Alert and intrigued “06880” reader Jenny McGuinness writes:
My husband Luke McGuinness, and our neighbors Peter Boyd and Stephanie Tang, appear completely sane on the outside.
Like many, they lead busy lives as parents and professionals in Westport. But they moonlight as lunatics: Next month, the 3 will embark on a 6-day footrace across the Sahara desert in Morocco.
By choice.
The event is called the Marathon des Sables. The Discovery Channel called it “the Toughest Footrace on Earth.”
Participants will cover 156.5 miles over 6 days on foot — anywhere from 13.1 to 53 miles each day.
But that’s not all. Participants must carry all of their food and provisions for the week in a pack on their back.
Not quite the Sahara: Peter Boyd, Luke McGuinness and Stephanie Tang, take a break during a 34-mile training run last weekend at Compo Beach …
The only things race organizers provide are water, and an open-sided tent each night.
The upside? Your pack is very heavy at the start. But it gets lighter every day.
What diabolical maniac planted the seed for this idea?
Pete Boyd.
… and then get back to work.
Mild-mannered and good-natured on the outside, but apparently made of utter darkness inside, Pete completed the race in 2003. Much like childbirth, one forgets the enormous amount of pain when enough time has passed.
He yearned to return to the Sahara. But who could he sucker into joining him?
He didn’t have to look far. Knowing that his neighbors Luke and Stephanie — like him — enjoy any garden variety, exceptionally torturous physical challenge, he asked.
“Don’t worry, guys, it’s not that bad,” Pete said. “It’s just sandy. Very sandy,”
They accepted.
Pete says there are 2 kinds of sand topography in sunny Morocco: the soft dune-running days, and the rocky sand days.
The latter is worse, because “you sprain your ankle hundreds of times all day, every day.”
A scene from the Marathon des Sables.
What else is hard about this beast of a race?
“The sandstorms,” Pete says simply.
The average daytime temperature in that part of Morocco in April is between 100 and 110 degrees — with a chance of camel.
???!!!
The Marathon des Sables includes a time cut-off: You have to finish each day ahead of an actual camel that race organizers send out to bring up the rear.
If the camel passes you, you’re out of the race.
Luke, Peter and Stephanie have been training hard for months. You may have seen them out on the roads at dawn, wearing backpacks, headlamps, and sick grins.
They are determined. They will be successful!
We sure can’t wait to hear about this epic adventure, and best of all, to have them back safely.
(Marathon Des Sables is April 12-22. Luke, Peter and Stephanie are running to benefit the High Atlas Foundation, a non-profit founded by former Peace Corps volunteers aimed at furthering sustainable agriculture, women’s empowerment, clean water, education, and cultural preservation in Morocco. To donate, click here.
(To follow the Westport trio in real time as they journey across the Sahara, click here.)
Astonishingly, Luke, Peter and Stephanie are not the first Westporters to be challenged by the Marathon des Sables.
In 2014, I wrote about Jean Paul Desrosiers. The owner of Sherpa Fitness Center had just returned from his grueling adventure. Click here for that story.
