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None of this is.
‘What about water?’ asks a woman. Mariam.
‘On your individual maps you will find water caches, where I’ve hidden sufficient water bottles for you to resupply. Miss your cache and you won’t be able to continue. Simple as that. At the end of the race I’ll need to see a bottle cap marked with your race number from each cache to prove you hit them all and ran the correct route. Understood?’
He calls us by our individual race numbers. When mine is called, I step forward and he hands me a map rolled up like a scroll. ‘Two hundred miles until you get your answer,’ he says.
I don’t reply. This is why I never wanted to run in a Boones race. I feel like a mouse in a maze, running for a piece of cheese that, for all I know, could be poisoned.
A man with an intricately wrapped scarf round his head touches my forearm gently, leading me over to one of the camels. With an apologetic frown he ties a blindfold round my eyes. ‘Is this really necessary?’ I ask Boones.
‘You’re welcome to quit at any time.’
I’m hoisted up on to the camel’s back, blindfolded, gripping on to the reins for dear life. Boones has one last message for us, though. His voice rings in my ears. ‘You have sixty hours to complete the race. If you’re not back by the cut-off, then you will be disqualified. As always, a camel and rider will mark the back of the pack.’ In a slightly quieter voice, though one that still seems just as clear, he says, ‘Don’t let him catch you.’
My head whips round as his words sink in, but the camel is now moving and I don’t have a chance to protest or question.
I have no idea where I’m going – it’s too disorienting in the dark, with no sense of direction or of time passing. He could have walked me round in a circle for all I know. Eventually, though, we do come to a stop, and the man in the headscarf helps me from the camel’s back and removes my blindfold. Immediately I swing my backpack off and dig around for my head torch. Once I find it, I use it to illuminate the map. It’s hand-drawn, the features and caches marked. There are compass bearings and degrees marked at every major intersection. It doesn’t seem to turn back on itself at any point – it’s just two hundred miles out into the heat and the sand,crossing over the jebel again, before reaching the finishing line.
‘One minute,’ the man says. ‘Then you go.’ He’s holding a simple digital watch that is counting down.
‘OK, OK.’ I find my first heading and adjust the compass accordingly.This is insane– the thought repeats over and over in my head. And yet I feel that tingle in my fingers. That surge of anticipation. I only have to reach the end. I’m built for this. Made for it. With stage racing Rupert would have had the ability to recover overnight. But with this new format it’s all about extreme endurance. Anything can happen over two hundred miles and sixty hours.
I can endure. I can push suffering into the cave, using it as fuel. But I’ve only done this kind of distance with a support crew and pacers – and the last time was over a decade ago. I haven’t attempted anything like it since.
Well, that’s not quite true. On weekends when Pete has had Ethan, I’d go for overnight runs deep into the fells, trying to find a way to quiet my mind. I never tracked how many miles I ran, I’d just keep going until I found a spot to camp overnight, then run again in the morning. I know I’ve covered massive distances on little sleep and food. So strangely I feel like I am trained. Two hundred miles in one stage. It’s incredibly daunting. Yet it’s actually a change that suits me. Challenging navigation, mega distance, tricky terrain. My specialities.
This is my race to lose.
The watch beeps. A synchronized alarm. I take one more look at the map, and then I set off, running into the night.
Only the small area in front of me is illuminated by myhead torch. It shrinks my world straight down to only a circle. I’m glad. The enormity of the Sahara might overwhelm me otherwise.
I think about the other runners. Are they out there somewhere, as equally disoriented and yet somewhat excited as me? Or are their heads down, powering on, trying to get a jump on the competition?
Eventually, even that thought leaves my mind. Other than occasionally checking my compass to make sure I’m staying on the right bearing, I slip into an almost mediative-like state, so that the first few miles seem to pass with no trouble at all. The sand is gently undulating under my feet, nothing yet too arduous, and I’m able to keep up a good pace despite the darkness.
At the ten-mile mark the first streak of light appears in the sky. I can’t stop to appreciate it, however. According to the map, I should be coming across a water cache soon, and I don’t want to miss the first one.
It feels like a nigh-on impossible task to find a water cache in the dark. But it turns out Boones isn’t totally merciless. There’s a small glow stick tied to a bush right around the point I expect the cache to be. I kneel in the dirt and dig for the water. Finding it makes me feel elated, like I’ve found a pot of gold instead of water. It makes it feel possible. The first step achieved.
I pocket the cap, then tip the water into my bottles, using some of the leftover to wash my face. But I don’t linger long. It’s quickly going to get hot and I need to move as much as I can in the darkness.
I drop the empty plastic back into the water cache, next to another empty. Then it clicks. There’s another empty.That means someone else has already been to this water cache. Are they far ahead of me? Maybe their route is different. But it gives me a slightly sick, panicked feeling, like I’ve been going too slow.
It won’t do me any good to think about it now. I find the next bearing and move in that direction. When the sun is up, I might be able to join up with another runner. Two hundred miles is a long time to be totally on our own.
My mind is on high alert anyway. So when I hear the sound, I wonder if I’m dreaming. Hallucinating already.
It’s a hum. Nothing particularly tuneful, at least not that my running-addled mind can make out. But it doesn’t seem like the natural sound of the desert. Not the howl of the wind or the crunch of sand beneath the soles of my trainers. Not the skittering of creatures just outside the purview of my head torch – and, thank God, because I don’t need to freak myself out more than I already am.
Someone else is out there.
The hum sounds again. I deviate off my line ever so slightly. There’s a big ridge of sand on my left that’s blocking my view, and that seems to be the direction the sound is coming from. I know that my sense of perspective in the desert is totally skewed. Objects that seem close can be miles away. Sound can travel, or voices close by can be whipped away by the wind.
I reach the top of the ridge – and that’s when I see the source of the sound.
I couldn’t be more relieved.