Out of all of my failed “never again” claims in life, I genuinely believed that running an ultramarathon in the Sahara Desert was one that I’d hold to.
Alas, long after my Marathon des Sables success in 2019, I was digging out my sand gaiters from the dusty storage room for the first edition of the Eye Of The Sahara Ultramarathon in the Mauritanian Sahara Desert, covering 160 kilometres over 3 days.
As I fly to The Gambia and look down at my manky purple toenails that I have already said goodbye to two of, an ultra-induced chest infection and ever so tight hamstrings, I figured it’d be the ideal time to write about how I and seven other men got through this gruelling event in Mauritania’s Sahara Desert.
Where is The Eye of The Sahara?
First, let’s take a look at the mysterious name. It is called the Eye of the Sahara because its concentric rings and circular shape resemble a giant eye when viewed from above.
While scientists believe the Eye was formed by erosion over millions of years, some theorists argue it holds the key to one of history’s greatest enigmas—The Lost City of Atlantis. With its circular land formation resembling Plato’s descriptions of the legendary city, the Richat Structure has sparked debates among those searching for traces of the lost civilisation.
What is the Eye of The Sahara Marathon?
The brainchild of the Eye of The Sahara Marathon is my good friend Johnny Ward from onestep4ward.com.
We both ran the Marathon des Sables together in Morocco; Johnny wanted to create something similar. As someone with solid business roots in Mauritania, one of the least visited countries on earth – it made sense for him to start the Ultra in The Mauritanian Desert.
The “Eye of the Sahara” is catchy, it looks cool, and it’s a more authentic experience than the famous Moroccan Ultra, where “proper” travel and an endurance challenge really intertwine.
When Johnny announced he was ready to start it, I figured he wouldn’t have too many people banging down his door to pay for a 160km run through an arid desert, so I came out of ultra-running retirement.
For love and lunacy, I pencilled it in and got busy on the local tarmac.
Training For the Ultramarathon
I trained HARD for this event, much harder than I did for Marathon des Sables. I’m not sure why this is the case; I think I was a little naive the first time around.
I back myself when it comes to mental grit and digging in. Still, I wanted to ensure I was well-conditioned and primed for war to avoid injury and be physically strong for the big event.
I’d already been on a positive fitness journey this year, nailing down a sub-19 5k, sub-40 10k, a sub-hour 15k and a half marathon under 1 hour, 90 minutes.
But this is an ultra and speed doesn’t matter at these obnoxiously long distances, it’s about putting the weekly mileage in and keeping your core strong to survive the brutality that your body goes through.
In my peak training week, I ran 30km most days, setting off from my house and running a long and windy hilly road up to a temple on top of a mountain.
On other days, I’d hike. This was me working on my weak points. The hills are my nemesis, and I figured the dunes wouldn’t care too much about my weaknesses, so I got busy on the hikes to strengthen my hamstrings and glutes.
During the tapering week, Johnny and I ran a marathon up and down the aforementioned road to the temple… and back down again…twice, and we felt very strong.
We were fully primed for the eye of the Sahara ultramarathon and ready to go.
Prepping for Eye of the Sahara
I breathed a heavy sigh of relief after meeting all of the lads who I was going to suffer within the ultra.
Not a knobhead in sight.
Phew.
All it takes is one to ruin the morale. Wait… maybe I was the knobhead!
On top of that relief, I also felt happy that the staff members at the hotel in Nouakchott remembered me from last year when I came to ride the iron ore train; Mauritania is fantastic. It’s a shame they don’t get any love from tourism, potentially due to a dark past that they have successfully moved on from.
After a night’s sleep in the capital, Nouakchott, we nervously chatted at breakfast before sorting our gear and throwing it in one of The SUVs to make it down to camp, where we would spend the next 4 days taking on The Eye of The Sahara.
The admin day was pretty chill, we all had plenty of hours to get our bags sorted, our running gear by our tent so we could throw them on in the morning and Johnny briefed us about when we were starting the next day.
The plan was to have breakfast at 6 and run at 7. My neurotic food brain instantly kicked in. “Not a lot of time for food to digest,” I thought.
But as someone who constantly freaks out about getting sufficient protein on the road, the simple carbs were our friend, and we devoured white bread and pancakes with Nutella and jam with coffee every morning – instant glucose and faster digestion without any of those pesky healthy fats and essential amino acids to ruin the ultra party.
Day 1 of Ultra
After we smashed all of the nervous carbs, we all did our funky warm-up and got ready for the start line.
I was so ready to go. I hate waiting, and I fully intended this to be the real “never again” final ultra.
The ultra swan song, if you like.
Once the countdown finished, I did what is in my nature when running – I absolutely gunned it.
It doesn’t matter what distance I run; it’s in my nature to go hard at the start of a run to “bank” those early kilometres and/or time and then just hang in as much as possible for my dear life until the bitter end.
I’m not suggesting that this is the best method, in fact, I’m pretty sure it’s not and it’s very unsustainable.
I spend most of the run on my own at the front (Crank up the Whitesnake for dramatic effect). I looked back and couldn’t see anyone on the horizon for hours; at times, I was worried I’d maybe gotten lost, but I’d see a red flag in the sand that would indicate another kilometre passed.
Around kilometre 25, my room buddy Max made an appearance. He’s a fitness beast with an ironclad will, and I had dramatically slowed down.
Awful combination.
Then, he decided to unintentionally steal my soul by being annoyingly optimistic.
As I struggled to pick my feet up and keep up with his pace, Max enthused in his strong German accent, “Oh look, YAH, there is a Donkey. Actually, I have seen 4 donkeys so far. YAH!”
Then he galloped into the Sahara Desert like a beautiful bald German gazelle.
The donkeys didn’t look mad at me. They were just disappointed.
I love being around people with a sense of wonder and bemoan those who don’t have enough of it, but it was the moment I wanted to pull out my waking poles from my bag, assassinate Merry Max and feed him to the camel spiders.
The rest of the race wasn’t so bad. I got a second wind, and in a broken Arabic/English conversation with the water tent guy, I knew I had 5km left for the finish line, and I trotted onwards.
It felt good to stop, but I wasn’t under any false pretences. The longer you stop in an ultra, the harder it is to get going again.
I mustered a final Sahara shuffle to the finish line, where I was met with a buoyant Max, but I didn’t mind – because he had a cup of tea for me! I noticed that we were some kilometres short, and I knew exactly what was going on. Johnny, as the race organiser, would not allow that in a million years, and we would be running again, so I knew not to be so naive as to take my shoes and socks off yet.
Johnny arrived just after me. To be honest, if he hadn’t organised the thing, he would have been 1st or 2nd. Very impressive. And then, in the single most unpredictable thing that has ever happened in the history of planet Earth – Johnny announced we had 10km more to run.
It was awful and my toes were tingling, I popped my blisters back at the tent, added some iodine and tried to get to sleep as soon as possible.
Not my first ultra rodeo, son. 56 Kilometres down, 104 to go.
Day 2 of The Ultra
We were up again at the crack of dawn to run another 54 kilometres in the Mauritanian Desert. My toes were still throbbing like mad and in quite a bit of pain, but I figured it was all part of the fun and games of a desert ultra.
We set off, and I did my thing. Going ahead, Max and Johnny joined me this time. The sand was a lot softer today, making it considerably more difficult to get any acceleration or fluidity in my run. Johnny and Max are big chatters when they run.
I am not.
I was a passing observer of the topics of all conversation, adding grunts of agreement now and then to pacify them. They seemed strong, but you never know what is happening in someone else’s head, and Max played a strong Stoic card. His left-hand side was in pain for half of the final 50%, which he held as he hopped along with a strong stride.
On the 23rd kilometre, I accidentally kicked a rock, and the resulting pain was agony. I really didn’t want to slow down or stop, but I knew it was potentially serious, so I sat on my bag, alone in the desert and got my first aid kit ready.
Taking off extra-tight toe socks when you’re mentally and physically exhausted and in pain is no joke. As I heaved off my right sock with one last gasp, I saw that two toenails were a dark shade of blue. Half of my toenail had come off, and the remaining part was digging into my open wound where the toenail should be.
Disgusting.
I was proud of my DIY medical job, though, and I carefully put my toe sock back on, got to my feet and plodded on. It was official now: me vs the pain barrier until the final day.
As I got into somewhat of a laborious stride, I could see that I was on the verge of being overtaken by someone. “I don’t want him to get close enough to me for me to know who he is,” I grumbled to myself.
That call to arms fell flat on its face an hour later as Tam, a legendary bloke from Northern Ireland, caught up with me at one of the tents where we could get dates and water while confirming our race bib number with the man.
I jokingly picked up a stone and pretended to throw it at Tam. Joke’s on me, this extra bit of showboating caused extra pain to my withered body.
Me and Tam chatted for a few hours about life, and then I somehow got a second wind and decided to go ahead. As soon as I was over the finish line for today, I looked for Alassane, the race’s nurse, to see what was up with my hideous toes.
He looked at my feet, which were no longer a dark blue but an even darker shade of purple, and told me that they were at risk of infection. I asked what was needed via Google Translation (English to French), and all I could work out was that he had to stab me a lot with a needle and put on a stinging solution.
I told him to go for it, my face held in the palm of my hands, laying on my back as he went to town on my almost-infected toes.
110 kilometres down, 50 to go.
Final Day of The Ultra
I woke up before everyone else in camp due to a nightmare.
Great, not only did I have to run another ultra with aching, purple toes, blisters and utter exhaustion, but I also had to combat an evil Sahara Desert Sleep Paralysis Demon!
Max was some help – giggling away, hahaha. I couldn’t get back to sleep after that so I went for a wander, the sky in the Sahara Desert was beautiful. There is no light pollution whatsoever. It’s a shame I don’t have the photography skills (nor the desire to acquire them) for such moments, but I was happy enough for my eyes to take it in.
Breakfast came, and I found it challenging to eat. I was coughing and starting to lose my voice. Oh no, I was getting sick!
There was no time for a pity party, though. With 50 kilometres left, I purposefully drank more caffeine than I could manage. That weird, hyperactive energy is no good on a typical day, but it’s actually not a bad vibe to take into an endurance event.
Me and Johnny chatted for the final part of the ultra, to the best of my ability, with my croaky voice. I could not wait to finish. My lower back started to cave in, and my now bandaged toes were still throbbing as they pushed against the front of my shoes on each step, which worried me somewhat, but like all the other ultras I have run, I focused on putting one foot after the other.
Also, there’s something about it being the final day, you know it’s the end of this hell and that pride is around the corner.
That pride was there right upon finishing the 50 kilometres and 160 in total, but it was superseded with relief.
The most beautiful thing is that every single lad stayed at the finish line to watch the rest end the race. My God, what state they were in.
Tam was pissing blood, Ronan looked like he’s just stepped off the Beaches of Normandy and as for Aidan – I’m sure Amnesty International would have started a petition for him upon immediate sighting.
Remy, as the youngest “bairn” of the group in his early twenties, had achieved legendary status. Austin, who looked close to death on day one brought it home with a big smile on his face.
Heroes, every single one of them and I feel so grateful to have lucked out with such good guys.
Conclusion
This is my last ultramarathon.
I won’t do an Oscars-award type of acceptance speech, but if I were, I’d like to thank the medical staff at every event, iodine, caffeine, portaloos, Clif bars and gels and Imodium for every single one that I have suffered through.
And I don’t use the term “suffering” here lightly.
Many people (most people) don’t get why anyone in their right mind would put them through something like this; after all – it is called an “endurance sport”, and endure; we certainly do.
I get that people don’t ‘get’ it, especially with the graphic details that I share on my ultra posts. But here is a bit of food for thought: there are a lot of life experiences that can have a transformative effect on your life, something that you go through and are never quite the same after, which can not be undone, and you are branded for life with that chapter of your story.
Here are a few:
- Travelling far and wide in cultures very different from your own
- Taking potent, natural hallucinogens
- Having your heart broken by a lover and recovering
- Being with someone you love until their last breath
- Almost dying yourself but living to fight another day
- Becoming a parent
I have experienced all but one of these entries, and let me tell you something: running an ultramarathon is right up there with them!
Alas, I need my toes and toenails, so that’s 13 for me with no DNF (did not finish), and now let me scream from the rooftop, those immortal famous last words once more…. NEVER. AGAIN!
