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A GSK scientist in the Marathon des Sables

Pushing personal limits to help cancer patients

You could say the Marathon des Sables is just a foot race, but then you could say Notre Dame of Paris is just a stone pile.

This annual event is not merely one marathon, but the equivalent of more than five marathons. It typically covers some 240km (150 miles), grinding on for seven days. One stage lasts through the day and into the night. For many of the competitors, it amounts to a fast march, punctuated by jogs and sprints and, in some instances, utter collapse.

Beyond distance, there is another, unfathomably punishing feature of this supreme endurance test: it plays out in the Sahara Desert, in southern Morocco, up and down sand dunes, over low mountains, along dried lakes and riverbeds, past isolated dwellings and ruins, often across a joint-jarring terrain of rocks like croquet balls, always under the baking sun, except for the night stretches, when temperatures can dive to near freezing.

“Why am I doing this?” Ian Baldwin, a chemist in GlaxoSmithKline Research & Development, asked rhetorically a few months ago.

He was training for the MDS, as the event is known, and seeking sponsors in his name to the UK’s leading cancer charity, Cancer Research UK, which supports the work of 3,000 scientists working for better cancer therapy. (For information about donations, visit www.justgiving.com/ianbaldwin)

Ian continued, “I want to raise awareness and money for Cancer Research UK because one and a half years ago, my sister died of breast cancer, aged 33.  Running for this cause is giving me a strong feeling of fulfilment and purpose after the devastation of my sister’s death.”

Karen Willett, a teacher of music, died on 31 May 2004. Her brother, aged 31, flying from London, arrived in Ouarzazate, southeast of Marrakech, on 6 April 2006.

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7-8 April
From Ouarzazate it is a six-hour bus ride to the first bivouac. A hundred burlap tents erected by Berber tribesmen bunch in the desert, communal shelter for the competitors now gathered to acclimate themselves to the heat and get final instructions for the week ahead. There are 731 of these aspiring souls. Moroccans and Europeans are out in force, yet 32 countries are represented in all, from Argentina to South Africa to Nepal. A family of four from Luxembourg is here. So are three Japanese actresses. Then there is the Briton who a decade ago broke his neck in a rugby tackle and spent nearly two years on his back.

Who knows what drives them personally? The public causes are many and varied: cancer therapy, of course, but also care for the mentally handicapped, better medicines for Crohn’s disease, facial reconstruction for African children afflicted by flesh-destroying cankers, a campaign to shut down paedophilia web sites, greater awareness of a rare syndrome that makes its victims intolerant of ultraviolet light, wheelchairs for disabled Moroccans, and so on and on.

By this day, as the competitors assemble, donations in Ian’s name to Cancer Research UK have reached £6,767. Among them are donations from pupils and teachers at Roundhay School in Leeds—Karen’s school.

All the competitors must demonstrate that they will be carrying adequate kit in their rucksacks: enough food to provide 2,000 calories a day, a snake-venom pump, a signalling mirror, a sleeping bag, a whistle, a distress flare. Bottled water will be preciously distributed each day at checkpoints along the course, nine litres daily for each competitor unless conditions dictate more.

New to a distance regimen until a year and a half ago, Ian has been training with a 10kg rucksack, doing about 70km a week, once 67 in a day. He has never run in a competitive marathon, though, and, meteorologically, the UK is hardly Morocco. He has made do with saunas and steam rooms to prepare for the heat.

The day before the first stage begins, a sandstorm kicks up, powered by winds reaching 50km per hour. Twice Ian’s tent is blown away and retrieved.

9 April
This morning Ian, carrying a collapsible walking stick, sets out with the throng for the initial, 28km course—by MDS standards, a warm-up jaunt. He wears a long-sleeved shirt and three-quarter-length shorts. A self-made legionnaire’s hat covers his neck as well as his head. Factor-50 sunscreen slathers any skin left exposed.

Ian runs in New Balance 1050s a size larger than usual to accommodate swelling and bandages. Blister plasters already protect areas prone to rub. Gaiters wrap his calves to stop sand from spilling into shoes and socks. This foot preservation can not be overdone. One year a contestant was air-lifted from the MDS for treatment of gangrene.

In addition to protection from sun and sand, some competitors wear headphones. A French piano teacher listens to Glenn Gould playing Bach. And a few display their national origins: the Briton in Union Jack shorts, for instance, and the Martinicans with bananas ornamenting their sombrero-like headgear.

The course starts with a level path to an ancient fortification but then leads to dunes where, after a still morning, the wind returns. So again Ian confronts the unavoidable, intractable, immutable fact of the Sahara Desert: it is . . . sandy. Sand insinuates its way into all pieces of equipment, no matter how carefully they are tucked away. It bites into skin like micro-shot. It finds its way into the nose, the mouth, the ears.

Ian pulls a cloth over his face to protect his lungs. The heat soars to 41 Celsius (106 degrees Fahrenheit). What’s more, the humidity rises to 18 per cent, high for this part of the world; last year it was 6 per cent.

No one has seen more of the MDS than its director, Patrick Bauer, who founded the event in 1986 after his own desert crossing convinced him others would want a life-changing trek, too. He notices that this year eight contestants drop out on this first day, and 21 need intravenous infusions. “We’ve never seen that before,” he remarks.

Ian, though trying to keep the weight he carries to a minimum, has allowed for a heart-rate monitor. He wants to keep his pulse below 150. He finds it is all he can do to stay within 150 even while just walking. Nevertheless, having started the day near the back of the pack, he advances to 335th by the end of this first stage. His time for the 28km: 4 hours, 38 minutes.

Again, the competitors have the assistance of Berbers in making bivouac. A laptop station enables email, one message a day for each competitor, no longer than 1,000 characters. Ian’s message goes to his wife, Allison. Alli trained with him. “Sand really does get everywhere!!!” he writes. “I really mean everywhere. Unfortunately the sandstorm has basically broken the camera already, so that has been dumped.”

He has come out the other end of the sandstorm in good humour, though. “In a tent with seven others, all great blokes.”

10 April
The day starts with a lengthy progression up an old mining footpath that narrows so that only one competitor can pass at a time. It drops sheer on one side. Then come plains and more dunes. Along the way, Moroccan youths materialize, as if from no where, to ask for sweets and to spectate. Wherever in this remoteness could they come from? Ian wonders.

According to MDS lore, Lahcen Ahancel also used to stand by the course, watching. One year, though he had no money for the entry fee, he started gliding along with the panting multitude by day and became one of them in the tents at night. He finished second, then found a corporate sponsor for the future. This year, at age 34, he is running for his ninth consecutive victory. He is said to be a man of a joyful, engaging nature and a very slow pulse.

The wind picks up. It is becoming apparent that this 2006 “edition” of the MDS is off to one of the most trying starts in the history of the event. Mohamad Ahansal, brother to Lahcen and in most years his strongest rival, gets dehydrated. Another of the top Moroccan runners momentarily loses his way in the flying sand. The organizers offer extra water, though sometimes it comes with a time penalty.

Today’s stage extends for 35km. About halfway, between checkpoints and water refills, Ian struggles, indeed, almost despairs. He has come to the end of a stony pathway. To the next checkpoint and beyond lies nothing but dunes. How ever to get traverse them in the tormenting wind? A tent mate comes by and bucks him up. He makes it to the checkpoint, and there sits alone, taking shelter behind a Jeep. He thinks of Karen, and of Alli and his other supporters. He decides pain is temporary but finishing is forever. He gets up and walks. By his map, he appears to have two hours to go.

At day’s end, 68 contestants have dropped out, but Ian is not among them. He writes to Alli: “Yesterday and today they have given us extra water but still not enough. May take an hour penalty to get some more. One person in our tent has quit today and a guy who has done the MDS four times previously has also quit. So I’m very pleased to be still in.”

He adds, “Feet OK.”

11 April
In the laptop station, incoming e-mails are printed for daily distribution. Bauer, the MDS director, holds a note from the girl friend of a Frenchman whom he now calls forward from the hundreds gathered for the morning briefing. Her message boils down to a question: “Will you marry me?” The hundreds applaud.

The course today is 38km, starting with dunes and proceeding to a gruelling rock climb just to reach the halfway point. There can be monotony in the desert, for sure, but on this day Ian finds variety in the gullies and mountains. He passes through a canyon, sees a solar pump built with money raised by MDS to aid irrigation.

For many others, though, the day is an ordeal, notwithstanding a subdued wind. The humidity approaches 20 per cent. Ian sees flares going off, each one a cry to MDS officials for assistance. Time and again throughout the event, the competitors help one another, too. Today Ian learns that a tent mate turned back over ground already covered to help a stranger who appeared to be faltering.

Drop-outs at day’s end total 122, up from only 50 for the entire MDS last year.

“Today was about survival,” Ian tells Alli, “staying in the race to be able to give the big day tomorrow at least a chance . . . Distress flares were going off left, right, and centre. . . There will be no email tom(orrow) as I will be still out on course . . . If I get through tom(orrow) I stand a good chance of finishing. Feet got blisters but not too bad.”

He sleeps outside the crowded tent. The nights this week are cool but, blessedly, not frigid. He has seen no snakes, only camels, lizards, and a scorpion that found its way into somebody else’s tent.

12 April
The “big day tomorrow” is today: 57km, even after MDS officials have cut out 15km in view of the harsh conditions and the rapidly dwindling cadre of competitors.

With the morning briefing comes news of an Irishman who yesterday collapsed from heat and exertion, and lapsed into a coma. He has been evacuated to Bordeaux for treatment.

Even amid the careful control and dramatic contrivance of the MDS officials, it remains possible in the 21st century to perish in the world’s largest desert. There is a cautionary and now legendary tale about the experience of an Italian policeman who in the 1994 MDS lost his way amid sand clouds. He ended up in Algeria. After eight days alone in the wilderness, crazed with thirst, he found salvation with passing nomads—and returned years later to confront the MSD again.

As throughout the MDS, most of the route today is marked about every 500m by signs and painted rocks, though there are no markings in the dunes. Hiking all day, Ian still has 24km to go at nightfall. They seem the longest 24km so far. The company of a tent mate from Hampshire helps, though in the dark he and Ian have little to say to each other, their reserves of conviviality being well drained by now.

Here and there, light sticks have been set out to mark the way. All the competitors also carry light sticks on the back of their rucksacks, to help those behind. Yet for Ian and his buddy there is a disquieting moment when all lights disappear. They imagine themselves going off course and misleading all who follow them. Then, with the passing of 10 minutes or so, they catch sight of a marker. They have in fact strayed, but only by some 200m.

They reach camp at half past midnight.

13 April
Ian to Alli: “Thanks to everyone who has sent emails, it really does help.” Commenting on the previous day, he goes on, “My rucksack wasn’t any lighter because I was carrying as much H2O as possible, therefore a slow time, but I’m still in there, currently 362. The stage took on another side when it got dark. It was all mental with nothing to see and still 24km to go. It’s a good job the stage was shortened as I’m not sure I would be still in it now. Marathon tomorrow, one step closer to that medal and T-shirt. Feet better than most.”

Even so, on this one day of rest, Ian is bursting his foot blisters, disinfecting them with iodine solution, and airing them out before applying the next set of bandages. It seems everyone in camp is hobbling, with a marathon to commence in less than 24 hours.

Ian also consumes needed calories. Although on a past night he had trouble getting food down, the goods he has toted through the week—curried vegetables, shepherd’s pie, lamb pilaf—have been a pleasant surprise. Though freeze-dried, they can actually be tasted. His tent mates, envious and joking, call him Gordon Ramsay after the British celebrity chef.

A highlight of the day is the arrival, just before noon, of the last person to complete the previous day’s route. She is a British woman, aged 56. She is met at the finish with a rousing cheer from other competitors. “Worth being last for,” she says.

14 April
Today’s true marathon of 42.2km follows valleys with dicey crevasses. The temperature stays below 35 Celsius, however, and there is a tail wind. Water rations are doubled. No one drops out.

Ian by e-mail at bivouac: “Today was the first day that most people have found OK. A combination of lighter rucksack, a rest day yesterday, lots of H2O, and better weather conditions. . . . Our tent tonight has an excellent view of the sand dunes, quite romantic sharing it with six blokes who haven’t washed for a week. I’m thinking of not having a wash before I come home so that I have plenty of space on the plane. Thank you to everyone who has sent emails. I didn’t want to get up and do today and I read the emails again and it really helped.”

Tomorrow it will be a flat stretch of only some eight kilometres, then four kilometres amid the highest dunes in Morocco. As the sense of completion begins to well up, the competitors are treated to an open-air concert by musicians from the Opera of Paris, who have been transported by Jeep.

Ian lies in his sleeping bag, listening to Mozart’s clarinet concerto and gazing at the stars of the desert sky.

15 April
Alli may be in the UK, but she is with Ian in spirit. She goes out for a run.

The run this day in Morocco is the shortest of the week—by comparison with everything that has preceded it, a walk in the park. Ian jogs toward the rising, pink undulations of the dunes of Merzouga. For a moment, he wonders whether he has begun to hallucinate, the color appears so intense. He arrives to within 100m of the finish line, then sprints.

He places 360th among 585 competitors who have reached the last day’s finish. His time over all courses for the week: 42 hours, 56 minutes, 47 seconds—12-minute kilometres over 212km of surface he compares to “sand pits and builder’s rubble.” One measure of the severe test he has met is the number of competitors who have dropped out over the week: 146. Another is the new and forbidding MDS record for administrations of intravenous fluids: 62.

Lahcen Ahansal—Who else?—wins again, carrying the Moroccan flag across the finish line in a total time of 17 hours, 14 minutes, 1 second. The Irishman in Bordeaux is reported to be doing OK.

The first celebrations erupt. A Frenchman opens a bottle of champagne. A Japanese in a Berber tunic starts dancing.

“Great news—Ian has finished the race!” Alli reports to Ian’s supporters. “What a huge achievement.” In her relief, she can even joke that Saharan sandstorms “must be the most unpleasant ‘exfoliation experience’ I’ve ever heard of!”

The next day, in Ouarzazate before the flight home, it will take three showers to cleanse all the sand away.
 
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Ian was back in his lab on 18 April. In Discovery Research, he analyses the relationship between the structure of promising molecules and their activity, so that series of like molecules with similar activity can be synthesized.  Just returned, he joked of his “feet like balloons.”

Other after-effects of the MSD will be longer-lasting. Someone recorded comments the competitors made to the event director as he handed out their medals at the finish line:
“You’re a bastard but a nice one.”
“Je suis knackered, the hardest MDS ever.”
“Estoy muy contenta y muy feliz.”
“It’s the most wonderful moment of my life.”
“E finita. E finita. E finita.”

Ian’s thoughts? He dearly wishes the money he raises will figure into research that someday helps to prolong a life. As for his week in the desert:

“I wanted to do something in memory of my sister that no one else would consider doing. My own tribute. Yes, maybe a little selfish, but it’s something I needed to do. I’ve learnt that if you have a goal and you really believe in what you are doing and why you are doing it, you can push yourself, both physically and mentally, past the limits you thought you had.”

Credits:
Ian Baldwin—e-mails from Morocco and interviews
Darbaroud.com
Wikipedia.org
mytravelmag.org
Sportsillustrated.cnn.com
Outside.away.com
Saharamarathon.co.uk

 

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