Just two weeks to go...an update

If you'll indulge me briefly, blogoholics, allow me to tell you a little about the place where four of the five Desert Hacks work. It's an office on an industrial estate type area called International Media Production Zone (Dubai has a wonderful lack of imagination where names are concerned; for more examples, see The Dubai Mall, The Dubai Fountain, Dubai Marina, The Dubai Promenade...) and it's in the middle of the desert.

Now, I'm not disparagingly describing Dubai as a city in the middle of the desert - it's not, it's on a lovely stretch of coastline - but our office is actually in the middle of the desert. No shops, cafes, restaurants...just sand.

Therefore, I've come to really look forward to waxing lyrical with some pop adventure-philosophy on these blogs. I take 10 minutes after eating lunch at my desk to connect with the blogosphere - a little light relief during a particularly busy time in work. Actually, I'd love to hear from any athletes, triathletes or adventure racers out there - how do you make sure that busy periods in work don't mess with your training schedule?

So, on to the meat of today's post: we have just two weeks to go before the big Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge and it's beginning to feel extremely, well, real. Therefore, this weekend we decided, as they say in Spinal Tap, to turn the dial up to 11!

Pete, Jeff and I did a 45km walk, which clocked in at just over 8 hours. I won't play it down, this was easily our toughest training session so far. We did it as four circuits of an 11km+ route. The first two times around were tough but spirits remained high...the third...well, the third. OW! It hurt in ways that nothing should. The only way through it was to strap on the MP3 players and almost literally fight our ways through. It was a spirit breaker. Feet throbbing, blistering, rashes flaring up, joints aching...I think it's fair to say that we all HATED it.

However - beware of more cod philosophy coming up - thanks to what I'm not ashamed to describe as a top class display of camaraderie and a triumph of the human spirit over adversity, not to mention a careful programme of regular pauses and stretches, the final loop was much less painful. A swim to ease those aches and pains at the end, and it felt worthwhile. We know we can cover the distances required, we know we can walk mile after mile after mile for hours on end...

I don't know whether you can ever be fully prepared for a hardcore endurance adventure race, and, in an ideal world, we'd have had a couple more months at this level to hone our, erm, skills, but I think we're feeling OK. Apprehensive but determined and, whisper it, almost confident.

For the past two days, I've hardly been able to walk. It feels like someone took a baseball bat to my feet arches - probably made worse by my feet-like-a-slab-of-steak flatfootedness. We couldn't kayak yesterday, as planned, due to high winds and choppy waters but that was, if I'm completely honest, a relief.

This morning, however, I dragged myself out of bed and managed 30kms on the mountain bike before work. A couple of thousand metres in the pool awaits tonight.

People think I'm insane when I tell them about how much we train. They think there must be something wrong with me to not only spend 8 hours of my weekend walking but to follow that with a 6am cycle. I'm getting used to answering the question "why?" but sometimes it's hard to vocalise the perfect response.

Beacuse that's what it takes. Because that's what you do. Because, no matter how my bruised feet feel now and my aching body screamed during our third lap of four, that's what we love. Getting up every day and knowing you're harder, stronger, fitter and faster than yesterday is what has to drive you otherwise there is no way you'd get through the training for this event, nevermind the comp itself.

There's a phrase by the great Roman philosopher Seneca who was infinitely better at it than me (philosophising, not adventure racing - he was, by all accounts, a dreadful cyclist) which reads "per aspera ad astra". It has become something of a personal motto for me during the past few weeks.

"Through difficulties to the stars." I guess that, as much as anything, is the answer to all those whys.

Matt