Marathon des Sables 2011

The story

The Marathon des Sables is often called the world’s toughest footrace: six stages of roughly 250 km (some years over 300 km) across the Southern Moroccan Sahara, self-sufficient — you carry your food, your tent, and most of your gear, from dune to dune.

Achim’s journey began far from the desert: with a first 10 k, then a first marathon, and a slow, deliberate build-up of distance and — just as important — of the right material, learned the hard way and then the smart way.

Chapters from the blog

The complete story, with photos, is published chapter by chapter on the Achim’s feet blog. Each chapter can be imported into this page later — the structure is already reserved:

1 · The beginning
2 · Preparing the 1. Marathon
3 · The turning point — getting the right material
4 · Raising the tension — doing what few people are doing
5 · MDS part 1 · 6 · MDS part 2
7 · MDS part 3 · 8 · MDS part 4

Training notes

“One yer of preparation, testing all possible gear from the shoes to the underwear and food, nothing must go wrong here. ”

Gear & money

Place: “write here the material lessons — shoes, pack, shelter, and how to prepare without overspending.”