Breathless ...

February 04, 2010

Through the past years, having spending my free time in Saudi Arabia ( Jeddah ) and the Caribean Island of Guadeloupe  , I  became a scuba  Rescue diver and Divemaster  now I'm   just a breath away to start my journey to Freediving as I need these skills for my upcomming project .  Freediving , or… Breath-hold diving, Skin-diving,  Apnea …  unlike SCUBA diving, it allows one an experience with no noise …..and bubbles. It is a very rewarding experience in a source of pleasant feelings in a non-gravity environment and a wonderful interaction with nature. When an individual descends below the surface without the assistance of any breathing apparatus, only by taking a single breath of the God-given air that we all breathe, this is called freediving.
It is not important if you want to practice this sport in recreation or competition or if you do it in the sea or in a lake, but it is very important that you feel comfortable when you are in the water.
 Another mid-life crisis, meet you down there . - and keep you posted on my next project  .

maLUCo

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Marathon des Sables

July 06, 2007

At this very moment, in around thirty countries around the world, men and women are preparing to live through an adventure they've been dreaming about for some time. In Hong Kong, New York, Rome , Tokyo even Guadeloupe , people are training to be ready to give the MARATHON DES SABLES( MdS )  their very best.

MARATHON DES SABLES it means sand marathon, and it naturally takes place in a hot, desolate slice of the Sahara Desert in Southern Morocco near the village of Ourzazete. It's race organized by the French, and well, the French have their own Gallic way of administering pain and suffering.Competitors have to navigate themselves 250 Km across the Moroccan Sahara, carrying everything they need in a rucksack on their back, in sweltering temperatures that would make the average Belgian summer day seem positively chilly.

Organizers tout it as "the world's toughest footrace," and who's to argue? Founded in 1986, started 22years ago it was the brainchild of Patrick Bauer, a former concert promoter from Troyes, France, who created the race after he walked 200 miles alone across the Algerian Sahara in 1984. Afterward, in a brilliant stroke of ‘sado commercialism’, he decided to share the pain with others. He found the experience so harsh yet uplifting that he decided to make it an annual event. The MARATHON DES SABLES ( MdS )  is a footrace that features crazies who race by day and sleep in communal tents by night. Carrying everything they need to eat and drink, the racers also have to protect themselves from blisters, rashes, dust storms, snakes -- you name it.

“Are you crazy?" they ask. It seems a reasonable question for someone ready to run up a 70 km run and 5 marathons in a row in blistering heat, bed down Bedouin-style with more than 700 others for bone-chilling Sahara nights, and subsist only on the food we carries on the back. Race organizers supply the water and the medical tent. Runners are on their own when it comes to snakes, scorpions and sandstorms in the six days of hard running spread over seven days.

So what is this Sand Marathon all about ? It is about Mental toughness, Physical stamina and the Management of energy, food and water during one week of the most extreme environments of the earth. Media coverage is extensive and attracts around 150 journalists a year resulting in hundreds of articles for various magazines and newspapers and film producers.

“There's nothing better than pushing back the limits you thought you had, because frankly the greatest battles are those you win over yourself.” Lovers of sport and long-distance runners in particular know this feeling only too well. Repeated training sessions can be tough and you certainly don't always feel like getting up and leaving the house, but every time you resist that lazy tendency, you come back euphoric. You see your fellow companion not as an adversary but an equal who's suffering.

People are anxious to enrol from all continents.In the midst of fabulous scenery, we'll be forging friendships with people we never even knew existed before the race.  Some of us will cover  kilometres together without knowing a word of their companion's language, but we'll still communicate.

 In the Marathon des Sables, people from all walks of life and with all imaginable differences come together and cohabit in perfect peace. So why shouldn't we hope of serving as an example for the rest of the world....

If you ask yourself , “How do I train for this?”  The answer is. . . slowly.

No tennis player would start a match without practicing lobs; no golfer would think a game complete without learning how to pitch from a sand trap. And no one should do a long endurance run without figuring out how and when to …. drink.

There are still 9 months to prepare before the big day. Together with a Guadeloupe athlete ( Widy Grego , 25^th on MdS 2007 ) we now into the period of trying out  material , food  and training regularly with the ruck-sack. My objective by the end of July is to run a 120 Km / week  splitted up by early morning and/or evening runs.

Stay tuned for my training update . maLUCo

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