Running for Charity: Stage 6 - MdS

MdS Stage 6 - Stage Charity - UNICEF: 11.5 KM

11April 2015

This morning was a slow wake-up. There were no Berber's running around tearing down the camp down and everyone seemed to be voicing some frustration regarding the mandatory UNICEF t-shirt to be worn during this stage. The t-shirt was bright blue and seemed to be fit fairly large on everyone. We've run for nearly 6 days and the last stage boiled down to running 11.5 km in cotton t-shirt. Awesome!

I'm feeling slightly depressed knowing that in the next 48 hours I'll be on a plane heading home and what I've experienced as a runner and tent-mate will be a distant memory in the near future. There is no doubt I'll be back next year and I've already started crafting my goals. 

The Road book for Stage 6

The route is pretty straight forward for this stage. There stage is not timed and does not count toward our overall MdS rankings. So it's a light jog for us to the finish line. We'll leave B5 and run a pretty straight line toward the Merzouga dunes. Once in the line, we will run through the dunes to the finish line. Simple as that!

The Start for Stage 6

Mosi, Martin, and I decided that we were going to run/jog the first half of the stage. Once we hit the dune, we would walk through the dunes to the finish line. Once we hit the dunes, we caught up with Meghan, Liza, Dave, Sarah, Marrissa, and Jay. We covered the dunes in no time and had a ton of laughs! It was great to be with the group and finish together.

From Left to Right: Martin, Mosi, Liza, Meghan, and Jay. Sarah and Marissa in the background.
This is right before the dunes.

This is pretty much the entire course. Flat desert floor to the Merzouga dunes.

Bedouin camp.

OG MdS Runner from back in the day!

Capturing the Finish Line

Aja and Jenn managed to find the finish location and stage super early to watch all of us cross the MdS finish line one last time. Here's a couple of pictures from her perspective:

Left to Right: Meghan, Marissa, Martin, ME, Liza, Jay, and Dave

All of us crossing the finish line

Catching a breather and looking for Mosi

The last Sultan Tea of the race. 

MdS Transport back to Ouarzazate which is about 5 hours away from the finish line. 

 Post MdS Dinner

After a super-long bus ride, all of us grabbed our bags and boarded another bus that took us to our hotel. We checked into the hotel and then grabbed dinner. Huge buffet of food!

Dinner plate of food. SOOOOO Good!!!

The whole table can't stop eating!!!!

Stage 6 Statistics

Elevation Profile

Official Time: 1:42:03

Average Pace: 15:42

Elevation Gain: 249

Average HR: 117

Estimated Calories Burned: 466