Sahara Race update 6

Well, Norma has made It, at this hour of the morning (I am writing this from Mexico) The Sahara Race is officially over and She did amazingly and in one piece. So She will be at home and posting next week in the meantime I will copypaste what She sent me:

I made it at 2:30am!. It was the longest 18hrs of my life, child labour included, contractions don't come and stay. the course was 100k and sandy, I could have run more than I did but I just simply couldn't do it, I have had enough of gels and powerbars and I didn't really eat much and that made me loose my energy.

I am amazed of the level of dificulty, the race itself is hard with the heat and the sand, on top of that having to run with all your supplies on your back is just simply a test of endurance. I did really well the 3rd day but then on I had a harder time going.

The course was 9 stages with a distance increasing from 7k t 14k. We started at 8am and top 25 racers started two hours later, I felt fantastic the first stage and I got increasingly weaker and weaker. I have run 100k races before so I knew not to get emotional and to run my own race so that it's what I did and I am glad, at the end i had absolutelly nothing left. but I finished and that was my first and most important goal.

I rest today since there are people still on the course, there was the option to sleep around halfway or go all the way, of course I decided to do it on one go. I am not sure why I didn't do better, I think 12:30am would have been possible but I just couldn't run anymore so I walked for most of the course and if you think that is easier, It is not, I was out there in the elements, heat and later the cold with hardly any food and walking on soft sand, what Simon my tent mate described is equal to trying to run on ice. I way Ryan and Dean round check point 3, it was amazing ot see how fast they where running, Nina the top female finisher also passed me around check point 4, she was looking strong as well.

We have only 6K to go tomorrow so this is it, they will load up in a bus at 2am tomorrow to the start line which is by the Giza Pyramids to have friends and family watch the finish of the race.

I received tons of emails from the CNIB. what a wonderful organization, they told me they where proud of me. during the course of the race I never lost sight of why I am here, it has never been about me but about the wonderful organization I came to represent. I am proud that I gave it 100% and sometimes specially last night when walking on soft sand, tired, hungry, cold and with 10 more hours to go it felt like 150%.

I met wonderful people here this week, some are athletes that came to win, some are like me that come to represent a charity and some are just plain nuts, but we all have one thing in common, we came here to give it our best and that is excatly what we did, some won, some finished and some didn't but at the end that didn't matter, we acomplished what we set out to do this week. To me pushing more and more each time I think I can't possible can't give me an insight of what it is to face a challenge like a disability, I would never pretent to understand how tought it really is, it just make me have more respect for kids like my son Karl or any other human facing a disability.

I am also learning about not taking things for granted, I miss having a shower, a nice meal, clean clothes, seeing my loved ones, having a coup of coffee. we have build our life with excesses and conveniences that we forget that all we really need a human beings is the simple things in life.

Salaam Akelam