Local teacher to run in Morocco

SANDPOINT - For third-grade teacher Peggy Gaudet, going for a little run means competing in a marathon. Given the option, she'd rather run a course that doubles or nearly quadruples that 26.2-mile distance.

Because, once you hit the halfway mark of a 50-mile race, the runner explained, “you feel so good you just have to finish.”

On March 23, Gaudet boards a plane bound for Morocco, where she will take part in one of the most arduous races ever devised - an “ultra-marathon” that takes seven days to complete, travels an unmarked course and makes its way over 160 miles of desert and sand dunes.

“I like the long distances,” Gaudet said, delivering a perfect study in understatement. “Some of the races I've run were marathons, some were 50-milers and one of them, in Kansas, was a 100-miler.”

The latest race she has been training for is called the Marathon of the Sands, an annual event that attracts 800 international participants who must first be approved based on their past performance in other long-distance competitions. Now in its 23rd year, the upcoming race will include 50 runners from the United States, with about one-third of the U.S. competitors being female.

“When they told me my name had moved off the waiting list, my first reaction was, ‘Yay! I made it!'” Gaudet said. “Then I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh - what am I doing?'”

The race falls during spring break for schools, which was a large factor in the Farmin-Stidwell Elementary School teacher's decision to compete this year. The runner said she first learned about the Marathon of the Sands in a documentary about 15 years ago and “tucked the idea away” as something she'd like to do when her strength and stamina allowed.

The race in Morocco will demand all she can muster of both. For the first three days, runners put in 20 miles in each segment - a kind of warm-up phase for competitors of this caliber. The sixth day involves a marathon-length leg that, historically, has traversed sand dunes for the entire distance. On the final day, the racers make an 8-mile sprint to the finish line.

Sandwiched in between - on days four and five - is a 50-mile leg that competitors can tackle any way they can manage. Gaudet hopes to complete that section in one, long effort, which will mean running through the dunes at night.

“I'm hoping to do that part all in one shot,” she said. “Sleeping out in the desert by myself - I'm not so sure about that.”

Apart from the enormous physical challenge the race presents - competitors who have completed Hawaii's Ironman Triathlon have called that event “a walk in the park” compared with the Marathon of the Sands - the greatest natural dangers come in the form of high winds and sand storms. In such situations, runners are advised to hunker down, cover up and wait.

The course can also present other potentially dangerous natural diversions along the way.

“This may just be a rumor, but I've heard there are giant spiders,” Gaudet reported.

“And snakes,” she added. “We also have to bring along a snake-bite kit.”

In metropolitan marathons, runners dress as lightly as possible and scoop up cups of water or “power goo” energy liquid to consume along the course. But in this desert trek, each runner carries a backpack with a sleeping bag, personal effects and enough food to last them for the week. Race officials check all bags to ensure that runners have packed a total of at least 12,000 calories for the seven days. Only water is provided, as is tent space for the night at the end of each stage.

“It's a self-sufficient race,” Gaudet said. “You have to carry everything you need.”

Running with a pack that weighs nearly 20 pounds required a whole, new way of training. In the process of preparing for the race over the past five months, Gaudet completely changed her stance, stride and gait as she put in countless miles across snow and ice this winter, combined with innumerable hours on step trainers and elliptical machines.

The regimen was directed by a personal trainer who has competed in the Moroccan race and understands the unusual demands of the course. Working with that trainer, Gaudet has made two trips to desert states to undergo intensive workouts that involved both high temperatures and running across sand-covered terrain.

“The last one was a training camp in Death Valley,” she said. “It was close to 100 degrees and, on the longest day, we ran for about five hours across huge sand dunes.”

Until now, the teacher hasn't discussed her pending adventure with the students in her class. With the race close-at-hand, however, she will work her plans into the curriculum.

“At the beginning of the year, we were reading a story about Africa and I mentioned it to them,” she said. “But we haven't really talked about it since then. Now I'm going to start doing things like tying it to math by having them go through my food bags to make sure I've packed enough calories.”

The exact location of the race is kept secret until the day of the event. Runners are transported into the desert on a 5-hour bus and military vehicle ride, at which time they are presented with a map and compass bearings. The scant list of supplies also includes a signal flare, to be used to call in a rescue helicopter if they become badly injured or hopelessly lost in the nondescript waves of sand.

Arriving a few days before the race, Gaudet plans to spend that time acclimating to the heat and shaking off jet lag from the long flight. She will continue her mental training by going through the race a day at a time in her mind, visualizing checkpoints and the all-important finish line.

More than likely, her running mantra will be a recitation of the motto she came up with during training: Constant Forward Motion.

The winner of the Marathon of the Sands for the past 10 years has been a Moroccan named Lahcen Ahansal. As a boy, his village bordered the course and he would run along - purely for fun - as the race passed by. By the time he was old enough to compete on an official basis, Ahansal already had years of experience behind him.

Last year, he finished the multi-day race with a total time of less than 18 hours, according to results posted on the event Web site. At the tail end of the pack of racers, trailing the last runner, a lone camel and its rider lope across the sands during each day of the ultra-marathon, Gaudet explained.

“I don't really have a finish time in mind,” the long-distance runner said. “My goal is to complete the race and not get injured. And I don't want to be by the camel.”

To track the progress of participants after the race starts on March 27, visit: www.darbaroud.com