Saturday 5th April

This is the final day before the start and, after the months and months of planning, our last chance to decide what food and kit we are going actually take during the race, and what we will leave behind. It's an agonising moment... will we actually need that extra roll of loo paper? Will we actually be able to stomach that 25th Power Bar after five days of them? But anything that we decide not to take with us is handed over to the organisers, who take it with our main baggage to Ouarzazate. We will have to live with these decisions for the next seven days...

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We spent the day queuing to go through the race formalities, where the race marshalls made a rigorous check of our mandatory equipment, counted our food calories and checked off our medical forms and electrocardiograms. There was a degree of inconsistency in this. For example Charlotte and I presented medical forms and ecgs that were done at the same time in the UK. Mine was judged acceptable. And she got a time penalty for hers? It was deemed inadequate for some reason.

After we had gone through this we had the highly entertaining task of actually trying to pack all of our kit and food into our tiny rucksacks. This is where a tardis rucksack would come in handy. In the event airborne initiative had to suffice, so with maximum stomping and squashing we all managed to force it all in.

We have had a couple of casualties already. Notably Ben Williams, a personal training client of mine, who has sustained mild sunburn. Fortunately he's a hardy lad and not in the least bit deterred. When we first met and discussed the Marathon des Sables I asked him to describe himself. He said cheerily:

'Well, before I met you Luke, I was a happy, chain-smoking alcoholic.'

And now he's about to run 250 kilometres across the largest desert in the world?

Next was Chris Webb, a temporarily retired runner from Surrey, who has been suffering with a poor stomach all day. He is hoping for a speedy return to form before tomorrow.

All that remains for tonight is our evening meal, lovingly prepared by the Marathon des Sables chefs ... last night's offering tasted suspiciously like goat.. and then an early night in our sack-cloth tents.

It's great to be back in the desert, and to see the emptiness and desolation. There is a range of mountains to one side of the camp, and to the other... a completely barren plain (all the way to Senegal presumably).

I'd like to say there was a nervous tension in the air, as the apprehension and excitement comes to a crescendo after months of waiting, but in fact everyone in the camp all remarkably relaxed. Sure, everyone wants to get moving, but all we can do is wait for the off tomorrow morning.