Stage 3

There was a heart-stopping moment this morning Chez Skipworth. We logged on to the live tracker to discover that, apparently, Hector was behind all the other runners, not moving, while his father was several miles ahead. The panic was short lived, however, as it occurred to me that Paul would rather chew off his right arm than leave Hector for dead in the desert. A few minutes later, Hector’s GPS tracker kicked back into action and normal order was resumed. In fact, at that very moment, Hector was putting in a good shift between checkpoints 2 and 3, as part of a train of British runners who had recognised each other and teamed up. Later, finding himself alone again, Hector teamed up with a Kenyan runner and they ran to the finish together. I have been told that the camaraderie between runners is what sets these types of races apart, and so it seems.

Meanwhile, Paul was slightly further behind. As most readers of this website will know, he is built more like a prop (and we’re not talking about the modern type of prop) than a marathon runner, so he has to expend a great deal more energy than the average MDSer. Nevertheless, he was not far behind Hector and I suspect that come tomorrow they will be running together.

Talking of tomorrow, this will be the big one, the infamous Stage 4 which is a double marathon through the night. It’s where fitness becomes irrelevant and mental toughness prevails (inevitably, this is Paul’s favourite part of the race). So, please think of them both as you sink into your beds on Wednesday night.