Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 74, September 2015 | Page 16

Ma feature

Surviving the SAHARA
The six-day 250km Marathon des Sables (MdS) in the Sahara Desert of southern Morocco is considered the toughest
foot race in the world. Athletes must carry all their food and equipment, the heat can reach 50 degrees, sand gets into
everything, blisters are par for the course, and just finishing is a major achievement. This year was the 30th edition, with
the largest ever field of 1300 runners, and part of that field was the South African couple, Genis and Tanya Pieterse of
Johannesburg, and after reading Genis’ epic five-part race blog, we decided to publish a few extracts here.
– EDITED BY SEAN FALCONER

Our journey to the MdS began in May 2014, when Tanya had already completed both
Addo Elephant trail runs, the 44km in 2013, which we ran together as my final long run for
the 2013 MdS, and the longer 76km in 2014. It had been great to see my angel’s progress
from not being able to run around the block in mid-2012, but our journey also exposed
her fear of heights, and our real concern, her diagnosed Neurological Pain Syndrome (also
referred to as Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, or CRPS), which was only discovered after
she fell in the 2013 Addo run. CRPS causes prolonged pain, swelling and inflammation,
and in Tanya’s case it is triggered by high temperatures, direct sunlight, or placing any load
on her neck or shoulders, and I knew that the MdS had all those conditions from 8am until
6pm for seven days in a row! After months of research and numerous discussions with
physicians, a medical plan of action was established, which included medication to prevent
Tanya’s CRPS from flaring up, and to manage it if it did.

DAY 1: 36.2KM

We settled into what would become routine for the race, every kilometre I would remind
Tanya to drink and to eat, but her difficulty in swallowing, which had started the night
before, seemed to persist. Over the next few days this would become a major source of
concern, especially when she became nauseous at the end of day one due to the onset of
menstruation. Between CP1 and CP2 we had the
pleasure of spending some time with Sir
Ranulph Fiennes, and seeing that we were
from South Africa, he began singing O
Die Donkie, an Afrikaans song he knew
from when he went to school in South Africa.
Everyone was finding the
dunes a little difficult and
I said, “Don’t worry,

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ISSUE 74 SEPTEMBER 2015 / www.modernathlete.co.za

Medical attention on day 5
everything eventually comes to an end,” to which he replied, “That is not correct, the
kindness of a good woman never does.” I will remember those words of wisdom for
the rest of my life.

DAY 2: 31.1KM

This was the day that truly scared me. For the most part, Tanya’s fear of heights
was under control, but today was going to be the acid test with three major jebels
(mountains) to climb. The distance from the CP2 to the summit of Jebel El Otfal is
only 2.1km, but it took nearly two hours to complete the 250m vertica \