Woken again just before 6am by the Bedouins pulling the tent down. With three hours prior to the stage getting underway, we had plenty of time to have breakfast, re-pack kit and start loading our bodies up with water. With the first day behind us, and with still 200km to run, the reality of the race started to hit me. I promised myself that this stage would be run at a much more conservative pace if I were to finish and not become one of the retirements.
Milling around waiting for the start, I began to feel a sense of deja-vu. The same dance music was being pumped out of massive speakers (something about building Castles in the Sky), whilst Patrick Bauer, bless him, rambled on for what seemed like an eternity, telling us things that we obviously didn�t know: �today will be tough/drink plenty of water/today will be hot� etc. No, Patrick - really?
Stage 2 was 36km and from the description of the course in the Roadbook, the terrain was a lot trickier than the previous day. The checkpoints were also further apart at 12km, so the 1.5 litres that we received at each CP would have to last us longer. As we got underway the same grouping from Heinz 57 began to form, with Russ Richard Sean and myself all running in the same loosely formed pack. After about 40 minutes of running at quite a good pace, I started to feel the full effects of yesterday�s efforts: my back was really starting to hurt, and then my right knee started to twinge, which put me into panic mode. All I could think was that this was the last thing I needed during the biggest race of my life, and if it was playing up after just a few hours running, what would it be like in a few days time?
As we reached CP1, the four of us collected our water and checked up on each other. Richard and Russ looked strong and headed straight off from the checkpoint, whereas I and Sean, who also seemed to be suffering, held back slightly in an attempt to ease up on the pace. Once we had left the CP, we immediately entered our first set of �serious� dunes and I really started to suffer. As I plodded on, my pace slowed dramatically and people started to pass me. Sean too must have been really hurting as he dropped back from me, even though we�d left the CP together. The dunes seemed to go on forever; up and down, up and down and the temperature was starting to soar as we neared midday and all I kept thinking about was making it to the next CP.
Working my way through the dunes I came across a French athlete who was having some real problems. He was weaving up and down and whilst in my sight, stopped a couple of times to be sick. I asked him if he was ok, but all I got was a vacant look and a mumble. At least I wasn�t in that bad a state.
At the 24km mark CP2 loomed up out of the distance, and after collecting my water ration, I spent a couple of minutes eating part of an energy bar and getting as much fluid down my neck as possible. It was then back off into the dunes for the final 12km to the finish and bivvy site no.3. After about 20 minutes of leaving CP2, the food and water kicked in and worked their wonders on my body, filling me with new energy and enthusiasm. I picked my pace up and started to pass some of the runners that had overtaken me in the first set of dunes. Before I knew it, the finish gantry appeared and the stage was over, but it had certainly taken its toll on me and made me realise that I was going to have to pay this race a lot of respect if I was to finish. Thankfully my knee had not worsened since CP1, and it remained just a dull ache. Much more concerning was my lower back, which was by now severely bruised, with each step sending jolts of pain through my body.
Stumbling back to Heinz 57 with my 4.5 litres of water, I found Richard and Russ pottering around the tent. Richard has the most infectious sense of enthusiasm and optimism possible, which rubbed off on the people around him. As soon as I sat down (collapsed) in the tent, he was full of praise for me on a hard day�s effort. Russ meanwhile, as tired and sore as the rest of us would have only one thing on his mind: to make the tent as comfortable as possible in the atrocious conditions. This invariably involved walking several hundred yards from the camp and collecting large rocks to weigh the edges of the tent down, and Russ�s actions at the end of every stage never failed to amaze me. Each day without fail he would not lie down for 5 or 10 minutes and recuperate like the rest of us, but would summon up the effort to help everyone out by improving our living conditions. This may not seem like a lot, but at the end of a hard day�s running through the Sahara desert, it was more than I could do.
The position of our tent at this bivvy site was such that we could lie down and watch as the runners approached the finish line. Whenever a tent-mate approached, we would manage to rouse ourselves from the tent, go back out into the blazing heat and cheer them home. The biggest cheer was reserved for Frank, who despite feeling good held back to accompany an American runner who was having a really hard time. I was to later learn that this kind of approach to life summed up Frank perfectly: he was not overawed, like some of us, with the �race� aspect of the MDS, but instead was pitting himself against the elements whilst enjoying the company of a wide range of people and doing anything he could to help out those that were struggling.
Stage 2 was something of a wake up for me as I had suffered so badly during the 36km. I started to realise that the race wasn�t �in the bag� like every other race I had competed in, but would take a real effort just to finish. For me, the evening of the second stage was slightly more subdued as these thoughts played on my mind, but as ever, Richard�s infectious optimism spread through the tent and the general attitude of the Heinz 57 was positive and humorous. Here were 8 different people from a variety of backgrounds, living out different lives, but, for 7 days, all had the same goal, dreams, hopes, fears and hardships.
Summary of Stage 2
Distance 36km
Position 101st
Time 4 hr 35 minutes