Had I known how accurate my referring to the MdS (Marathon de Sables), in jest, as the Marquis de Sade fan club would prove to be... Had I paid closer attention to the sparkle in the French organiser's eyes and recognised the event as the sophisticated S&M club that it is, would I still have boarded that first bus to its undisclosed destination? Yes, undoubtedly.

It became quickly evident that the Rhino Team stood worlds apart from most of the other competitors. The complete team converged in Quazazate for breakfast on the morning of 5 April; we stared at each other across the table and quickly glanced in comparison at the room-full of runners. We were fit, but not chiselled. Determined, but not hard. But we were all still laughing. What we lacked in preparation we more than made up for in conviction and reckless abandon. There was no question we might not finish.

Still slightly sleepy, and a bit rushed, we were the last to board the bus that morning. Alone on the pavement we scrambled trying to find a space for our bulging packs and 15kg rhino costume among the aerodynamic and streamlined sacks of the other runners, while the busloads of their owners looked on smugly. They were amused but had no doubt that we wouldn't finish.

They did not know whom they were dealing with!

Meet the Team

• Dave Stirling - Dave founded SRI after riding a motorcycle from Cape Town to London. Taking the Rhino costume though different adventures and marathons had become his gig! His strength comes from somewhere deeper than his dense muscles.
  

• Robert Devereux - Robert had been deftly roped into being a trustee of SRI by Dave; lured by dreams of possible adventures. After climbing mountains in Antarctica this promised to be a walk on the beach.
  

• George Stevenson - George had been taking people to Africa on hunts for years. I was once told by a mutual friend that if he had to be stranded anywhere with anyone he would want it to be with George.
  

• Carl Rawes - Carl had played rugby for Warrington, is covered in tattoos and could kill someone just by giving them a hug, his mischievous smile no less deadly.
  

• Brian Hemmings - Brian had not only run the MdS the previous year, but finished 34th. He was our tacitly elected commander-in-chief, and mommy. He had all the answers, we just needed to figure out the questions.
  

• Nick Baker - Nick presents wild life programmes for the BBC. He is expert at making friends of the unloved; snakes and scorpions are tamed by his touch.
  

• Neil Bridgeland - Neil, with 15 London marathons under his belt and two nipple rings, represented the youth we had all squandered. By osmosis he imbued us all with vigour.
  

• Christina Franco - And let's not forget me! As the only female member of the team, I had to prepare doubly. I came armed with a fresh manicure and pedicure.

Preparing for the Run

Four hours, a bus and a cattle car later we finally arrived at the now disclosed but no less mysterious location. We were given a day at this first camp to sort ourselves out before handing in all superfluous items and having our kit weighed and scrutinised. These last few hours were a frenzy of bartering and endless discussion, mostly about food. It was only in this department that we had any real options. Our guideline a minimum requirement of 2000 calories a day for the seven days.

Opinion varied on how much of that should be accounted for by power bars, gels or powders that gave high return on calories per weight. Indigestible to me, I jettisoned all but the 'effervescent' (sounded like something from the Riviera) citrus isotonic tablets for my water. The almost 30,000 calories of dehydrated food I opted for only just managed to fit into my sack. 'Madam, it is too heavy!' the inspector screeched, 'I am worried for you.' I clutched the sack tightly to my chest and refused to let him any closer for fear he'd cull my precious food supplies.

Day One - And We're Off!

A sunny day and spirits were high. Dave starts us off at a jog in the costume. The cameras are rolling, the helicopter circles around us, we are invincible and ready for an adventure.

I battled that first day. It was not a hard day. Only 30 km, but the finish line seemed never to come as I hopped more and more precariously from one foot to the other. This pattern set early on, would be one that I would struggle to shed for the next seven days.

At camp I removed my shoes to find four large blisters on each foot. Demoralised, and needing a psychological boost I began to throw out food to the delight of the rest of the team. Not in itself enough, Robert took me for a long walk and helped put everything back into perspective. So it was that my doubting began, as did the sand and wind.

A sleepless night followed. Relentless fine sand swept across the open plane at high speeds into our mouths, ears and noses. The hessian sacks rudimentaly sewn together would have served as adequate shelter had the conditions been more like the Sahara; hot still and dry.

Breakfast conversation had quickly moved from the previous day's jovial banter over whose cereal was better to tales of horror:

Did you hear that one of the guys from tent 51 (a tent of 8 ex-Gurkas) was on a drip all night?

No!

Yes, and the first person has been pulled out of the race. Blisters on top of blisters. He was told he would not be able to handle the pain!

We chuckled nervously, realising for the first time the true difficulty of the task ahead.

200km to go...

Day Two - Blisters upon Blisters

As day two progressed, the pain of my blisters increased and my speed decreased proportionately. Robert, who by now had appointed himself my guardian angel, maintained my pace. Never chided me, let me rest when it was clear that I could go no further, and turned me on to Ibuprofen tablets. Only a few moments before I had wondered how it was that Nick, who had also been struggling in the back with, had managed to shoot ahead. Ibuprofen!! Amazing pills that do not remove your pain, but change your entire disposition to it.

The sight of my feet that night enlightened me to the more macabre of my team-mate's fascinations. Blood and puss filled sacks that were photographed and admired by all, but were beyond our medical scope. I was shipped off to see 'Doc Trotters', a group of about fifty volunteer doctors and nurses who take two weeks off their regular practices to come and tend to the medical complaints of the MdS runners.

The 'Doc Trotters' tent was a M*A*S*H unit complete with comedy and gore. The flapping walls only barely muffled by Carmina Burana playing on the portable stereo. Along the perimeters sat a row of doctors, dressed not in their usual green scrubs but in the khaki safari vests issued to all officials. In front of them, we their writhing patients, would lie on the floor and raise the offending feet onto stools. Each doctor sat flanked by a chest of tools and a mound of accumulating bloody bandages. Two days and 60 km had taken its toll on most runners' feet. These men and women attacked dirty festering wounds with valiant bravery and Satanic glee. Each incision they inflicted giving them equal pleasure to our pain.

I returned to the tent by way of a piggy-back ride and collapsed, spent. Most other competitors participate in this event on their own. Facing their ups and downs entirely alone. I felt incredibly lucky to not only be part of a team... but 'the Rhino Team'. My food was made for me, I was told jokes, and every one of them offered their support, Carl with one of his signature hugs, Nick with displays of even bigger blisters than mine. Even Dave who is usually rather reserved brushed up against me and said sottovoce, 'You are very brave.' I fell asleep listening to George describing the next day's terrain in great detail.

Day Three - And Why Are We Doing This?

Our aims in attempting the MdS were two; to raise funds for SRI and awareness for the charity and its work. Our many friends had been extremely generous and reports of their continued support came in every day helping to keep us motivated. Our crazy adventure had also gained media attention. Eurosport featured us every night in their report. Point of View, a French magazine, had dispatched three of its journalists to report on our progress, and how normally civilised people dealt with having to eat in the sand and manage without ablutions for a week. We were also very fortunate to have a BBC crew following Nick for a documentary to be aired later on in the year.

We were quickly becoming accustomed to very high media attention. For the most part I was always happy to see them because this normally signalled the imminence of the next check point. On that third morning, I was not. I had delayed, out of dread, fitting my bandaged feet into my apparently shrinking shoes. Overwhelmed with tears, I turned my face away from my team, only to find their shiny convex lens inches away. I had no where to hide.

Nick wore the costume first that day and we 'Rhino shuffled' along beside him. We entered a long stretch of dunes just as it was my turn to wear the costume. Oddly enough the softness of the sand alleviated some of the pain, and I could almost believe I was walking on clouds. Delusions not enough, I resorted to taking out my secret weapon. Tosh, a very clever friend of mine, had rigged an I-pod to an extra battery pack as a special birthday present. This was going to give me up to 70 hours of music in the dunes. I had saved it for just this moment. So many friends had supported me in their own way, with the music in my ears and the wind through the costume. I felt them all with me and my heart swelled with emotion. When I passed the costume to Robert I just wanted to run, and so I did.

At the next check point I caught up with the team. Joining back up with them for the first time since the start was incredibly uplifting. Robert, who had been passed the costume 12 miles back, crossed that check point in the costume only a few minutes behind me, reminding me yet again of how patient he was being with my pace, so obviously slower than his own. On that day all these little things were very important. Tomorrow was going to be the long day with the dunes at night... I needed to believe I was going to make it, but I also wanted my team to believe it!

By this stage we had warmed our way into the hearts of the other competitors. Walking though camp I would be constantly greeted with, 'Hello Rhino Girl!' Just as everyone else was greeted with their own rhino name. They had been converted, they too now believed we would make it. Confident, we enjoyed our evening meal and then Dave’s nightly hand puppet show.

Day Four - The Winds Pick Up

Day four; the winds were at their strongest and the tension was palpable. What was on everyone’s mind? 72km including 25km of dunes 150ft high. I took the second turn in the costume again that day. The wind came diagonally across the open rocky plane at gale force. In gusty moments I almost took out, like bowling pins, runners innocently cantering alongside me. I hugged the head close to me and clasped my hands tightly, but at times felt that I was hardly moving. I was too stubborn to stop, but almost ready to throw up from the exertion. At that moment George knocked on the plastic head and commanded, 'you are coming out!'. I knew my 45 minutes were not up, but I did not argue.

It was imperative that we enter the dunes as early as possible enabling us to traverse the bulk of them in daylight. We all tried to make the best time possible, but we were slow. We all arrived at check point three much later than we had hoped. There was no sign of Nick. He had been last seen hobbling off to 'Doc Trotter's' to have his blisters tended to. That was hours ago, and we wondered if he had dropped out as the last of the competitors trickled through the check point. Just as we could wait no longer, he appeared. I was overjoyed and the hug that we shared at that moment is one of the things I remember most vividly.

We waited patiently for Nick to rest and to have some food, but we also felt the tug of time. It was 6:45 and we needed to get to the next check point before 1:00am or face disqualification. Likewise, we did not know what to expect from these 'dunes'.

Day Five - Among the Dunes

In the setting sun, with the gale winds fraying the edges of the dunes, the great expanse ahead was very evocative... I turned to Lawrence, 'How far to Aquaba?' My team mates had lost their sense of humour. I was given a sideways glance. It was time to take our head torches and compasses out, and snap our glow sticks so that our corpses could be found should things go terribly wrong.

An hour later, we were all at once enveloped by darkness. Complete blackness that had its own smell, its own sounds. I felt alive; electrified by primal fear. All we could see, in the distance were snakes of glowing night sticks, as other groups would intermittently come into view as they came up over dunes somewhere ahead of us. Any sense of space and relation lost in the black night.

We were just starting to orientate ourselves in this new sensation, when we turned a dune and found a Korean runner and his following cameraman. They came running up blinding us with their light.
'Excuse me. We are lost. Do you know the way?'
The absurdity of his question was not lost on any of us, and for a moment levity warmed the icy tension. They were invited to join our growing entourage.

This was the first year that the dune portion of the race was being incorporated in the double marathon day. The hope had been to use new technology to shine a laser in the night sky to mark the exact compass bearing that we were to follow. Unfortunately, the sky was made dense by the sandstorm and we were only able to make out the laser in a brief moment of stillness at around 9pm. We would have to rely on our compasses.

Because of the sand flying around us, the light from our head torches just reflected back at us. There was not enough ambient light for us to keep them off. What we settled on was a combination. I lead with my torch hanging at my chest so that I could read my compass but was able to develop my 'night eyes'. Robert followed behind with his torch lit and pointed low. In this way I would not trip over the occasional cluster of plants, while trying to navigate us along the crests of the dunes. If we could avoid sinking to the bottom of these monstrosities we would not have to climb up them!

Well, that was our aim. There were many moments where we almost stumbled into dunes, their walls appearing before us out of the darkness. Dunes are always soft, but they get softer as you reach their ridge, softer still when they are being blown by storms. We scrambled to the top of them like weighted down horses fighting not to sink in quick sand. Our agony was compounded by the fierce sand that flew at us and pierced our skin as we neared to top. The last few feet would have to be done with clenched eyes. Only once we hoisted ourselves on all fours onto the ridge could we turn our backs to the wind and open them again.

Six men followed behind me and I was more than a little nervous of their relying on me for direction. You can not forge a direct path through the dunes. As you clear one you are forced off course in order to tackle another. Although fully confident of my compass skills, I was nonetheless apprehensive of the responsibility, until that brief clearing in the sky at 9pm. The moment I made out the laser gave me such force that my step quickened almost to a run and I became a woman deranged. I must have scarred Robert and those other five unknown men. They followed behind… in silence. At one point I turned to be greeted with looks normally reserved for scolded children. I was secretly pleased.

We made it to the check point at 10:15 and decided to sleep in the dunes. The winds were just too strong and our eyes were now burning, and encrusted in sand. The added exertion had been possible because of the pumping adrenaline. Now, with the reassurance of a check point that natural drug was not as copious in my veins, and the pain of my partially loose toenails digging into tender parts of my toes was becoming unbearable.

We lay our mats on the soft sand, barely comfortable that we felt the first drops. 'It's not possible!' I said to no one in particular, and relaxed farther into my sleeping bag thinking, 'this is a joke.' But it felt too good to be lying down for me to be too troubled. We were lucky, it drizzled for no more than five minutes. 'Good night, and thank you ma'am.' I heard from one of the five unknown men. 'Yes, thank you. We wouldn't have made it without you.' Another moment of secret pleasure.

I later found out that because we were wearing the green parachute cover-alls that Brian had made for us, the five unknown men had thought Robert and I were majors in the army. The fact that their trust in us had been born of a misunderstanding made the thrill of it no less enjoyable. I readily admit to those hours in the dunes as the highlight of my MdS experience. An adventure with five nameless men will never again be so rewarding!

Daybreak brought no calming of the storm and the remaining 25km were no less torturous. The last 12km across the salt pan were the most unpleasant. We were pelted alternatively with pellets of salt and then raindrops as big as walnuts. Wash and dry 'Sahara style'. Very cold and tired we arrived at a camp barely visible in the storm and tried to enjoy what should have been our 'rest day'.

Lying in the tent motionless was all we could do. The fine sand accumulated on us and within seconds the inhabitants of our tent were camouflaged with the dunes outside. It was hard to revel in having got this far. We only managed to overcome these conditions to prepare food because we were ravenous; our last hot meal 48 hours ago. Even in these adverse conditions no one ever lost their temper, which in hind sight is quite remarkable.

Day Six - To the Finish Line!

Finally, day six brought sun and warmth. After what we had all achieved, 42km, a full marathon, seemed a doddle. We ran most of the day, and spirits were high. For the first time we were able to truly appreciate the beauty of the land around us. For the first time we felt the full force of the Saharan heat. I remember thinking; that although we hated the wind that never blew in any other direction than into us, we were lucky to have had it. In this heat, we might not have made it.

Camp was a most welcome sight. Our last night, and first sandless evening. We cooked up everything still left in our packs eating multiple meals, happy for the excess. It stayed calm all night.

Every morning as soon as the sun had peaked over the horizon, an army of Berbers would descend on our camp. From seemingly no where they would run screaming, 'Yella! Yella!' Lets go! Lets go! They would start at one end of the camp and dismantle tents at rapid speed, whether you were up or not. They were followed closely by their elite Berbers who drove the cattle car that had originally transported us to our first camp, collecting the lumps of folded hessian. By 6am 600 runners sat evicted onto the Sahara. We must have looked a sight every morning huddled in our bags, still half asleep surrounded by a scattering of belongings. Today was different. Camp had been pitched below a flat-topped mountain that delayed the sun's rays for an additional hour, but, more importantly it was our last day and tomorrow we would be waking up in a bed!

The hottest day yet barely slowed us down. We crossed the finish line 20km later. Together, all eight team members and one rhino costume. Although taking us almost three times as long as the winner (Moroccan Mohamed Ahansal in 8h 23'16"), the achievement we felt was probably equal. Lulled by the mixture of exhaustion and exhilaration, we all slept the entire four-hour ride back to Quazazate.

That night at dinner, back at our same table in the dining room we stared at each other across the table and quickly glanced in comparison at the room-full of runners….. we felt no fitter, no harder, but we now shared the experience and its achievement with them.

Almost two months later, I still have welts on my hips from the protective bandages. I limp, seven out of my ten toenails are slowly growing their way back and wearing strappy 4-inch Manolos this summer is out of the question. But last night someone asked me if I would do it again... Yes, undoubtedly.