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Sahara Marathon, 25^th February 2008 

Miles Cudmore reports:

The Sahara Marathon is held at the Western edge of Algeria near Tindouf and aims to raise awareness of the Saharawi refugees who have lived there 32 years.  They are pushing for a referendum on self-determination as agreed by the United Nations, but so far Morroco has avoided holding a vote.  160,000 refugees are based in 5 camps and the marathon is hosted by the largest, Smara, which has a population of about 60,000 people. 

 My prime reason for entering was to run a marathon in Algeria, and experiencing life in a refugee camp came as an unusual, open-ended extra.  I am left with a deep sense of the dignity of the Saharawi, the strength of their families and culture, their work to resolve their situation, and the effort required to live in simple, basic conditions in one of the harshest environments on the planet.  The race I describe here was also fantastic, but is now secondary to what I observed and learnt during my five days with these remarkable people. 

I arrived at Smara camp at 5am with about 160 other runners, mostly from Spain.  We had travelled through the night from Madrid and stumbled out of three old coaches onto the desert.  Half an hour of chaos in the darkness linked with our host families in groups of four, and we were soon in a simple whitewashed room with carpets, soft low Arabic benches, a metal door, tin roof and wooden shutters.  Sleep came easily and a few hours later we had a chance to meet each other properly.  My fellow runners were Alvaro and Maria from Spain and Mark from Australia.  We were made incredibly welcome by the Mbeirik family whose generosity was humbling.  Spanish was the main language as most Saharawi speak it as they were colonised by Spain until 1975.

The camps have a combination of sand brick houses and tents (haimas). The bricks are made by mixing sand dug from the desert with water and letting it dry – simple but effective.  Our family had two small buildings and a haima around a walled courtyard and simple fence to keep the goats out … and younger children in.  Water was delivered to communal tanks each day and carried to the kitchen or washroom as required.  The windows had wire gratings and shutters but no glass.  Cooling was controlled by how many shutters, doors or tent entrances were opened.  Lights were powered from a car battery charged by a solar panel and cooking was on portable gas. 

The family units are very strong with an extended group of sisters, wives and different generations looking after the children and household.  One of the pleasures of the trip was drinking sweet tea Arabic style from small glasses and passing time talking and sharing experiences.  Numerous goats are raised, mainly outside the camps, and seemed to eat anything.  Alvaro and I coined the phrase “la vida de la cabra” – it’s a goat’s life – whenever anything felt a bit tough.

At 7am on race morning the 110 marathon runners boarded buses to the start.  The remaining +/- 300 competitors were running 5k, 10k or 21k races as a way of making the event open to all.  Most competitors were Spanish followed by a large Italian contingent and a dozen other nationalities.  Everything during the trip had a “why keep it simple when you can make it chaotic” Mediterranean flavour.  We arrived at the El Ayoun camp shortly after dawn and were soon shivering in a stiff wind, applying cold suncream for the hours ahead.

The start was remarkable.  At 9:05 we were happily chatting when a whistle went – and we were off !  Hundreds of people had lined the start waving flags and the sound was unbelievable.  The women were trilling in the unique North African style, other spectators were cheering and shouting encouragement, excited runners were yelling in many languages, and a wailing ambulance topped off the cacophony. As we hurtled over the desert we also had to dodge camels which were being raced with us for the first few hundred meters. Totally unique.

The first part of the race was over grey, gently undulating desert into a strong head / side wind which thankfully carried little sand.  It was pretty cold (we were at 1000 ft), and I quickly established a steady 8 minute mile pace over the uneven terrain.  Most of the route was on hard, slightly uneven desert, with occasional soft patches of sand or stones making their presence felt.  Water stops were set up every 2 – 3 km with accurate distance markers every 5 km.  The route was marked by small poles every few hundred meters and I was glad the visibility was reasonable.  The wind can quickly pull a lot of dust and sand into the air making running very uncomfortable and navigation a challenge.

Approaching half way we entered the camp of Auserd.  The half marathon had started there about 45 minutes earlier and people were tremendously excited.  So there was loads more trilling, hollering and shouting plus kids weaving in and out of the runners asking us where we were from as runners from all round the world passed their door.

  Leaving the camp, we headed into 10km of undulating desert.  Uphill sections over rough ground were rewarded with spectacular views of the desert stretching into the distance .... and the knowledge that we had to cross all we could see, and having done that do it again, and again and again.  The wind dropped and temperature gradually began to rise.  The lowest ebb of the race came during a climb up soft sand to the 20 mile point.  There is nothing like soft sand to sap the energy, particularly under a baking Saharan sun approaching noon.  The last 10 km were over flat, open desert with the heat steadily building. A change of direction put what little cooling wind was left behind us .... removing any air flow at all.  Our water consumption shot up and we were glad that the water stations were now only about a kilometre apart.

The finish was noisy and we had to weave our way through the crowd to the line.  Alvaro and I had run the whole race together and were delighted to finish in 3hr 37min and come 27^th in a strong field.

It has been a very rewarding life experience …. and great race too.  You don’t have to be a marathon runner to go – you just need to take an open mind and a willingness to be flexible and learn.