The Marathon des Sable is one of those events that often appears on people’s bucket lists, and often it stays firmly in that bucket. Forget Ironman, this is one brutal challenge! Peak XV Tri Coaching athlete Peter met that challenge with a specific Marathon des Sables training plan.
The Event is held annually in the Sahara Desert and for the 2022 edition this included running 6 consecutive days, total of 236 km, including a brutal 86k on the fourth day all over sand.
To make the Marathon des Sable even more challenging competitors are required to carry all their own supplies! Temperatures have been known to reach over 50 degrees and if that’s not unpleasant enough there are no showers at the end of the day to wash away the sweat and sand!
So, when Peak XV athlete Pete announced that he had entered the race and wanted me to coach him it was with both a mixture of excitement and trepidation that I said yes. When we sat down and discussed the event there were two main components that needed to be addressed. The first was the practical issues such as logistics, equipment, nutrition, dealing with the conditions and so on. The second consideration was the training that would be needed to complete the event, and this became my responsibility to create a specific Marathon des Sables training plan.
When preparing for extreme events like Marathon des Sable the main challenge is how to build mileage, not only daily but week after week, month after month without risking injury. For this particular event the challenge was also to try and replicate the consecutive running over 6 days.
Pete started Marathon des Sable training in August 2021 a few weeks after completing Ironman UK. The training volume progressed gradually from 4 hours a week to 19 hours of running. To attempt to acclimatise to the conditions Pete also had several sessions in the Heat Chamber at Manchester University in the weeks leading up to the race.
You can read more about Pete’s truly remarkable achievements here.
