klcovansky

Apr 24

Photos from MdeS

Some of the world’s greatest feats were accomplished by people not smart enough to know they were impossible.

I’ve always kind of liked that quote. Nobody’s ever accused us of being smart. In fact, I just spoke to one of our oldest friends: Patrik, who has known both of us since we were toddlers. His comment was simply: “You should get your heads examined. There’s something wrong with you.” I remember the first time I broached the subject of running Marathon des Sables to Jakob three years ago. It was such a crazy, scary and absolutely impossible thing to contemplate. But strangely tempting. I mean, who were we to consider entering such a race? What had we accomplished? A couple of marathons and training for a half Ironman on Tjörn and we believed ourselves to be invincible. An Ironman and an 108k-race later, we applied for the race we’d dreamed about for so long. And we did it! Surreal is the word that comes to mind. And I’m so glad that I got Jakob to share the experience with me. It wouldn’t have been the same on my own, and the fact is that none of us would probably have crossed the finish line without the help of the other. At the moment Jakob and I are busy writing a chronicle about this year’s Marathon des Sables, but unlike our previous competitions this has been a multi-day event lasting for an entire week, not counting our adventures in Madrid and the first couple of days in the desert prior to the start. So it’s taking a while longer than we thought. So to satisfy your demand for news, here are some official photos that we’ve borrowed from the official website for the Marathon des Sables. On some of them, you can even identify the two of us!

Right here, for instance. Diagonally right above Union Jack, me crossing my arms and Jakob wearing red shorts.

Oh, and once again we would like to thank all of you who have supported our charity through your donations! The website will be open for a while longer, so those of you who haven’t hade the opportunity to donate yet: please do so right here! You’ve donated € 2 350 so far and we’re only € 150 short of our goal of € 2 500!!!

The heli hovering above us at the start of the Unicef charity stage 6.

Entering a black gravelly field after passing through the dunes of Jebel Debouaâ.

The 28th Marathon des Sables

Hello everybody! Jakob & Jakob are finally back online after more than a week off the grid somewhere in southern Morrocan Sahara. The Marathon of the Sands has been an absolutely surreal experience, as exquisitely and tear-inducingly beautiful as it has been excruciatingly brutal and painful. We’ve slept on rugs in berber tents, been woken by the first rays of African sunlight (or by our tentmates snoring), cooked our freeze dried food on campfires, cursed over the unbelievable amount of sand in our shoes after each leg, shared dirty jokes in the dark while falling asleep, curled up in our awesome sleeping bags, marvelled at the brigthly shining stars at night, shuffled over endless sanddunes in search of checkpoints, been saving our precious daily water supplies, getting our blisters cut, ingesting 20 tablets of salt per day, singing along to Highway to Hell at the top of our voices at every start, surfed down steep slopes of gloden sand, tripped gingerly over ghostly pale scorpions, climbed vertical djebels and simply been overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of the part of Africa known as the Sahara.

View from the Djebel Zireg, around 16,5k into leg 4.

Jesus was in the desert for 40 days without food

Following Jakob & Jakob’s conventional method of preparation, the mishaps and adventures have already started.

If there is one single rule an aspiring marathoner should adhere to, it would be this. Under no circumstances should you try to run a race wearing completely new shoes and a crisp, priorly untouched running outfit. The risk for pain, misery and slow death by chafing is simply to great. To contemplate to run an ultramarathon in unused jerseys, shorts and – God forbid – brand-new shoes, would by association be complete and utter madness. Read more

Mar 31

New Jerseys! Yeay!!!

We’ve finally received our running jerseys from Craft! Check ’em out! Sponsors on the left, club logo on the right with the name of the race on the back. According to race rules, we’re not allowed to cover the upper torso with any logos, since this space will be covered by our race numbers and the official race sponsors. Read more

Mar 29

There came a letter…

…in the snail mail the other day and we’d like to share it with all of our readers. Sent by Unicef UK, it thanked us – and above all, all of YOU – for our kind donation of £ 2 135,74 during last year’s New York City Marathon. We are enormously grateful for your continuing support!

As of today, you have helped us raise € 1 125 for the Children’s Ward at Saint Francis’ Hospital in Zambia. We’re aiming for a total of € 2 500 and are almost halfway there! With only a week to go, see if you can spare some crowns, euros, dollars or pounds and donate to our cause. Remember: we’ll be sweating blood for our charity during an entire week in one of the most inhospitable places on God’s green earth, risking scorpion stings, dehydration and toe amputations. Go ahead and donate – you know you want to!

“On behalf of the children, and all of us at Unicef, thank you so much for your gift. Can you also pass on our thanks to those who sponsored and supported you through your fundraising.”

A Thank You-letter from Unicef UK

Mar 25

Nagging doubts

“How in the name of all that is holy am I supposed to fit everything into my backpack?!?” I asked miss H yesterday afternoon, more than a little bit exasperated. A 25 litre rucksack is at first glance pretty spacious, but after having stuffed it full with my sleeping bag, mattress, food, gels, medical kit and spare clothes, I still found myself a helluva lot of space short. Read more

Mar 21

Fun Facts about Marathon des Sables

When one considers the name of Marathon des Sables (MdeS), it undeniably has a certain poetic ring to it. It means simply Marathon of the Sands, and conjures up images in one’s mind of mighty sand dunes coloured in ochre, rusty red and gold. Read more

Mar 17

1 Comment

Where did the spring disappear?

According to miss H – who for your information has an infallible memory, believe me – at this time of spring last year, we were basking in lovely sunlight and astonishing temperatures (for the Norwegian capital) of +14°C. Trying to get a respite from the ice and freezing temperatures of Oslo, I decided to visit the folks down in Göteborg this weekend. Read more

Mar 14

New equipment!!!

Imagine if we would fly a hot air balloon over the Sahara instead of trying to run across it. Wouldn’t that be neat? In three week’s time we will depart first for Madrid and then for Morocco for the Marathon des Sables. It’s mindboggling, really, and hard to fathom. It feels like we applied for the race only yesterday, but it was almost more than a year ago. Read more

Mar 10

Some weeks are harder than others…

Hey everyone. Last week was a long one. Not only in terms of training (80k in total, 26k of which was spent with a 6.5 kg pack on my back), but also at work where I – contrary to my usual habit – spent a lot of hours overtime at my job. As most of you know, I work as a pediatrician. Kids are an absolute joy to work with, and most of the time they get well pretty quickly and can be sent home to their toys and teddybears. Read more