Run and remember

I only cut off unnecessary straps, ropes, hooks

and rubber bands – in total, more than 200 grams of excess weight. The final weight of the backpack was a little more than a kilogram.

The second most important item is sneakers. Well, this is my favorite pastime: to buy, run, become sad, and give away. I did so three times before I decided on the design and size. I chose Hoka Challenger ATR 3 (a pair is 660 grams).

I took one and a half centimeters bigger than my usual size. After all, it’s known that the main trouble for runners at the Sand Marathon is calluses. 90 percent of participants get them. The formula is very simple: heat + sweat + friction = calluses. Moreover, if some sand gets into your sneakers, you’ll have to throw away your feet.

To avoid getting sand into your shoes, gaiters, shoe covers with a hook and loop fastener, can be used. The hook and loop fastener is sewn to the sneaker and to the gaiter.

Wear them and you can safely run in the sand.

I chose RaidLight Desert Gaiters (76 grams): they are light and don’t rub. It’s very important to choose the right socks. Fivefingers[13 - fingersocks or 5-toe socks. It’s about socks, right!] prevent friction between the toes and help to save your feet. Before the MDS, I ran a marathon in Injinji (32 grams) and didn’t rub anything.

There is another strange technology for protecting the skin of the feet – tanning.

Yes, legs are tanned like a leather jacket. There is a simple recipe: make baths with lemon juice every day for a month before the race. The skin coarsens and becomes resistant to rubbing. It’s in theory. In practice, the same 90 percent suffer from calluses. I think they all tried to save their feet, and many of them with the help of tanning.

As for me, I don’t mind a couple of calluses. This will allow me to fully experience the desert and to suffer a little, as I love…

On my head, I wear a light Salomon Cap XA + Cap ear-flapped hat (95 grams) with neck protection from the sun. Sunglasses (30 grams) are for the same purpose. On my body, I wear my favorite Waa Ultra Carrier Shirt (174 grams) and comfortable Salomon S-Lab Exo Twinskin shorts (142 grams).

I have in my backpack a woolen shirt with long sleeves (205 grams) to keep warm at night, spare socks (39 grams), and weightless slippers (40 gramms) from the hotel to walk around the camp.

Treatment (78 grams)

The first-aid kit weighs a little, but everything depends on it. Therefore, I try to foresee any surprises (it doesn’t hurt to dream).

The first-aid kit includes:

– Loperamide – against upset stomach;

– Ketanov – against pain;

– Nurofen – against inflammation;

– Persen – against insomnia;

– Compeed plasters[14 - the best plasters in the world for treating blisters and corns.];

– Alcohol for disinfection;

– Tape for knees;

– Sunscreen.

The “medical block” includes a mandatory doctor’s certificate, assuring the organizers that the runner will not kick the bucket at the first stage. I’m always astonished at the bravery of doctors signing such papers. Organizers also doubt the adequacy of Aesculapians, so they always require a cardiogram (and from old fellows like me – a cardiogram under load).

Charging (810 grams)

Well, how to go without devices? After all, it’s not for nothing that I graduated from polytechnics and I love all these pieces of metal. But…all these things weigh a lot, so I take only the most important.

The phone is not the most important thing, because there is no coverage in the desert and the iPhone turns into a pretty toy. Therefore, it will wait for me at the finish.

However, a Garmin Fenix 3 (82 grams) watch will run with me. I decided to shoot this six-day torture on GoPro HERO 5 Black camera (117 grams) in 4K mode, and later I will make pictures from the video. In addition, on a trial basis, I took with me a Garmin inReach Explorer + ®[15 - same as a satellite tracker, only with an additional texting feature.] satellite messenger (213 grams). It allows communication with the family, calming the wife with the message “I’m still alive!” after each stage. By the way, this piece of hardware sends the host’s coordinates via space to a server every 10 minutes. And voila, you can see exactly where I’m crawling through the desert.

All this gear should be recharged. Therefore, I had to take a SunnyBAG LEAF + solar panel with a power bank (348 grams) as well as various cables and adapters (50 grams).

Many people take headphones and iPods. I firmly stand against headphones with music, audiobooks, podcasts, and other informational noise during the run. We are already overwhelmed with news, music, social networks, messages, videos, jokes, pictures, memes, calls, notifications, TV flickering, radio mumbling, and other trifles. During training, at least one hour a day, you enjoy the silence and the opportunity to listen to yourself and your body.

“Feet, how are you there?”

“Very well, Commander! Thanks for the new sneakers.”

“And you, dear heart, how are you?”

“I’m beating little by little…,” my heart answers out of breath, “Can we slow down?”

“Ok, we can, we will reach the hill and have a rest.”

Here the brain intervenes:

“Look! You’ve been thinking recently about the medals for the Triathlon. Here’s a solution – make them black, it will be unusual.”

“Yes, that’s a great idea, thank you.”

“No problem! Anytime!”

I don’t know about other people, but I get many ideas while running. The brain, cleared of debris, can calmly put everything in its place and then give an answer. A week in silence in the desert! This is real mental purification!

It’s true happiness to run hundreds of kilometers, get calluses, starve, overheat, freeze, feel the taste of water, gobble up a scorpion, and look at the stars! And most importantly, it’s great to be alone with yourself and finally turn off all these other people’s voices in your head.

Cooking (206 grams)

Everything is very simple here: you eat what you take. To prepare food, I took a MSR Titan Tea Kettle 850 ml saucepan with a lid (130 grams), a Lifeventure Titanium Mug 450 ml (55 grams), a spoon-fork (10 grams), a lighter (11 grams), and… that’s all. A gas stove is prohibited due to the high temperature in the desert.

There are two popular ways of warming up water in the desert:

– Alcohol tablets. I turned down this idea because an experiment showed that at least six tablets should be used at a time. If I have to cook 12 times for the whole marathon (twice a day), I need 72 tablets. That’s a considerable weight, so brushed away this idea;

– Twigs, sticks. It’s all very simple! You run to the camp and look for combustible material, twigs and sticks, which were not found by other runners and local berbers[16 - an ethnic group living in North Africa, in Central and Western Sudan.]. The berbers are guys who are as sly as a fox, as they will sell a bundle of brushwood for 50 Euros! Here an athlete takes a risk – a backpack without provisional fuel reserves is 300 grams lighter, but then you have to eat cold food. Competition for wood fuel is high in the desert. I decided to take a chance.

As a third point, I would like to offer you an MDS lifehack: another option of making a fire – to warm the water by burning friends’ letters, which the organizers of the competition print on paper. During the marathon, letters can be sent to:

http://live.marathondessables.com (http://live.marathondessables.com/)

The letters warm all the senses!

So, the total weight of my backpack without food and water is 3400 grams. Clothes and shoes on me weigh 1300 grams.