Things to take to the desert with you

The organizers of the Marathon des Sables have outlined a set of necessities for a desert runner: a backpack, a sleeping bag, a torch with spare batteries, 10 pins, a compass, a lighter, a whistle, a knife, disinfectant, a venom extractor pump kit, a mirror, a space blanket, sun screen, 200 Euros, a passport, a medical certificate, ECG tracing and food for seven days (14,000 kcal).

These are not mere recommendations – these are absolutely indispensable things. Here is the list of penalties for failure to comply with the requirements:

– No medical certificate and/or ECG tracing while motionless – 200 Euros + one hour of penalty for each paper;

– No backpack – disqualification;

– No sleeping bag or compass – three penalty hours;

– No signal pistol, road book, salt tablet, food (in an amount of 2,000 kcal per day) or space blanket – two penalty hours for each;

– No 10 pins, knife with a metal blade, whistle, antiseptic medicine, mirror, syringe with anti-venom, torch with batteries, check-in card, lighter, sun screen, money (200 Euros) – one penalty hour for each;

– Non-compliant backpack weight (must be between 6.5 and 15 kg) – one penalty hour;

– Absence of any item of individual equipment – 30 penalty minutes.

“Basically, hardly any runner can get into the MDS with no penalties.” – Me

The particular choice of obligatory and personal items depends on the individual preferences of the runner, so that is left to your personal consideration. Some athletes try to save money and stay hungry, others take more food and comfortable clothing and end up hating their heavy backpacks.

I spent several months trying to define the list of things I’m taking with me. Finally I managed to put together the list of items with their weight in grams. Looks quite thought-through but in the long run only distance would reveal how well I’d managed.

Obligatory items (612 g)

– A compass (24 g) – so that I don’t get lost;

– A knife (4 g) – to defend from the Berbers;

– A torch + three batteries (113 g) – to keep running at night-time;

– A whistle (4 g) – to whistle tunes while running;

– A space blanket (47 g) – to warm up or cool down;

– 10 pins (4 g) – to pin up the number;

– Sunscreen (23 g) – so that I don’t turn into a charcoal;

– A mirror (10 g) – to signal to a helicopter pilot;

– Venom extractor pump kit (29 g) – to deal with snakes;

– A passport (15 g) – so that they knew whose body they found;

– 200 Euros (1 g) – to stay in a 5-star hotel on the way;

– A national flag of Moldova (50 g) – will help me not give up;

– A lighter (11 g) – to cook my food;

– Disinfectant (37 g) – to lick my wounds.

Also one should take into account that before the start you’re going to get a whole bunch of things that you’ll have to carry with you:

– A road map with the race route (42 g) – they give it to runners the day before the start. I don’t even imagine why would they keep it secret;

– SPOT Gen3¹⁰ satellite tracker (113 g) – so that they could see the location of each runner;

– A chip ¹¹(20 g) – to fix down the time of each stage;

– Salt tablets (25 g) – to maintain salt balance under conditions of dehydration;

– Toilet bags (30 g);

– BIB number¹² tags (10 g) – one for the chest and one for the back.

Washing (90 grams)

Participants of the race usually take with them the following hygienic belongings: soap, wet wipes, toilet paper, antibacterial liquids, dry shampoo, a toothbrush, toothpaste, and a towel. In general, I’m an ogre13 by nature, so I’m pleased with the prospect of not washing for a week. I decided to take only toilet paper (90 grams).

Sleeping (642 grams)

I noticed that training is successful if you have a good night’s sleep before it. Even if I don’t eat, even if I’m not in a good mood, and even if it’s raining.

Sleep is the main thing for refreshment. I want to sleep long and tight when I’m in the desert, so I take with me a sleeping bag, a mat, and earplugs. Some take a pillow as well. I decided to save 100 grams on this and I’ll put a backpack under my head.

It took me a long time to choose a sleeping bag. There are many ultra-light sleeping bags with cool down on the market now. There is also another interesting option – a pair: a waistcoat plus a pocket for your legs. I scratched my head and chose an optimal combination of weight, volume, and cold-resistant properties, taking into account the expected +5°C at night – Minimus Down Sleeping Bag, K Series (372 grams).

Sometimes I climb mountains and take inflatable mats. Honestly, they are uncomfortable, creaky, narrow, and even unreliable – a spark can make a hole. It takes a long time to inflate and blow them up. Therefore, I decided to take a sleeping mat (a foam mat) to the race. Therm-a-Rest Z-Lite (270 grams) is the coolest and lightest mat.

To save weight, I cut off one third of the mat. My feet can lie on the ground, as the main thing is that my bottom feels soft.

Clothing (2579 grams)

The most important thing here is a backpack.

A lot depends on it. Fortunately, I didn’t have to rack my brains for a long time and took a 20-liter WAA MDS ULTRABAG (1086 grams). More than half of the people run with it at the Marathon des Sables. It’s such a proven workhorse.

I only cut off unnecessary straps, ropes, hooks

and rubber bands – in total, more than 200 grams of excess weight. The final weight of the backpack was a little more than a kilogram.

The second most important item is sneakers. Well, this is my favorite pastime: to buy, run, become sad, and give away. I did so three times before I decided on the design and size. I chose Hoka Challenger ATR 3 (a pair is 660 grams).

I took one and a half centimeters bigger than my usual size. After all, it’s known that the main trouble for runners at the Sand Marathon is calluses. 90 percent of participants get them. The formula is very simple: heat + sweat + friction = calluses. Moreover, if some sand gets into your sneakers, you’ll have to throw away your feet.

To avoid getting sand into your shoes, gaiters, shoe covers with a hook and loop fastener, can be used. The hook and loop fastener is sewn to the sneaker and to the gaiter.

Wear them and you can safely run in the sand.

I chose RaidLight Desert Gaiters (76 grams): they are light and don’t rub. It’s very important to choose the right socks. Fivefingers¹³ prevent friction between the toes and help to save your feet. Before the MDS, I ran a marathon in Injinji (32 grams) and didn’t rub anything.

There is another strange technology for protecting the skin of the feet – tanning.

Yes, legs are tanned like a leather jacket. There is a simple recipe: make baths with lemon juice every day for a month before the race. The skin coarsens and becomes resistant to rubbing. It’s in theory. In practice, the same 90 percent suffer from calluses. I think they all tried to save their feet, and many of them with the help of tanning.

As for me, I don’t mind a couple of calluses. This will allow me to fully experience the desert and to suffer a little, as I love…

On my head, I wear a light Salomon Cap XA + Cap ear-flapped hat (95 grams) with neck protection from the sun. Sunglasses (30 grams) are for the same purpose. On my body, I wear my favorite Waa Ultra Carrier Shirt (174 grams) and comfortable Salomon S-Lab Exo Twinskin shorts (142 grams).

I have in my backpack a woolen shirt with long sleeves (205 grams) to keep warm at night, spare socks (39 grams), and weightless slippers (40 gramms) from the hotel to walk around the camp.

Treatment (78 grams)

The first-aid kit weighs a little, but everything depends on it. Therefore, I try to foresee any surprises (it doesn’t hurt to dream).

The first-aid kit includes:

– Loperamide – against upset stomach;

– Ketanov – against pain;

– Nurofen – against inflammation;

– Persen – against insomnia;

– Compeed plasters¹⁴;

– Alcohol for disinfection;

– Tape for knees;

– Sunscreen.

The “medical block” includes a mandatory doctor’s certificate, assuring the organizers that the runner will not kick the bucket at the first stage. I’m always astonished at the bravery of doctors signing such papers. Organizers also doubt the adequacy of Aesculapians, so they always require a cardiogram (and from old fellows like me – a cardiogram under load).

Charging (810 grams)

Well, how to go without devices? After all, it’s not for nothing that I graduated from polytechnics and I love all these pieces of metal. But…all these things weigh a lot, so I take only the most important.

The phone is not the most important thing, because there is no coverage in the desert and the iPhone turns into a pretty toy. Therefore, it will wait for me at the finish.

However, a Garmin Fenix 3 (82 grams) watch will run with me. I decided to shoot this six-day torture on GoPro HERO 5 Black camera (117 grams) in 4K mode, and later I will make pictures from the video. In addition, on a trial basis, I took with me a Garmin inReach Explorer + ®¹⁵ satellite messenger (213 grams). It allows communication with the family, calming the wife with the message “I’m still alive!” after each stage. By the way, this piece of hardware sends the host’s coordinates via space to a server every 10 minutes. And voila, you can see exactly where I’m crawling through the desert.

All this gear should be recharged. Therefore, I had to take a SunnyBAG LEAF + solar panel with a power bank (348 grams) as well as various cables and adapters (50 grams).

Many people take headphones and iPods. I firmly stand against headphones with music, audiobooks, podcasts, and other informational noise during the run. We are already overwhelmed with news, music, social networks, messages, videos, jokes, pictures, memes, calls, notifications, TV flickering, radio mumbling, and other trifles. During training, at least one hour a day, you enjoy the silence and the opportunity to listen to yourself and your body.

“Feet, how are you there?”

“Very well, Commander! Thanks for the new sneakers.”

“And you, dear heart, how are you?”

“I’m beating little by little…,” my heart answers out of breath, “Can we slow down?”

“Ok, we can, we will reach the hill and have a rest.”

Here the brain intervenes:

“Look! You’ve been thinking recently about the medals for the Triathlon. Here’s a solution – make them black, it will be unusual.”

“Yes, that’s a great idea, thank you.”

“No problem! Anytime!”

I don’t know about other people, but I get many ideas while running. The brain, cleared of debris, can calmly put everything in its place and then give an answer. A week in silence in the desert! This is real mental purification!

It’s true happiness to run hundreds of kilometers, get calluses, starve, overheat, freeze, feel the taste of water, gobble up a scorpion, and look at the stars! And most importantly, it’s great to be alone with yourself and finally turn off all these other people’s voices in your head.

Cooking (206 grams)

Everything is very simple here: you eat what you take. To prepare food, I took a MSR Titan Tea Kettle 850 ml saucepan with a lid (130 grams), a Lifeventure Titanium Mug 450 ml (55 grams), a spoon-fork (10 grams), a lighter (11 grams), and… that’s all. A gas stove is prohibited due to the high temperature in the desert.

There are two popular ways of warming up water in the desert:

– Alcohol tablets. I turned down this idea because an experiment showed that at least six tablets should be used at a time. If I have to cook 12 times for the whole marathon (twice a day), I need 72 tablets. That’s a considerable weight, so brushed away this idea;

– Twigs, sticks. It’s all very simple! You run to the camp and look for combustible material, twigs and sticks, which were not found by other runners and local berbers¹⁶. The berbers are guys who are as sly as a fox, as they will sell a bundle of brushwood for 50 Euros! Here an athlete takes a risk – a backpack without provisional fuel reserves is 300 grams lighter, but then you have to eat cold food. Competition for wood fuel is high in the desert. I decided to take a chance.

As a third point, I would like to offer you an MDS lifehack: another option of making a fire – to warm the water by burning friends’ letters, which the organizers of the competition print on paper. During the marathon, letters can be sent to:

http://live.marathondessables.com

The letters warm all the senses!

So, the total weight of my backpack without food and water is 3400 grams. Clothes and shoes on me weigh 1300 grams.

Food reserve (3400 grams)

It’s even hard to call it food during the race. The main thing in the diet during the competition is not the taste, but the ratio of proteins, carbohydrates, fats, and weight. Organizers regulate the number of kilocalories – 14,000 per race. Not less. More is allowed.

It’s strange: only 2,000 calories a day. We burn 4,000 kcal per day during an ultramarathon. And what about the heat?

The sand? The backpack? If my experienced comrades hadn’t given me good advice, I would have taken a minimum of 4,000 for a day. But experienced people say that 2,000 is usually enough.

Six months before the competition, I began experimenting with sublimated¹⁷food containing no moisture. Dry powder. Dust. But if you add water – mmmm… It turns out delicious. In the world there are many manufacturers of sublimates, so I tasted five options and stopped at MX3 – the food is quality, sometimes even tasty.

The price is about 6 Euros per serving. I bought 20 different dishes, tasted them, chose the best ones during the Rubicon, and ordered them again.

As one member of the MDS said:

“The main thing in the diet at the race is diversity.”

Dmitry Erokhin, participant of the MDS

So I’ll have two new dishes every day. I decided to fill the intervals between breakfast and dinner with nuts and dried fruits: they are high in calories and don’t take up much space. Moreover, every day, I’ll take 50 grams of pure carbohydrates for a quick recovery after running. Plus, tea with sugar to while away long evenings.

In short, I decided to take a risk and took food containing precisely 14,000 kilocalories for seven days of competition. If it’s not enough, I’ll have to eat sand and speak well of my experienced comrades.

While packing my things at home, continuing to struggle with excess weight, my family and I poured the sublimates out from heavy foil packs into cellophane zip bags, then sorted and packaged dried fruits by weight.

The savings amounted to 250 grams. Reduced weight and volume – this is good, but the fact that I have to wash the saucepan every time is not good.

So, my whole food weighs 3,400 grams, in average 410 kilocalories per 100 grams. Not bad. My backpack without water weighs about seven kilograms, with water – eight and a half. Not very hard. But it is to the detriment of comfort. I hope I won’t envy my provident friends.