Day 4 in the Big Brother Tent....

Early morning light

By day 4 a routine was setting in for me....I would go to bed relatively warm and wishfully hope I'd stay that way all night, then wake up when it cooled down and try to rub whichever hip/leg is uppermost, but do it quietly so the rustling didn't disturb my tentmates. Lie there awake for what seems like hours, waiting to hear the "call to prayer" being passed round some of the support tents, then celebrate that it's finally (almost time) to eat some more food and won't be long before the sun (and hence temperature) rises.

Going solo again

Breaking through the dunes

I started the (running) day with a smile as the light was beautiful, the temperature was perfect and I could pick out some more runnable areas of sand almost the whole way to the first checkpoint. Aziza seemed to have also noticed the pattern of our relative positions over the past few days, as although she started out faster than me, I caught her more quickly and she then ran along with me for a bit.

More dunes....

....and yet more sand

After CP 2 there seemed to be rather a lot of soft sand nicely arranged in energy-zapping dunes and I found myself falling back off the pace. Even though I felt that I was struggling significantly, the same must have been happening to others as I found myself closing the gap back to Aziza. When I caught her up, we exchanged a few words of French and she suggested we run together. I thought this was a great idea as up until then, every day had been a rather lonely run and I hoped to be able to learn a bit more "sand-running" technique from her, but suddenly I noticed that she was falling back on all the climbs and not getting back onto the pace. I tried to match her but then decided that it would be easier for me to just carry on at my own pace, as I really didn't want to be out there longer than I had to (and I was feeling the heat).

No....the gantry has disappeared again!!

Spying the gantry....am I nearly there?

The last few kms seemed to go on forever, as the finish gantry was at the end of a ridge of dunes, so you could see it from a long way away, and it didn't seem to get much closer. I knew people had been penalised for avoiding dunes on previous days so I made sure I climbed all of them, even though other footprints seemed to go around some of them. Finally I made the elusive gantry, poured more water over my head, drank another nonalcoholic beer (?strawberry this time) and waited for Aziza to congratulate her as she crossed the line 3.5mins later.

Natalya, Aziza and myself at the finish

Water over my head and a cold can in my hand.....bliss!!!

As usual, Greg had been first back from our tent, though I was getting closer to the Balearic Boys, and then Flash wasn't too far behind me. The performance of the day (well for our tent anyway) came from Rosemary as she got stronger and stronger over the course of the run, gradually picking people off to finish as joint 4th lady and so we waited for her to have a finish line celebration/hug. We did decided that the secret to her success was the extra food we'd had the day before. A lady in our tent had decided that she'd brought too much food so was going to throw away 2x 1000calorie dehydrated meals. Flash, Greg, Rosemary and I had "helped her out" by eating them for her (a great afternoon spent sitting in a circle taking a spoonful of pasta and passing the bag on to the next person).

A well-earned hug for Rosemary

Me, Flash, Greg & Rosemary done
and dusted for the day!

When we found our tent that afternoon, we realised that it was set up in an ideal location. On the previous day, our open side had faced a tent full of Italians (who liked to parade around camp in just their underpants.....so we developed a few nicknames for them), but this time, we had a view right across to the finish gantry, so we could watch fellow runners as they made their way up the last few dunes and into the finish. I think I did more "active recovery" on that day than on any other one, as every time that I saw someone I recognised I'd get up, cheer them on and try to get over to the finish line in time to see them in. It made for a very friendly atmosphere......and led me to suggest a possible modification for the next year's event to the race organisers. I thought it would be fabulous if the finish gantry was at the end of the avenue of tents, as that way there would always be people watching runners finish and we'd be able to cheer each other one, while still getting some well earned rest and being able to eat our food. I "think" the suggestion went down well......

I do a good impression of a tramp!!!

I knew it would be a very long night, as we had the "night marathon stage" the next day, and so there would be no early start. In order to try to get a slightly comfiest night.....and slightly more sleep.....I added in an extra layer, in that I wrapped my survival blanket around me (over my bivvy bag and under my cardboard box).....