For the survivors who cross the finish line of the 35th Marathon des Sables, the six-day, 254km slog across the sands have brought heat exhaustion, blisters, diarrhea and joy.
“It’s so hot. It’s unbearable. I cry while walking. I am exhausted, my head is spinning,” said Sixtine Morizot, a 30-year-old from Paris, as she sank her feet into the sand as best she could.
This year, the temperatures have been particularly high in the Moroccan desert. They reached 52°C on the second stage. A competitor died of a heart attack after overheating.
Photo: AFP
“It’s special this year, because there have been a lot of retirements where the main cause was dehydration,” said Frederic Compagnon, head doctor of a 45-person team.
“The temperatures are high, but not extreme. It is hot and people were not prepared well enough. There are heatstrokes, which associated with high temperatures also cause hallucinations, even comas,” he said, adding that he had counted nine runners who had fallen into comas.
Alix Noblat, who appeared in the French TV reality show Koh-Lanta, lost consciousness during the third stage. She had literally emptied herself, like almost half of the camp, because of an epidemic of gastroenteritis which spread like wildfire.
The nightly bivouacs were animated by vomiting and diarrhea.
“It’s like Jurassic Park, you can hear the vomiting,” Noblat said.
At the race bivouac, the podiatrists are busy. Every evening, runners lie on their backs and stretch out their legs, offering their blistered feet for treatment.
Compagnon said he saw one man whose skin on the soles of his feet had completely disappeared, leaving the flesh raw.
On Thursday’s 86.2km fourth stage, race leader Rachid Al Morabity finished in 8 hours, 46 minutes, 16 seconds at an average speed of 9.23kph.
A few seconds under 22 hours later, Christine Taieb and Valerie Angot, two Frenchwomen, crossed the line holding hands to the acclaim of the other competitors. They were followed home by Nadjib and his two camels, whose job is to bring up the rear.
“I didn’t expect this welcome,” said Taieb, who was running her first Marathon des Sables at 70.
She was penalized 30 minutes for “exceptional water assistance” during the stage.
“I’m an average woman, I’m overweight, I’m 70 years old, I’ve worked a lot, but even at 70, you can enjoy yourself. I have worked hard, but I feel great, I want to go dancing, but I know that I will go limp when I do my laundry tonight,” she said.
At the other age extreme was Anna Kroijer, a 16-year-old Dane who lives in London and was the youngest competitor. She was running with her father, who completed the race in 2014.
“I’m still here. It hurts a lot,” she said on Friday evening.
“To cross the finish line tomorrow would be so amazing,” she said, looking ahead to yesterday’s stage, which at 7.7km is a relative sprint. “When I think about it. Wow, it’s going to be a very intense feeling.”
Ahead of Friday’s 42.2km penultimate stage, Morizot was bubbly. It was her first Marathon des Sables.
“And it’s my last,” she said. “It’s the hardest race of my life. Really. I have accomplished something. I came to surpass myself, to push my limits. The contract is fulfilled. I will not do it again.”
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