Often described as the “tough­est foot race in the world”, 2009 marked the 24th edi­tion of the infa­mous Marathon des Sables. It involves run­ning 256kms (154 miles) across the Sahara desert, under the sear­ing heat of the Moroc­can sun, which for some will have been the biggest chal­lenge of their lives.  How­ever, on the 27th March the 807 run­ners were faced with a new chal­lenge — rain.  And very few could have pre­dicted that the heav­ens above the Sahara would open to the extent they did, as can be seen in the video below.

Win­ner of the MDS 2009

The heavy rain­fall resulted in the 6 day race being cut down to 4. How­ever, the rain did noth­ing to slow down Mor­ro­can Mohamed Ahansal, who came first in a remark­able 16hrs 27 min­utes, win­ning the race for a sec­ond year in a row.  Mohamed’s brother has won it 10 times.  The top fin­ish­ing Brit — in 13th place — was William Davies with a time of 20hrs 5 min­utes (3:13 behind the leader), who before train­ing for the race had never run a marathon let alone 5 marathons in the desert. The full results can be found here.

If you’re inter­ested in par­tic­i­pat­ing in 2010, then you’ll prob­a­bly have to wait a few more years.  This author applied in June 2008 for a place in 2011’s marathon.  Within 30 min­utes, all the places were sold, each hav­ing put down a deposit of £500.  It just goes to show that after 24 years, the pop­u­lar­ity of the race has not less­ened. More details can be found on the Marathon des Sables off­i­cal web­site for British par­tic­i­pants. Oth­er­wise, you need to go to the organ­is­ers at Darabourd.com for more information.