Running in the SAHARA is truly magical
I could not have imagined a better way to end my first ‘real’ race season than with this race. It has been a great, but also very tough experience that I will never forget.
First things first: arriving to Tunesia. I flew out on Wednesday 27th of September to arrive a few day prior to the race. Although Barcelona is also still pretty hot, I wanted to be there a couple of days earlier to get used to the climate. And what do you do in your free days? Exactly, you go explore and I must admit that Tunesia has some beautiful places to discover. My favourites destinations that I visited pre-race were: Sidi Bou Saïd (the blue village), Carthage, Tozeur and Nefta (where Star Wars was recorded).
Since I was having such a great time, hours flew by and before I knew it I had to go collect my BIB number. After this collection we had a very clear race briefing where they explained to us what we could expect during the race, how to find the track, the ‘rules (for example littering = disqualification) and some last pieces of advice. Although I was quite stressy about it, since my body was close to overtraining due to this being the last race of the season, the friendly atmosphere really helped me to calm down.
And then it was D-DAY.
I woke up at 4 in the morning (or still night?) to try to have some breakfast before leaving for the start. Once I arrived to the start line, I actually felt quite calm. My strategy was to just have fun, keep on drinking and eating and make the best out of it.
And I did!!!! I ended as 2nd woman, which was to be honest, totally unpredicted. But hey, I am not complaining 🙂
If you want to know more about the gear that I used, the days prior to the race etc, don’t forget to check out this Youtube video.
Since the race was on Saturday and I was flying back to Barcelona on Wednesday, I had plenty of time to also discover the rest of the country (and this is something I would really recommend to everyone: TAKE YOUR TIME after a race to visit places).
I am almost 100% sure that because I took it so ‘slow’ after the race, I am already more than recovered. I even went on a little run the other day and my legs feel better now than they did before the race. Or maybe it was just the beauty of Tunesia that helped me recover so fast 🙂
The day after the race we drove to an oasis in the middle of the desert with almost no connection and the only thing you could do was relax, drive a quad and enjoy the sunset/ sunrise. The day after we went to visit a typical Berber (local religion) town and drove to the island Djerba to spend some amazing days there.
After this trip and race I feel mentally and physically recharged and so it it hard to say, but this is the last race of my season. Now it’s time to chill a bit and who knows, plan another (active) trip to discover a new destination 🙂
