What It Feels Like to Run Across the Sahara
It's a race against yourself and the ultimate test of endurance. Could cold mac 'n' cheese help one Bloomberg reporter last a week in the desert?
Competitors scale Hered Asfer Jebel, a hill in the Moroccan Sahara, on the second stage of the Marathon des Sables.
Photographer: Alex Morales/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
I've been running for more than 13 hours in the Sahara desert, fighting the wind, exhaustion, hunger and a painful knee. It's dark, about 9:30p.m., and I have about three hours more to go before the end of the fourth stage of what has been dubbed the "toughest footrace on earth.''
In between mouthfuls of cold macaroni and cheese, I converse with a fellow competitor, an Italian named Alessandro, at a checkpoint. After being largely on my own for the past 50 kilometers (31 miles), I am grateful for the company. "Are you running or walking?'' he asks. "Meta-meta,'' I say, in rusty Italian. "Half-half.'' We decide to stay together.