This was organised by ADTA (Abu Dhabi Tourism Association) and conducted by France's very own adventure racing legend and Arsene Wenger lookalike, Sylvain Thuault.
Over two days, we played around with one of the sea kayaks that we'll be racing in the actual event - seeing how it felt to paddle, how to put up/take down the sail - we learned how to use our newly-bought GPS (which will bring a new meaning to having our lives in our hands when out in the desert) and we did some fairly HARDCORE desert orienteering practice.
It was good. It was tough.We found out a lot about what we'll need to do to get through it.
My personal highlight was either the two bottles of Heineken on Friday evening or waking up early doors Saturday, sun rising above the deep red dunes that surrounded our camp site and seeing a strange figure on the horizon. Ended up it was one of our fellow competitors - nicknamed by us THE BULL due to the fact he basically looks like a single, testosterone-soaked, coiled muscle carved from Mount Olympus itself - doing a little dune running. Apparently the 20km, 5-hour dune hike we were doing later in the day was insufficient as far as a day's training goes.
THE BULL is also in training for Ironman. John, a lovely fella also attending, had competed in (and done well in) Comrades - South Africa's famous 89km marathon. He'd also done a triple-marathon. This is the calibre of athlete it takes to complete this event...we're in trouble!
Below: Sylvain 'Wenger' shows us how to use the kayaks.
Below: Matt, Pete and Scott look confused.
Below: the teams learn to use their GPSs.
Below: The great view from the Liwa Hotel out into The Empty Quarter - 40 or 50kms into that endless expanse of sand is where the two-day desert orienteering leg will start.
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