Stage 2 - 39km - First Jebels and real difficulties

I start the day in a great mood as I managed to have a decent night of sleep finally after my third night in the desert. As crazy as it may seem, I am getting used to sleeping on my back on the hard and rocky soil. When we wake up around 5:30am, someone from the organization comes by our tent to tell us the start has been moved 30 min earlier due to the day that promises to be exceptionally hot. We have less time to get prepared in the cold morning so I quickly eat my breakfast and head to the start line.

The stage of the day is going to be wonderful but tough as we'll have our first big mountains and a total distance close to a marathon to run. Like the previous day, I start running with Edouard and Sebastien from the tent. My strategy who paid last time is to follow people with experience. We start directly in big dunes and run a long and sandy straight line of 10km (6 miles) before getting to the first check point. After the first check point, we run along side a field of dunes on another straight line that never seems to finish. It is starting to be really hot and we keep learning how to run in the sand. The secret is to not follow the footprints of others making your own so you have a better grasp. We left Sebastien at Check Point 1 and Edouard leaves me at Check point 2 (23km) to accelerate running before the ascent of Jebel El Otfal, culminating at 1000m (3000 feet).

At Km 30 (18 miles), I feel exhausted and we hit a field of 3km (2 miles) of dunes which is very hard to navigate. Each step takes the equivalent of 2 or 3 steps. It is 1pm and 39 degrees Celsius (102 F). However, the most painful part is yet to come, which is the ascent of Jebel El Otfal at the hottest hour of the day. It is a very technical climb between rocks and sand (and actually just a warm up for tomorrow's stage!). At the top, we get the most stunning reward with a 360 view on the desert and also we can see the last check point and tonight's camp. I run down the Jebel in the sand and reach cp3 in pain as I feel several blisters on both feet. Heads down and I keep running until the finish line at 39km.

Today was tough. I can feel the pain everywhere. From my feet, to my back and my shoulders from the weight of the backpack to my face from the sun. However, I managed to run for 6 hours 30 min and finish in position 401. Yet another day performing way above my expectations! I make a hook a the doctors tent to heal my blisters for tomorrow, lie down and eat and quickly go to bed to get some rest for tomorrow which is going to be even harder.