.

The Race started at 9am (10am UK time) and temperatures were 29.7C at 10am and 35.8C at midday.  Today was apparently the warm up with 38.5km scheduled for tomorrow. Hopefully Ian is not too thirsty and all his weekend training sessions in the desert will pay off. By my estimations it will take him around 5.5 hrs tomorrow which means he should be reaching the finish line around 3.30 UK time. If you are near your pc put the live webcam on and see if you can spot him (race number 415). That's all from me tonight, hopefully will have something from Ian by tomorrow.The press release on the website gives info about the race leaders and a few more stats. A British woman is second overall in the ladies race - go girl!! There is also detailed information regarding the terrain / route covered - http://www.darbaroud.com/uk/html/mds/27mds/press-release/uk_27mds_press-release_2.php.

Ian's email has appeared out of the spam filter:

Great tent buddies, much banter; all military or ex. Kit weighed 12kg all in and should have plenty food. Started stage 1 at 9am after a lot of waiting around, not sure about temp but it was 45c by end. Ran all 14k to first, and most of leg 2, made a lot of places up through good route selection, but lost most of them back to faster runners. Final leg was much slower owing to cramps, though lots of salt tabs and electrolytes taken. Came in on 4h 47 with Dave S; thinking we were midfield, but transpired we were more like 165! Amazed, but will have to slow tomorrow. Iain G is placed in the thirties on 3h 31 - legendary!
Bivvy 2 is a dust bowl and currently V windy, wont admin properly until it calms. Morale is high now I know my placing, but the rest of the week is daunting. Much food, rest and stretching tonight.
Apologies for failure to get my tracker working; am sure it is user error. Keep the sponsor money flowing; resend please!

All set...

Hi Everyone, Michelle here. I have taken the liberty of a quick blog post on Ian's behalf whilst he is out of contact during the pre-race admin time. I am feeling more stressed about the responsibility of the blog than he is about the race! He sent a text to say he had arrived in Morroco safely. After one night in a hotel the group have moved to bivouac's in the desert, meals are provided today but the competitors are self sufficient from tomorrow. The race route and stage lengths have now been published on the website (after being kept secret to prevent any competitor gaining an advantage): Sunday 33.8 km Monday 38.5 km Tuesday 35 km Wednesday/Thursday 81.5 km Friday 42.2 km Saturday 15.5 km The website www.darbaroud.com has live webcam footage during the race, an option to send an email to athletes (Ian is number 415) and lots of other information about the race so I would recommend taking a look! There should be 20 mins /day of tv footage summarising the days race - I have emailed to see if it will be broadcast in the uk - will keep you posted.... All that is left to say now is good luck to Ian, Jess and I are so proud of you and love you very much.

To add to Michelle's on the ball comments:
The hotel we were put up in was gorgeous and the food was plentiful. We embarked on the coach ride from hell with a group of insane drivers that thought nothing of overtaking on blind bends and making some pretty shoddy old buses go faster than they probably should have.

The pre-race admin was tiresome and occasionally not too joined up, however it has to be said they had it cracked better than the British Army would have managed! Small mis-communications caused some of the dramas, which would have been avoided if we had all the decency to learn French.  Alighting the coaches after about four hours to get into the backs of cargo trucks with all of our kit was entertaining and a good leg-stretch.  That short journey took us to bivouac one for a period of acclimatisation and queuing in the sun for various things such as registration, kit check, emergency kit issue, food, shops, luggage drop off etc.

Selection of tent buddies was a little political, as our little group of Royal Signals Officers met up and all wanted to fill the tent with the other buddies that we had made on our journeys - I had been with a chap from Israel since getting on the coach at Heathrow to Gatwick.  It turned out the Ben and Adam had a couple of mates Dan and John that both had Para Regt background, so they were quickly welcomed into what soon became known as the 'naughty boys tent'.

My choice of sleeping bag was unpopular with Ben and Adam (who had been following the blog), but not as bad as unpopular as Dan's selection of sleeping mat, which was very expensive, and Dan's was leaking on the first night out - Jon's laughter was soon thwarted as his went down about 20 minutes after going to sleep the same night.

no-one knew how much food to put into their packs, and most of us ended up taking too much.  I took a spare pair of gaiters, as the home-stitching was starting to come out of my modifications, I also had to buy another hat,as mine went missing somewhere between Riyadh and Morocco.

I'm not sure I've ever been so nervous as I was on the start line, but it was a good nervous

Ready for the off.

I’m sat in my living room in Riyadh racking my brains as to what I’ve forgotten, but am drawing a blank. I really hope whatever I’m not got can be easily be picked up at Gatwick or in Morocco. I’ve set the admin in place with Michelle and my Mum to get my sole daily race email published on my blog and the distribution through Facebook sorted. I now have to hope that Liton turns up at 2315hrs to pick me up, and that BMI decide to randomly upgrade me to first class so that I can actually get some sleep on the flight. I also have to hope that the UK weather allows us to land at Heathrow, though it would be top luck if we had to get diverted to Gatwick!

I had an update from Jim’s Mum Tricia, who is on the Trust Board; the confirmed donations are up to over £5,100. There has been a surge in donations over the last few days, mostly from my extremely generous colleagues at SANGCOM. I’m hoping that the race is sufficiently painful enough that my blog posts will urge readers to donate in large quantities.

Just remembered my shamag!!! I’d remembered and forgotten that about 4 times today. Wish me luck people. Thank you for your support so far. Chris C – I’ll probably want to kill you when I get back, but wish you were coming with me, I can’t wait to meet your baby boy who will probably have made an appearance by the time I am back in KSA. Jim Philippson; this is for you buddy.

Follow Me in Morocco

Email

For anyone wishing to send me emails during the MdS from 7 April:

Follow this link and click on ‘Write to a competitor’ or ‘Ecrire aux concurrents’. You will need to enter my running number (415). Please do NOT try to send attachments or anything other than plain text, or I won't get your email!

THIS FACILITY WILL NOT APPEAR ON THE WEBSITE UNTIL 7 APRIL AND WILL BE REMOVED ON 13 APRIL!

There will also be a finish webcam on the above page, you might spot me crawling over the line each day.

Daily Results

Last year, it was possible to follow arrival through checkpoints – I’m not sure if this will happen this year. Please be aware that these results take time to update – mostly they are quite good, but occasionally someone’s results will get missed.

GPS Tracking

Track me with a Google Earth interface from the GRC Website - Log on using:

Username: DEMO2

Password: DEMO2

This site is safe, so ignore the certificate warnings and opt to view all content if prompted.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Facebook

The race will have feeds onto Facebook and there will also be a webcam on the finish line each day, so if you've really nothing else to do; have a look at the Facebook page and see if you can spot me!

It's admin Jim, but not as we know it

They say that if you put a group of monkeys with typewriters in a room; eventually they’ll produce the works of Shakespeare. Similarly, if you put a squaddie in a room with a set of clippers; eventually he’ll shave everything! I’ve experienced this myself as a soldier, a Potential Officer, an Officer Cadet and every rank since. I can’t really explain it, it just sort of happens.

The intent was to shave my knees from the top of where my compression stockings come to, to the bottom of my cycling shorts. This would mean the factor 50 would go a lot further, so I could take less. With fully charged clippers and not much else pressing to do; I ended up virtually hairless from neck down, with the exception of my forearms. I’m waiting til last minute to have my proper haircut, as the boss doesn’t like his officers to be skinheads, but it will be a proper US style high and tight.

Kit preparation is going well, apart from taking a chunk out of my finger whilst cutting down my camera case with my new mini-Gerber knife – it’s quite sharp! I’ve hacked away at my back pack, cut off excess strapping, repackaged food, removed food items from the packing list and borrowed a new compression sack for my sleeping system from my friend James.

Everything you need for the MdS, including shaved legs.

There has been a real surge in donations and I’ve had to start keeping notes of who’s given me cash to make the payments on my credit card when I get home. Lots of my work friends and colleagues have been extremely generous, and my friends from GPT and other business partner employees have dug deep too. I came home from the shops tonight to find a card taped to my door by Emily and Mike with a very kind contribution; I hope I get to say thank you in person before I leave on Thursday.

Training this week has been limited to fat-burning, as I want to avoid injuries and keep the weight off as long as I can before I start carb-loading and getting fully hydrated. Striking a balance between keeping all my systems going and attaining full recovery is tricky, but I’m feeling good and not too nervous yet; I’m sure that’s in the post though!

Not much to photograph so thought I'd treat you to some pics of the Saudi Horse racing

Please don’t let yourself ‘not get round to sponsoring me’ do it now, it takes less than 2 minutes to do and you will feel SOOOO good about yourself for doing it I promise. Just think you’ll be able to happily ignore all my subsequent reminders and think “he’s not referring to me”!