The Marathon des Sables remains one of the most iconic multi-stage ultras going. Running the main event back in 2015 is still one of the best life experiences I’ve ever had. So when I spotted a new half format carrying the MDS name arrive on the scene in 2017, I was intrigued. I had my doubts that you could transport the magic of the original race out of the Sahara and onto the Canary Island of Fuerteventura or to the sands of Peru and retain the same character. And the same intensity of the challenge. However, I’ve just run the 120km, 4-day Half Marathon des Sables in Fuerteventura and I’m now in a position to compare the experiences.
So how does it stack up to the full Marathon des Sables experience? And what awaits you in Fuerteventura? Here’s my Half Marathon des Sables Fuerteventura review with everything. you need to know before you embark on the new MDS adventure.
It’s half the distance but not half the pain
If you go into the Half Marathon des Sables expecting it to be half as difficult as the full Marathon des Sables, you’ll be in for a surprise. It’s not.
The four days in Fuerteventura represent a uniquely tough challenge all of their own and though there’s less running on any single day and fewer days overall, this is still a race you need to prepare well for.
Obviously from year to year the MDS experiences vary. There are so many variables when it comes to the weather and the difficulties you might face in Morocco and in Fuerteventura. Some years you get sand storms, harsh winds and soaring temperatures, others you just get the heat. When I ran Morocco we didn’t have crazy hot days but we did have harsh winds. We didn’t get full on sandstorms but we did have some low visibility.
So what I’m about to say comes with a caveat that it all depends on the weather Gods, but just 10km into stage one of the Half MDS I realised I was in a battle. It was brutally hot and by the time I heat-stroke wobbled over the finishing line on day one, I knew this race would present a challenge not unlike the one I’d faced back in the Sahara in 2015.
The numbers back this up. In Morocco we ran something along the lines of 34km, 38km, 35km, 81km, rest, 42km. And now here are the numbers for the stages at the Half Marathon des Sables Fuerteventura in 2018 below, according to our roadbooks and then also my Strava stats in brackets, logged using a Garmin Fenix 5 Plus. The temperature stats also come from that device.
Stage 1: 24.9km (23.8km with 650 metres elevation gain)
Temperatures rose as high as 37 degrees celsius.
Stage 2: 66km (73km with 1,550 metres elevation gain)
Temperatures rose as high as 35 degrees celsius.
Stage 3: rest day
Stage 4: 22.1km (22.06km with 330 metres of elevation gain)
Temperatures rose as high as 33 degrees celsius.
It’s not until I looked at the temperatures back in the UK that I realised how hot it go out there in Fuerteventura when we dropped into a windless valley. With this and the sharp climbs and technical terrain, Fuerteventura felt like it crammed all the toughest bits of the MDS into 120km. Certainly on the first day the heat and the technical running caught some by surprise. I can’t be sure but it also felt like there were steeper and longer climbs than we faced in Morocco. But maybe I’ve also just forgotten the pain of the Sahara.
Regardless, the Half MDS Fuerteventura is not an easy run and if you don’t treat it with the same respect you might treat the full MDS it will likely find you out. Similarly if you think doing th Half MDS is less of an achievement I think you’re wrong.
You start later in the day
In Fuerteventura, typically each stage set off at 9.30am with the exception of the final day where we started at 10am. And that means you’re exposed to much more of the mad-dog midday sun than you might be running at the full Marathon des Sables in Morocco. At least it felt that way. Temperatures easily averaged 28 degrees and on certain sections of the course where you dipped into a windless valley it felt even hotter than that. There’s no opportunity to make miles while the temperatures are low. If you’re lucky you’ll get a cloudy day or a section where the winds whip up enough to provide a chill but not so strong that it makes running difficult.
You will run for longer than you think
“It’s only 22.5km, how bad can that be?” I’ll admit to being among the runners who were probably thinking this ahead of day one. Partly because I wanted to tell myself we weren’t in for a taste of hell but also because even at walking pace a half marathon and a bit can only take so long right? Well, not if you look at the stats from the Half Marathon des Sables 2018 finishers. The first stage was run anywhere between 1:57 and 6.44 hours. There were also eight drop outs on day one and I can tell you that the guy who ran 1:57 was a total machine. I’m a steady 1:30 half marathon runner an it took me just over 3 hours.
Stage 2 was anywhere between 7:38 and 21:00 hours and there were 37 who didn’t make it past this day. Stage 3, the final stage, was completed anywhere between 1:37 and 5:47 hours and everyone who started day three made the finish line.
It’s really important to get your head around how long you’re going to be out there battling the course. Fuel and hydrate appropriately for the time and not the distance.
You will cover all kinds of terrain
Large open fields of fist-sized lava rocks, a 10km stretch of wide open beach, soft sandy road climbs, mountain clambering up to ridgeways, gravel paths, scree and loose stone, perilous cliff hanging paths that take you up and down and even the odd bit of tarmac, it’s all there. And while this is a challenge it’s also what makes the race so fun. The variety of terrain makes for really interesting running and aside from the long stretch on the beach on the long stage, it doesn’t get too monotonous. Psychologically that’s very important.
The real enemy is not the sand, it’s something else…
Everyone always obsesses about the sand in these races, largely thanks to all the photos of gaiter-clad runners that come back from the Sahara. The truth is it’s fairly easy to keep sand out of your shoes while you’re running and though the soft stuff does sap your energy and burn your quads, the real enemy are the rocks. Picking your way through the rock-strewn fields is the thing that causes the blisters, at least if you’re not careful about foot placement. And even with the most cautious approach to these sections you’re still going to step on a bunch. Despite this, there were a couple of runners out there who decided to go barefoot. Rather them than me though.
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It rains inside your tent
Apparently we had better tents than the people who ran the Half Marathon des Sables Fuerteventura in 2017 but our temporary homes still had flaws. At the Marathon des Sables you share berber tents with eight other runners but at the Half MDS you get your own two-man tent. It’s yours for the duration of the race but you’re not allowed to leave anything in it each time you got out and run. These tents get baked in the sun all day and brutally hot so they’re not great places to relax and recover.
But what I wasn’t expecting was to wake up to a drip, drip, drip of rain drops on my face in the middle of the night. But you do as the recycled breath condensation pours from the roof above you in a form of torture. What’s worse though is that if you haven’t put all of the stuff you want to keep dry into sealed plastic bags, it’s going to be damp. Socks, phone, sleeping back, toilet paper, your road book, t-shirts will all get soggy. I learnt the hard way on day one and everything went into a bag from there on in.
And there is a lot of sand
There’s a bit of a double whammy here. The open-sided tents at the main MDS have their drawbacks, particularly when the wind whips up at night but one thing in their favour is that it’s easy-ish to sweep sand out of tent off the lovely rugs they put down. Get sand into your one-man Half MDS tent, however, and it’s a different story, particularly if said tent is already stupidly damp from the condensation. Wet sand is the last thing you need sticking around when you’re trying to ensure grain-free socks and toes.
There’s not much shade on the bivouac
The other drawback of the one man tents is that they don’t offer any shade or respite from the oven-like heat. When you get back from running, your only option for escaping the Big Burny is under one open-sided marquee – basically a big roof – with all the other runners. Space here is at a premium and there are no rugs so you’re either lying on that heavy sleeping mat you brought with you or you’re on the sand. Again, if you’re a sweaty runner who’s just arrived back from stage one, flopping onto a sandy floor with your damp kit is a surefire way to get everything covered in the yellow stuff.
It’s easy to make fires
Ok, some good news. Most runners bring some form of high-calorie, low-weight dehydrated adventure food to have for their breakfast and post-run dinner but this also means you need a way to heat water to transform these into a meal that’s anywhere near palatable. For that you need fuel. The standard approach is to use some form of light stove with Esbit fuel tablets but a pack of 20 tabs weighs 80g and a little stove can add a couple of hundred grams. That’s quite a lot of weight when you’ve been making difficult decisions on how to keep your bag light and possibly jettisoning food. Now unlike in Morocco, where there’s not a huge amount of wood around, on the bivouac in Fuerteventura there’s plenty of dry kindling, enough for making a fire to boil water. I didn’t take Esbit tablets and I didn’t use my stove at all. Some cotton wool buds or a tampon as a fire starter along with some scavenged wood did the job. So you can save weight here.
The bivouac is more social
The set up of the bivouac is different. The 300 tents are arranged into circles of six tents all facing inwards. In the Sahara there are three rings of tents and because you’re sharing with eight other people you tend to stick more closely with those people as your team and there’s far less socialising outside of the tents. In Fuerteventura people wandered between tents, shared fires for cooking outside of their circle and generally mingled more. There was more interaction between the different nationalities too which doesn’t happen too much in the Sahara. It made the whole thing a really great experience.
The toilets are far away
There are proper portaloos which is a bit of a luxury compared to the put-me-up canvas cubicles and poo bags of Morocco. And these were surprisingly clean given all the Expedition Foods, carb gels and Peperamis (I’m looking at you Luke Genower) people were eating. They were, however, set up what felt like a 1km trudge through sand away from camp. And that made for a weary walk when nature called.
The medical tent is even further…
We can understand why you’d put the toilets a long way away from the bivouac, after all no one wants nasties brought back into camp but the fact the medical tent was a trek from the bivouac seemed like unnecessary torture. The last thing you need when you’re nursing blisters, beaten up feet and battered legs is a lengthy return trip to see the Doc. But that’s what you got. Luckily I didn’t have to go but all the people who did were less than amused.
It’s tough but achievable
One thing that I love about the full MDS that carried over to the Half Marathon des Sables was the range of ages, abilities, shapes, sizes and characters of the runners who lined up for the challenge. From 15 year-olds to 70-year-olds, runners who clearly had loads of ultra experience to those who’d never run more than a half marathon, it’s fantastic to see that anyone can come and have a crack. This will test people in different ways but if you come well prepared and play to your own strengths be that strong legs or a stubborn mind, you can conquer this race.
The medal is a bit rubbish
We do it for the experience not the medals but compared to the full Marathon des Sables medal, the Half MDS trinket looks and feels a bit cheap. It’s certainly not a stand out piece of bling. For people for whom this is their single greatest running – and possibly even life – achievement, that’s a bit poor.
You will want to stay longer after the race at the Playitas resort
After the race runners get to hang at the incredible sports paradise that is the Playitas resort. With infinity pools, tennis courts, boxing ring, yoga classes, you name it. You won’t want to do any of that but you will want to sit in the blazing sunshine with your legs dangling in the pool sipping a drink. For more than one day. I know because I flew out the day after the race and I was hugely jealous of the people who stayed on two more days.
Fancy running the Half Marathon des Sables Fuerteventura?
Registration for the Half Marathon des Sables 2019 is now open.
Now watch this: Marathon des Sables vs the Half Marathon des Sables
