Friday 4th April

After a breakfast of croissants, coffee, and more mountains of bread, the adventure began. We loaded up into buses and headed south into the desert, through mountains and then into the desolate, never-ending plains. I began to remember why I had agreed to come again (besides Charlotte's challenge, that is).

Fortunately 'comfort breaks' were provided along the road. Unfortunately not soon enough for many of the runners, who have also been hydrating themselves in advance of the race. Suddenly the plastic bottles that their drink came in soon found another use... Our packed lunch, at a café by the side of the road, was a civilised affair, well, it was French after all.

MORE...

At the end of the journey we were transferred the last 4 kilometres from the main road to the first camp by cattle-truck. We were herded onto the back with all our luggage and, desperately trying to stay on our feet, bounced through the desert to the circle of tents. A couple of people in our truck threatened to become vegetarian after realising the appalling cruelty that cattle are obviously subjected to.

A group of us had hatched a plot during the journey to secure three tents in a line to ensure that we would have a contingent of friends within the same area, but as I discovered, this is one of the changes that have been made since I was last on the Marathon des Sables. Runners are now allotted tents (according to nationality) and we found ourselves dispersed among the other Brits, who are all in Tents 52 to 78.

Charlotte and I are sharing a tent with an unfeasible number of twenty-seven year old bankers from Southwest London. There's Alastair Hay, Charlie Miers and Dan, as well as a shadowy cove who will henceforth be known as Mark X. And then there's the 29 year-old media bunny Tom.

Saturday is spent registering and verifying our equipment, but we have seen a copy of the Roadbook today. Everyone has scoured the pages but it is still difficult to work which day is the dreaded Dune-Day. We reckon it's Day 2, and we think the distance will be about 15 kilometres. On hearing this, Alastair said :

'Fifteen kilometres of dunes. How hard can that be?'

I guess we'll find out, on Monday.