All competitors arrived yesterday, we’re around 150 coming from 30+ different countries. This year there are many runners from Asia with a great representation from Taiwan, Japan and Korea.
Sahara Race: arriving at camp 1 (© P. Gatta)
We had a massive breakfast this morning, enjoying the comfort of a luxury hotel before leaving for the rough 7 days. Starting tonight and until next Saturday, we will eat only the dried food that we carry in our pack, we will sleep in sleeping bags straight on the sand of Sahara and won’t have a drop of water to wash ourselves. We carry everything in our pack, and mine weights 7.9kg, including 4.5kg of food (22,000 calories).
As usual before this kind of race, there is a special atmosphere today, made of excitement, anxiety, joy and doubts. All runners meet each others in a friendly atmosphere, there will be a real competition in the sand but there is also strong solidarity, respect and friendship among the competitors as we are all sure about one thing: we all are going to suffer at some point.
This morning we had the briefing, gear and medical checking.
We are leaving at 1pm to the camp 1 that is on the lake side with sand dunes behind. It’s about 3.5 hours drive.
The race starts tomorrow with a 37km stage.
The next stages are 42km, 43km, 41km, 87km and 5km long.