2023-04-25 11:04:14
This year, more than a thousand runners representing 55 nationalities took the start in Errachidia, in the east of the kingdom.
On the program, a 242 km course divided into six daily stages, the fourth of which, Wednesday, is the longest with 90 km.
The desert environment, with its sandy plains, its djebels, bare and rocky hills, and the heat expected during the day (between 35 and 40 degrees on average), will test the resistance of the athletes.
Not to mention the sandstorms, like the one that surprised the athletes when they arrived at the bivouac for the first stage on Sunday evening.
There are of course stars like the Moroccan Rachid El Morabity, who at 41 will try to win his tenth victory, or the Dutch Ragna Debats, who returns this year after her success in 2019. But also unknowns like Gabriel Clair, a French participant who lined up to achieve “a real personal challenge” and live “a big human adventure”.
– “Make the most of it” –
“Of course there is difficulty, but when you see the landscape around you, you always try to make the most of it,” he adds, at the bivouac set up in Errissani, in a plain. sandy in the middle of rocky hills, under a blazing sun.
The day before departure, the participants had to provide an electrocardiogram and a medical certificate dating in both cases from less than a month, underlines one of the doctors of the MDS, Philippe Gigabel.
“There is a mix of everything, we want to fight it out, to be in it, and on the other side (there is) stress”, said Yan Mancheron, before taking the start.
“We will try to go quietly and have fun (…). We hope to trigger the machine mode as late as possible,” he said, smiling.
The queen stage of the marathon this year will not be easy to cover, with many sandy and leg-cutting sections, organizers have warned.
If water is provided, the runners leave for food self-sufficiency and carry their food in their backpack: freeze-dried meals, seeds, energy powders, tabbouleh, cereal bars…
The bag, which weighs between 6.5 and 15 kg, must also contain the GPS tracker and the electronic chronometer, but also the safety instruments: a compass, a survival blanket, a signal mirror or a venom pump. “We have a lot of food in the back, it’s up to us to manage our days” until Saturday and the finish of the race, specifies Jérôme Martos.
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