We were lucky enough to arrive reasonably early yesterday. Our first sight of the over 100 black tents spread out in the plain in sight of the duNes made my heart sing and my stomach clench.

The tents are more or less nationally allocated although we have slipped in a South African. I’m sharing with Charlie and 5 other guys.  All super cool. Special mention for Bob the Fireman who runs a Pet Crematorium

Today was governed by queues. To get ourselves checked and registered. But it is fun standing in line with a Flemish crocodile and a Japanese milk cow.

Best part of the day was going for a quick stretch out run. Funniest part of the day was having one of the MdS team demonstrate how to poo in the brown plastic bag. He was perched on top of a land rover and had props including a newspaper.

Set off is after 9am tomorrow morning. The forecast is hot and the stage is meant to be really hard over the dunes 37 km.

There is a whole chapter on running Marathon des Sables in my book Adventures in Morocco.