Desert drama!

Well, I'm back: I made it through the dunes and lived to tell the tale!

Or rather, made it about a third of the way through the dunes, then had to be rescued by an army helicopter...

I'd better start at the beginning.

The telling of this epic tale falls to me because those brave boys Jeffrey and Matthew are still competing in the final events of the Adventure Challenge (today is the last day) and because jammy young Peter has the whole week off, so is still there as well, providing moral support from the sidelines.

As you may recall from previous posts, the desert trek was the only leg of the event I was competing in, so I am now back in the office and am sat in front of a computer, a whole world away from where I was early on Sunday morning...


SUNDAY 6th DECEMBER

After a negligible night's sleep in our tents, somewhere deep in the deserts of Liwa (around the Saudi border, I believe) we hauled ourselves from our sleeping bags at 5.30am, packed up our bags and prepared to get trekking.

The ADTA provided us with a pretty good breakfast to see us on our way, and the atmosphere was pretty upbeat, with teams standing around the tented buffet sharing last-minute advice and admiring the impressive variety of crazily-coloured gaiters on display. (Or maybe that was just us.)

But after the 6.30am check-in, the atmosphere palpably changed: there was excitement, tension, even a little apprehension (again, maybe just from us) in the air as the teams clustered round the starting line, waiting for the off.

At 7am, the announcer gave the word and the race set off — at a run.

Now, I don't know why it hadn't occurred to us that this would happen.
Of course, although we ourselves had been training at a fast walk, we were aware that the serious contenders would run almost the whole way.

What we hadn't anticipated was that everyone would set off at a run, leaving us four woefully overloaded extras (how on earth did everyone else carry so little? It's still a mystery!) gaping at the back.

Not wanting to mar the poetry of the moment for the mass of cameras filming by strolling nonchalantly into shot at a snail's pace (and for the slightly less altruistic reason of trying to avoid labelling ourselves losers just seconds into the event,) we bolted with the rest of the pack.

A couple of minutes later, round a slight bend in the track suitably far from the camera lenses, we stopped, got our breath back and set off again at a more measured speed.

The first check point was around 9km away, and started off fairly pleasantly over crystallised salt-flats. The last clamber up to the check-point — on top of a dune - was probably the first serious exertion.

The next stage was a trickier section of around 16km, which saw a few of us flagging - especially as the weather heated up.
But we remained on course and reached the next check-point around 1pm, more than ready to top up our water, enjoy a lunch of Mars bars, nuts and raisins and avoid the worst of the midday-sun with a cleverly constructed shade rigged up from walking poles and one of the tents. (Really, it was very clever; and it only collapsed on us twice.)

An hour-and-a-half later, we set off again, our water bottles full, our resolve strengthened.

It was really an extremely tough afternoon.
As we went on, the heat and the increasingly difficult terrain started to take their toll; the afternoon's route featured fewer flats, more dunes to navigate, and more circuitous routes for those looking to go round them.

This is where having a good team really helps.
I know for me that if it hadn't been for the cheery reassurances from the boys and and the ongoing words of encouragement being exchanged, the miles remaining would have seemed a far grimmer prospect.
(Chocolate was also a big comfort.)

Finally, as the light faded, we found ourselves at the end of a salt flat facing the biggest dune of the day: a beast that looked more like a sheer cliff than a sandy slope.

Getting up it was hell, but the views from the top were breath-taking.
Trekking over the ridges as the sun set, we were privy to some of the most beautiful sights I have seen in the UAE — miles of empty, undulating dunes turning gold under a rosy sky.

Having said that, at the time the most beautiful sight for me was probably catching sight of the less-romantic but infinitely more welcome campfire at the next check-point.

After what seemed like a never-ending slog, we reached our camp for the evening around 7pm - not far off what we had aimed for at the start of the day.

Foot-sore and smelly, we chatted to a few other groups — all of whom seemed to have run the majority of the course, sand dunes included — ate our dinner (I learnt a valuable lesson about storing pasta with a cream sauce in a warm bag for 24 hours)and hit the hay.


MONDAY 7th DECEMBER

At 12.25am, we got up and packed up our kit. By 1am, we were on our way again.

The method behind this apparent madness was primarily so we could walk in the cooler climes of the evening, when the sand on the dunes is packed more tightly together and therefore easier to walk on — a method we heard the leaders would themselves be using.

The other reason was, of course, that we still had 45km to cover by the 7pm cut-off.

Night-walking also has its challenges, it turns out.
Yes, it is much cooler and the sand is firm, but at the same time, if you're making for certain coordinates and trying to navigate the quickest and most efficient path there through a towering sea of sand dunes, not being able to see the aforementioned dunes does make things tricky.

We set off full of determination to meet our goals for the day: next check-point by 4-5am, then on to the penultimate stop, where we would have our lunchtime rest before meandering on to the finish with time to spare.

Of course, this cavalier assumption was made without fully weighing up all the facts - i.e. that we were all aching from the day before, and that despite our efforts in the six weeks of training leading up to the event, our bodies were simply not sufficiently used to covering such a distance within this time.

As the - surprisingly fresh - Arabian winds buffeted us around, we trekked through the moonlight up, along, across and in between a seemingly never-ending field of dunes, silently wishing that we were in fact Richard Ussher and viewed the route less as a two-day endurance challenge and more as a light warm-up for the day, to be trotted out before breakfast.

At one point, around 3am, we sat down for a rest on the side of a dune and all fell asleep. We just passed out in a row, with our bags on!
Luckily Matt only briefly nodded off, and came to in time to shake the rest of us awake before we passed out for the duration.

By this point, I was in a lot of pain in the foot and leg regions (which, I admit, I made sure the guys knew about! Luckily they were unerringly patient and encouraging, which was probably more than I deserved.)
Jeff was suffering too, with massive blisters covering the soles of both his feet.
Matt and Pete were faring slightly better, with Pete displaying quite amazing determination and stamina, which I'm sure was only in part down to a large consumption of powdered glucose.

We finally reached the checkpoint just before 7am - significantly later than we had hoped.
We sat down and had a serious team chat: how were we feeling? Could we make it any further? Could we feasibly finish in the time remaining?

In the end, we reluctantly came to the very difficult decision that what we'd started as a team, we'd finish as a team — and unfortunately for us, the finish was then and there.
We explained the situation to the check-point manner, Manolo: that we simply couldn't make another 25km in the remaining time.

The stewards were very understanding and arranged for the army helicopter that was picking up the guys on the check-points to also take us back to base camp.

A few hours later, the chopper arrived and after an exciting and surprisingly noisy five minutes speeding low over the dunes, we arrived back at base camp.

Ultimately, we were disappointed not to finish — but on the other hand, we we just so proud and pleased to have been able to even take part.

It's a privilege to watch athletes of this standard in action, let alone compete alongside them, speak to them about their plans and aims and actually experience what they are going through first-hand.

So it is with the utmost respect for all the competitors (particularly Kristin Larsson, the Swedish competitor who fell ill on the first day and did the entire two-day desert trek without being able to keep any food down) that we say congratulations and thank you to the ADTA for inviting us take part.

Now: who's up for getting a team together for next year?