25th Anniversary of MDS

I was recently talking to a friend of mine (Brigid) wrt her upcoming MDS in Sahara. This will be the 25th anniversary. She has participated in MDS 3 times already and this will be her fourth visit. MDS is the toughest multi stage ultra in the world.

My first question to her was - what has changed between the 1st and the 4th time. Since we are both endurance runners, there is no need to explain the mental toughness, familiarity with course, conditions etc. These were some practical points which stayed with me.... in her words -


"I started with 14 kgs the first time, had half a household on my back - was more than tough. Now I have a new Rucksack which spreads the weight on the back AND the front. I have managed to get incredibly light weight stuff like sleeping bag, matt, clothes for the night and this makes an enormous difference. The emphasis has to be on food. If you have enough food, you can move better. Plus salt tablets to keep the water in your body, managing your water...
I also now have everything I need in absolute mini-portions, as I know now how much stuff, like sun cream, emergency kit, wipes, bandages etc i will need. In addition, by getting a light-weight sleeping bag and matt, I've saved about 1.5 kgs. Plus taking more high-calorie but lighter weight stuff, like parmesan cheese instead of 800 grams of power bars (which I can't eat after a day anyways)........."

Anyway, here's the link to the Marathon des Sables homepage, where you can send email to a competitor from April 4 to 9: www.darbaroud.com

Brigid Wefelnberg, Germany, Bib no. 537

Do try and drop in a line on the dates mentioned above.

March so far..

Its been a good injury free March and things seem to be looking up. Over the past two weeks I have managed a good number of runs and am now planning to push up a gear. Last week I did four runs of 11k each on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday and followed it up with two runs this week on Tuesday and Thursday. Unfortunately I skipped todays runs as the this week has been a little hectic and I haven't managed enough sleep (plus was watching some test cricket early in the morning, the only form of cricket I really enjoy), in simple words I was lazy & mentally tired due to lack of sleep.

I hope to more than make up for it with a good 20k plus run this Sunday, hopefully something like 25k. So I hope to run from my house till Girgam Chowpaty in town. I need to concentrate on my long runs now and also step up my weekly runs from 11k to 13k starting April.

I am hope to take up with first multi stage ultra in India this September, its call the great Indian desert run 2009. For details visit this Facebook group -

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/group.php?gid=59462137898 The website is likely to be up by the end of this month and registrations are going to start in the first week of April.

I hope the organisers - Echo Star Sport get their pricing right. Given the fact that this is the first time its being organised and that the lead time is only 5 months, the number of participants is going to be very limited. I am quite confident that the organisers will put up a good well planned show, their initial homework seems promising. I have a lot of questions for them and most of them should get answered once their site is up. This ultra is being organised in and around Jaisalmer in Rajasthan, India.

From what I understand, this Multi stage ultra should be on the lines of Four desert marathon http://www.4deserts.com/atacamacrossing/

Back to back runs..

I finally managed to do two back to back 11k and 10.5k runs on Saturday and Sunday over the long holiday weekend. The three day holiday weekend was a welcome break after a long time. It took a lot of effort to do the sunday run as injury is still very much there. But, i still managed to complete both the runs in almost the same time.

I have also resolved (finally) about working to cure my injury, I will start the strengthening regime from Monday (everyday for the next few weeks) and will go to a specialist doctor if that does not yield the desired results.

I am yet to decide on the races I plan to take up next. The way things are going, I think the Bangalore ultra should be the next run in December this year, followed by the Mumbai marathon in Jan 2009 and finally if I can get my preparations started in full swing (after complete recovery from injury), do the MDS in Sahara in April 2009 (big hope, but time is too short) or April 2010 (this looks more likely). So the only thing coming between me and my decision is a niggling injury. And this will also be my first attempt at raising corporate sponsorship for the run. Currently am trying to find out if any Indian (resident) nationals have successfully completed the MDS.