[Posted by Jon]
I'm currently sitting on my bed in our hotel in Ouarzazate. My feet are pretty sore, but they'll be fixed in a few days; otherwise I'm now physically mostly recovered. You might find this lack of complete destruction surprising or disappointing - surely after racing almost six marathons in six days I should be in a worse state than this?
Ideally, yes I would.
The simple truth is that the main limiting factor for me was the heat. The first two days weren't too hot, only around 30°C, but in hindsight I was controlling my pace more due to my temperature than my cardiovascular or muscular fatigue in the last third of those days. The third day was the first properly hot day, and I had to walk a large portion of it, earning my worst result to date.
The fourth (long) stage was also hot, but by now I knew how this felt and had a plan to deal with it - fast walk through the heat, then push on through the second half once it cooled down a bit. This was also the strategy involuntarily imposed on Neil (although I suspect he didn't recover fully - from CP3 to the finish his pace was very similar to mine, whereas for the rest of the week he was much faster).
As previously commented, the last stage was a disaster for me mainly due to the heat. I have identified two other factors that affected my ranking on this stage - the flat terrain (day two with its multiple djebels was my favourite day) and the other competitors - we are quite sure that most of the field took the first three days relatively easy in order to perform well on the long day and especially the marathon stage at the end.
I don't want this to sound like a complaint though. The race is a desert race, and as such dealing with flat, sandy terrain and high temperatures is my responsibility. The inconsistency of the other competitors will ultimately have led to a better overall result, as I'm certain they will have gained less on the last leg than they saved by holding back earlier in the week.
So what would I do differently next time?
I'd certainly improve my acclimatisation, spending the weeks leading up to the event training in a heat chamber or somewhere abroad with similarly intense heat.
I'd also spend much more time training on sand, as the top runners were able to keep running efficiently on the soft stuff, something I wasn't able to do. I'd also spend lots of time training at a slower pace - if I'd had an efficient "middle gear" between my fast walk and steady run then I might have been able to use that when the mercury rose.
I was largely happy with my kit, nutrition and hydration - there are certainly changes I would make but nothing that would significantly affect my result. The biggest changes would probably be not to take a sleeping mat (saving 230g) and a bit less to eat on the day off (saving perhaps 100g).
If I wanted to move up towards Neil's level I'd also need to do a lot more running (which would mean stopping rowing) as even at the start of the day (before it got too hot) I was still slower than most runners who ended up in the top 50.
So, will I do it again? I need a few more days of mental recovery before I will answer that...
I'm currently sitting on my bed in our hotel in Ouarzazate. My feet are pretty sore, but they'll be fixed in a few days; otherwise I'm now physically mostly recovered. You might find this lack of complete destruction surprising or disappointing - surely after racing almost six marathons in six days I should be in a worse state than this?
Ideally, yes I would.
The simple truth is that the main limiting factor for me was the heat. The first two days weren't too hot, only around 30°C, but in hindsight I was controlling my pace more due to my temperature than my cardiovascular or muscular fatigue in the last third of those days. The third day was the first properly hot day, and I had to walk a large portion of it, earning my worst result to date.
The fourth (long) stage was also hot, but by now I knew how this felt and had a plan to deal with it - fast walk through the heat, then push on through the second half once it cooled down a bit. This was also the strategy involuntarily imposed on Neil (although I suspect he didn't recover fully - from CP3 to the finish his pace was very similar to mine, whereas for the rest of the week he was much faster).
As previously commented, the last stage was a disaster for me mainly due to the heat. I have identified two other factors that affected my ranking on this stage - the flat terrain (day two with its multiple djebels was my favourite day) and the other competitors - we are quite sure that most of the field took the first three days relatively easy in order to perform well on the long day and especially the marathon stage at the end.
I don't want this to sound like a complaint though. The race is a desert race, and as such dealing with flat, sandy terrain and high temperatures is my responsibility. The inconsistency of the other competitors will ultimately have led to a better overall result, as I'm certain they will have gained less on the last leg than they saved by holding back earlier in the week.
So what would I do differently next time?
I'd certainly improve my acclimatisation, spending the weeks leading up to the event training in a heat chamber or somewhere abroad with similarly intense heat.
I'd also spend much more time training on sand, as the top runners were able to keep running efficiently on the soft stuff, something I wasn't able to do. I'd also spend lots of time training at a slower pace - if I'd had an efficient "middle gear" between my fast walk and steady run then I might have been able to use that when the mercury rose.
I was largely happy with my kit, nutrition and hydration - there are certainly changes I would make but nothing that would significantly affect my result. The biggest changes would probably be not to take a sleeping mat (saving 230g) and a bit less to eat on the day off (saving perhaps 100g).
If I wanted to move up towards Neil's level I'd also need to do a lot more running (which would mean stopping rowing) as even at the start of the day (before it got too hot) I was still slower than most runners who ended up in the top 50.
So, will I do it again? I need a few more days of mental recovery before I will answer that...
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