Lessons from running a brutal marathon in the Sahara

Mahasweta Ghosh is one a few people to complete a multi-day marathon in the Sahara. This is how she did it

- Shail Desai

Somewhere in the middle of the Sahara Desert, runner Mahasweta Ghosh broke into song. At that point, the high tempo title track from Bhaag Milkha Bhaag was more a distraction than motivation to see her through to the next checkpoint. A solo game of antakshari played out for the next couple of hours till she finally checked into camp.

Entertaining yourself is vital for those competing at the Marathon des Sables (MDS) a 250km ultramarathon split into stages that unfolds over six days in southern Morocco. Some runners regard it as one of the toughest foot races on Earth.

In May this year, Ghosh became the first Indian woman to complete the race, in a time of 55 hours 42 minutes. "I heard of this race through a friend in 2019. A few things intrigued me: the format and the fact that you are running in the desert, in the wild. I had not done anything like it before," Ghosh, 44, says.

The race can be a brutal experience, for multiple reasons. Runners must be selfsufficient for the duration of the race, carrying everything from their nutrition, meals and medicine, to the race equipment and bivouac gear needed at the end of the day. Besides the mammoth distance the longest stage is 90km-there is the brutal Saharan environment to contend with. Marathon des Sables is French for Marathon of Sands, and the terrain is an integral part of the race.

"I fell in love with desert terrain after running a race in Pokhran (in Rajasthan).