MdS Stage 4 - Jebel Zireg / Jdaid: 91.7KM
08April 2015
The wind blew the hardest of all nights last night and our tent was the first victim of these harsh winds. Just like every night, we would tighten the guylines as well as adjust the shelter piece to better protect from the wind. Throughout the night, the wind would slowly beat our tent down to the desert floor. Our group was so tired that we could care less about the tent and by morning time the tent was completely down. Each time a ridge pole would fall, I would hear Alissa giggle a little and then go back to sleep. The downing of our tent was somewhat of a blessing in disguise because the shelter piece was much needed added warmth.
Most of the morning was spent getting my kit situated to run 92 kilometers. The majority of the weight in our packs consisted of food and my pack only has about four pounds left of food in it. This means that I've got a ton of space and I need to reorganize the pack so I don't flop all over the place.
Road book for Stage 4 - It's so long it's in two parts!
From checkpoint 4 we continue to run stony terrain for a few kilometers and then enter large dunes and run those for about 6 kilometers. Checkpoint 5 will be just beyond those dunes on the edge of a dry lake bed. After CP5 we'll continue to run sandy rolling terrain into CP6. The running from CP6 is going to consist lots of sandy and rocky terrain and pretty much be the same all the way to Bivouac 4 (91.7KM).
The Start for Stage 4
"The Long Stage"---I've had my sights set on this day for a very long time. This will be the second farthest distance I'll have ever completed in a race. I'm pretty nervous and there are so many thoughts racing through my mind. I try to keep busy by working down the mental checklist I made the night before to better organize my day. The most important part of this morning is to make sure that my pack is organized and balanced and my toe blisters are drained and bandaged to perfection. It's going to be a long day and I don't plan on stopping until I reach bivouac 4. Based on my previous times for stages 1-3, I figure it will take me about 15:30-16:00 hours to complete this stage. This is barring that I don't have any environmental or medical issues happen while out on course.
Mosi and I have come to know each other over the past couple of days. He's planning on running this stage as well and we decide to stick together for this stage. He's got a lot of experience in ultras and I'm really honored to be running with him during this stage.
Today, there will be two official starts for the stage. At 8am, the general field will start and at 11am, the super elite field will start. This places a three hour gap between the general and super elite field. As I do the math, I realize that Liza (my coach) should be on par to run this course around 11:30-12:30 hours. Which means that she'll most likely finish when Mosi and I are finishing or slightly before. So I set a mini-goal to try and finish this stage before she does or at least run with her for the remaining distance of this stage.
As usual, our tent-mates gather for a picture and I chat with Liza real quick and then we head to the starting line for more announcements, happy birthdays, and the start of the general field. The wind is absolutely ridiculous this morning!!!!
As luck would have it, we are running roughly the first 13km head on into the wind. The wind is hard and whipping sand and micro dust all over the place. Most runners are wearing their buffs and sunglasses to ensure they can breathe without choking on the sand and dust. Mosi and I are jogging a relaxed pace for the first few kilometers. All of the 13km seem to be running a gradual uphill with sand. It's good to have someone to run with because you can chat about all kinds of stuff. We kept pretty good time cruising the flats. Being on freeze dried foods for the past few days has got me all messed up. From about 15-20km I am struggling to find a place to "drop trough". Mosi and I began to joke about it but I know the seriousness of not going #2 for the past couple of days. These next few photos demonstrate the seriousness of the situation.
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| Obviously someone is having a better time than me at the moment...lol. |
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| Just gotta get passed this oasis and I'm in the clear |
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| There better be shrubs up on the next flat! |
Finally, around 20 km into our run, I spot a small shrub and make a fast break for it. Mosi keeps running and the plan is to catch up. It's been a few days since dropping trough and this session takes longer than expected. After running for four days, it's fairly difficult to hold a squat. Finally, with everything out and a few pounds lighter I get back on the trail and try to catch up with Mosi. I hit CP2 after about 6 kilometers of running and also find Mosi chilling at the checkpoint. We joke about my situation back on the trail and continue to chip away at the distance.
For the most part, the running in the morning went fairly easy and before we knew it we were staring at the base of El Otfal Jebel. We do pretty well working through the dunes and the stony ground prior to El Otfal Jebel. Once inside the gorge, we are still passing other competitors and we are moving at a good fast-pack pace. Within an hour, we are at the summit. It's starting to get hot and not feeling any breeze in the gorge has got me overheated and not feeling too well. We take a quick break at the summit and make some adjustments to our packs. Mosi offers me some Sirachi flavored bacon from his pack and I take a few pieces. Ironically, I could barely taste the sirachi which normally would have had my mouth on fire. After a few minutes we take off from the summit and begin to plunge step the entire way down the sand dune. This was by far some of the best running on the course. We are running down an approximately 30% slope and having an absolute blast!
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| The iconic sand dune of El Otfal Jebel |
After El Otfal Jebel, we run a couple kilometers through the Rheris Oued which is basically a flood plain. There's nothing major about running this flat other than the small up's and down's that are created by the water current when this valley is flooded. We'll run a small set of tracks through the Rheris Oued until we reach CP4. Slightly before CP4, I started to not feel so good again and this time I was having a hard time eating any of the food that I brought for the racing part of this stage. Once at CP4, Mosi suggested that I maybe eat a meal instead of the race food. He helped me get out a meal and some candy that I had in my pack. We shared the candy and I got my dinner out and added water to the pack and then we set off for another round in the dunes. It was between CP4-CP5 that we are finally caught by the super elite runners. All of the runners looked pretty tuckered out but were literally floating across the sand dunes. As Mosi and I cleared out of the dunes we were caught by Danny Kendall. As soon as we recognized who it was, we gave a massive shout out and he acknowledged with both hands in the air. We are in awe at how fast they were still moving.
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| The flat after El Oftal Jebel |
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| GI JOE-Storm Shadow was out on course. |
Mosi and I were pretty tuckered out as we moved into CP5 but we seemed to be back on the upswing since the temperatures were a little cooler and the sun was starting to tuck away behind a ridge that we were paralleling. If I'm not mistaken, this is where we received our chem-light that was to be used when it got dark (it may have been at CP4). CP5 was pretty interesting. As you arrive into CP5 there were a lot more berber tents and a set of chairs in the middle of the CP. It was pretty inviting and as if they were trying to get you to stay longer. I wanted to sit for a few minutes but Mosi suggested that we keep moving and so we were back to running again.
CP5 to CP6 was fairly straight forward. We were tired and both just tried to keep positive and push each other when the other person was down. Over the last few miles, we would leap frog with other runners going roughly the same pace. One Japanese runner in particular kept leap frogging with us and we ended up turning our link-up into small conversation and jokes. He was awesome to help break up the monotony. This was also the about the time when the sun went down and we were finally under headlamps. This area was nothing but rolling hills and every now and then you would catch a glimpse of glow lights off in the distance. The transition to headlamps was pretty easy with the exception of jamming your toe every now and then when you hit rocks. CP6 was hidden by two small hills and that made for some pretty tough mental games. At this point, we were roughly 20km from finishing and the going was a little slow. To try and stay at a solid pace, Mosi and I defined what was runnable terrain at our current condition and what wasn't. Whenever we would hit runnable terrain, one or both of us would start running. If the other person was running then the other person had to run as well. This worked fairly well and we made some pretty good time through CP6.
The running was pretty much the same heading toward CP7. The one major excitement during this leg was watching Dave Mackey run by us about 3km from CP7. It was pretty funny because we watched Dave for awhile and we couldn't figure out who it was. He was slightly behind us as we shouted the usual "good job" to those who passed us and we heard him reply with the Dave Mackey chill voice "thanks guys". After that we exploded with cheers and told him he's not far from the finish and to keep pushing. He replied that he was about 20km, Mosi and I were both carrying GPS watches and shouted out to him that he was much closer than that he think and it's about 10km from the finish line. We smiled and watched as his headlamp and chem-light disappeared into the desert night.
At this point, Mosi and I are pretty tired and we want nothing more than to be finished with this stage. As we roll into this stage, we are doing a quick inventory of what we have left for food and other nutrition for that day. We are literally tapped on food and nutrition and looking for anything to help us out. Mosi tells me that he has a surprise for me when we get into the CP7. We cross over the timing gate and walk through our cattle run to get stamped and our water ration. Both of us pour water on ourselves to wash the sweat and we start to split what we have left of our food. I can't muster anymore Tailwind so Mosi takes that and we split what's left of a small bag of sunflower seeds and cashews. I try to eat my portion of seeds and nuts and my mouth instantly dries up to the point where I can't even chew the seeds/nuts or else I'll choke. I scrape the nastiness off of my tongue and Mosi and I laugh about the situation. He tells me that I should've saved it because he's so hungry that he would have eaten it. As we leave CP7, we know that there is only seven-ish kilometers left of this stage and we are psyched. We are slowly jogging away from CP7 when Mosi gives me the surprise which was six jelly bellies from the packet that I gave him earlier in the day. If I could have cried tears of happiness I probably would have. We ate what was left of the food and moved on to finish this stage.
CP7 to Bivouac 4 was the most mind-twisted I've ever been in a race. I was starting to feel real fatigued as was Mosi. We've heard stories of how the finish line was normally lit up with lasers as far as the eye could see. That would have been awesome and, of course, this year it was not. We ran through what seemed to be a sandy riverbed, then through some small sand dunes and then some strange mounds of sand grass. At roughly 1.5 km away from the finish, I was pretty gassed. We could see the lights of the finish but we could never seem to reach the finish. It was literally the never ending stage. At one point, Mosi said he could see the inflatable gate and we were probably like 400meters out which turned into more like 900 meters. We slightly laughed about it and kept plugging away. What was killer on this little stretch was the constant switch between rocky terrain and small sand drifts. It literally zapped your energy as you ran from one to the other. Mosi was awesome and kept pushing me to run (since it was runnable) that few hundred meters to the finish.
Crossing the finish line of stage 4 was pretty surreal. I was completely exhausted and really had nothing left in me at the pace we were running toward the end. Mosi and I congratulated each other and waved to the camera. We then went and got a warm cup of tea and our water ration. After that we walked over to the tent and found Dave and Meghan getting settled in. We chatted with them real quick and then we went over to our tent. The wind was still pounding pretty good and our tent was pretty much halfway down again. We were too tired to do anything so we cleared a small sleeping area, got out and drank what recovery drinks and food we had left and then went to sleep.
Throughout the night, we tossed and turned trying to get comfortable and keeping our legs raised on our backpacks. It was pretty hilarious because we would wake each other up due to the moaning we made while trying to get to our side or adjust. There's not much I remember of the rest of the night. It wouldn't be another 10 hours before we would see our next tent mate roll in. Pardon the cussing in this reflection post.
Stage 4 Statistics
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| Elevation Profile minus the last 5 miles or so. Ran out of battery in watch. |
Official Time: 14:32:20
Position: 155
Average Pace: 15:16
Elevation Gain: 3,809 ft
Average HR: 134
Estimated Calories Burned: 3,548
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