Today, the 29th edition of the Marathon des Sables begins in earnest, with the self-sufficiency starting with this morning’s breakfast. One year ago, Jakob & Jakob embarked upon their greatest adventure yet, and today, we feel a sense of companionship with the runners standing on the starting line down in Morocco. Quite unexpectedly, we feel a tad jealous, even. We know that we solemnly swore we wouldn’t run the race ever again, but today we are not so sure. One of our dear friends, Markus Johansson (known as Supermasen on Facebook), with whom we had the sincere pleasure of sharing our tent with in the Sahara last year, is going to attempt to better his ranking from last year during this year’s race, making him the first Swede who has run the race during two consecutive years. In honor of his own personal adventure, and in memory of ours, here follows our chronicle of last year’s race, unabridged. Reading it transported me back to the heat, sweat, dirt, sand, wind, tent, blisters, blood, camaraderie, views, fatigue and all of the lovely people we met during last year’s race.

Good luck, Supermasen!!!

Click here for the Chronicle of Marathon des Sables 2013!

Jakob and Markus waiting outside Doc Trotter’s to get their feet fixed.

Jakob and Markus during the charity leg for UNICEF last year.