It has been more than two weeks since I crossed the finish line of the Marathon des Sables, a 230 kilometre race across the Sahara Desert in Morocco.
New skin is growing over the blisters on my toes and heels and my ankles are no longer swollen.
Just like having a baby, the pain no longer seems quite as bad as it did with each painful step during the race.
The MDS is billed as the hardest foot race on Earth, the equivalent of six marathons in seven days. It was certainly the toughest race I have run.
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Every single day of the race I was in pain. My legs didn’t hurt much, my 20 pound pack seemed bearable and the 54 C heat was manageable with my water and salt pills and my slow pace.
What hurt with every step were my feet.
The combination of alternating rocky terrain, sand dunes, mountains and heat created the perfect environment for blisters that plagued my entire race. Each night I would hobble into the bivouac, drop my pack at our tent and line up at the medical tent with the other disabled to have my blisters popped, iodine poured into the wounds and new tape reapplied. By Day 2, my swollen sausage toes barely fit into my too tight running shoes.
After 28 years, race organizers know pain is not a reason to drop out of the race, and runners are encouraged to keep walking toward the finish line. They know people can do really hard things.
One runner from Quebec flagged down a medical truck on Day 4, the 75 km leg, and told the medics he was quitting. After asking a series of medical questions, the medics told him the pain was all in his head and to use his flare if things got bad and drove off.
He finished the race.
When I heard of the MDS several years ago, I believed you needed to be a super athlete to even sign up. Yes, the winners are amazing athletes who can run for hours in the heat, but the race also shows that anyone with perseverance and doggedness can cross the finish line. It’s those traits that carry most people through life.
