Hi, Ranulph. Congratulations on your achievement [Fiennes became the oldest Briton ever to complete the Marathon des Sables ultra-marathon race in the Sahara last Friday]. Thank you, that’s very kind.
How are you feeling? What have you been doing since you got back? We got back late last night. My back is not good. I would carry on taking the painkillers, but I was warned to take no more because I’ve already taken far too many. In the actual event I couldn’t really carry on without them, with my back the way it was. I’ve got appointments with a surgeon and x-rays [planned] to see what is wrong with it.
Are you worried about that? [Laughs] Well, it depends on what they find!
You described some parts of the journey as “more hellish than hell” … I don’t like exaggerating, but at the time I found it extremely unpleasant. You’re caught between a rock and a hard place. My surgeon said my heart should over no circumstances go [more than] 130 beats per minute. Over the nine years since he said it, I’ve had another attack, so I know the feeling when it’s coming. You feel totally dizzy, a bit sick, your balance goes and you need to slow down – but if you slow down on this one, you get done in by the camels that are coming slowly but inexorably behind. The one thing you cannot afford to be is to be cut off and removed.
So when the camels reach you, you’re out of the race? Yes. On one occasion – this doesn’t sound like much unless you were there – we got to a huge sand dune area with 13 minutes to spare. So, you can imagine when you’re wanting to slow down, [but] you can see the checkpoint is a long way away and the camels are behind, it’s a bad situation to be in.
In an interview I saw, you said you’d forgotten to take gloves with you and were having to use socks. Were there any other pieces of kit you wish you’d taken? In soft sand, you get pressures on your feet and your back because your trainers are slipping. It started rubbing very badly on the part of my foot that had been frostbitten and replaced with skin cut off my hip quite some years ago. So, I got a knife and cut a hole in the side of the boot but then, of course, you’ve got sand pouring in, so I Velcroed it off so that I had less pressure but kept the sand out. That worked very well as a modification – I’ll have to patent it.
What is your best memory from it? The finish – it was a huge relief. I turned around … I don’t want to be rude, but I gave two fingers to the camels.
And the worst? The worst parts were trying not to [have] a heart attack, although recognising the oncoming symptoms, but not being able to slow down because of the camel, time and your watch ticking. Another bad thing was having made a mistake at night when we were doing the 60-mile stretch, which was a very long, hard stretch: I had a low torch battery. I thought I knew where the next foot would land, but actually it landed three feet below where I thought it would and [I got a] jolt up my back – that’s when I started really needing lots of painkillers.
Two people broke their legs. Another bloke thought it was all sand but there were hidden rocks and he cut his face open falling on to a rock. Another one cut his stomach open and there were entrails and that. I got away pretty lightly really – 96 people dropped out.
I heard you were really looking forward to a cup of tea. I really was, and when I had it, it was absolutely brilliant. The trouble is although you want more food, you don’t want to carry the weight. Everything about the race is round in circles: you want one thing but you can’t have it because of some other reason.
There was quite a mixture of ages on your ultra-marathon – were you very aware of your own age? In the old days I used to do team events – long ultra-marathons. We used to overtake people; we used to win veteran competitions. Now we’re being overtaken by superb athletes, so I don’t like it. The bottom line is: okay, let them overtake you as long as the camels don’t.
Everybody on the race, when they get to the checkpoints, is given [their] emails by the organisers and one near the end from my wife said: “Enough is enough. Elizabeth wants her daddy back, not a corpse.” It was actually spelled ‘corspe’ but it meant ‘corpse’.
Do you ever struggle with motivation when you’re training? I would do if I didn’t have something like the Marathon des Sables lined up to help the motivation.
Do you ever run to music? No. Never.
Do you like any running gadgets? No, I’ve never used gadgets of any sort – not even satnav.
You keep it quite simple, then? I don’t know about that. I just never learnt to tap things or type things or look at screens of any sort. My wife eventually made me learn how to look at text messages on my 12-year-old Nokia, but I refuse to actually learn how to send them.
What do you have for breakfast when you’re training? I just have what everyone does. Cereal, coffee and Ryvita with not-for-diabetics marmalade.
Where is your favourite place for training? It’s a thing called the Sandstone Trail near home [Cheshire].
What next? Well, we’re working on that but we never, ever tell anybody anything about what we’re doing next because we have learnt – to our cost, because normally we’re trying to break records – that certain other people are also trying to break the same records.
Sponsor Ranulph and read more about his challenge at mariecurie.org.uk/donate/ranulph-fiennes-marathon
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