Getting Downesy to the Desert: Enter Sandman

2015 SULTAN MARATHON DES SABLES Day Zero: Merzouga 3rd April Having left home on Thursday and spending the night at Gatwick, I was looking forward to getting to Morocco and out into the desert.The transfer between the airport at Ouarzazate and the first bivouac at Merzouga on Friday was spectacular –spectacularly empty. In 6 hours […]

Getting Downesy to the Desert: Approaching Zero Hour

Counting down with 2 weeks to go and the devil is all in the detail now. The event preparation is well underway in Morocco and on March 5th the 30th Sultan Marathon Des Sables press conference offered a tiny taste of the adventure that myself and the other almost 1,500 runners will experience from 3 […]

Getting Downesy to the Desert: Packing Heat

9 weeks to go and my attention is now firmly fixed on hitting the gym in The Sligo Park Hotel’s Leisure Club, running my 70 miles a week and managing my pack weight to keep it under 10 kilos. I am training twice a week with a weighted pack and, having spoken with Diane Hogan Murphy […]

Getting Downesy to the Desert: Dreaming of Carbs….

16 weeks to go… and all I seem to be doing is running, eating lettuce and starving. When I entered the Marathon Des Sables I knew I’d have to put the miles in and that was fine with me. My not-very-clear plan was to drop some weight before I went and that was about as […]

Getting Downesy to the desert…

So here it is…. my first blog post about my training and preparation for the 2015 Marathon Des Sables. Known simply as the MdS, The Marathon des Sables is ranked by the Discovery Channel as “the toughest footrace on earth”. Next April (just 20 weeks from now) you will find me somewhere in the Sahara […]