The run started off well, my legs felt powerful and my running style was graceful. This contributed to the satisfactory feeling I had inside me, for doing such a heroic thing. This supposed heroic obsession was all for my local hospital, which had saved the life of my eldest son Philippe. In June he was diagnosed with having a life-treating tumour on his heart. The family was destrort and we went through many months of tests and heart sugary. This dramatically changed my outlook of life. I can still picture my son in intensive care, lying there alone without any hope in the world. Now I see life as an adventure and respect that we must make the most of what we have before it goes. This new zest for life was why I was doing this, a 100 mile run through the desert to raise money for the hospital that saved my son from dying.
25miles done, 25 to go. This was starting to get harder now. I was drinking rapid amounts of water for the heat was dehydrating me each 10 minutes, the scorching sand was flicked up aganist my legs as I ran and the bright sun light dazzled me as my wiry eyes became fatigued. I looked out to the vast and unexplored land that lay before me, tumbleweed rolled past me, in the same fashion as the old western films. I laughed to myself thinking that I may come across John Wayne.
Coming out of my daydream I suddenly discovered the my body was covered in a thick layer of greasy sweat, I was expecting this but not to this degree, anxious about the amount of water I was loosing in the eternal heat, I hastily reached for the tepid water. It had two tastes, one was freshness and revitalising, but the other was the feeling of boiling acid going down my throat. Either way I had to drink or I would be like the numerous ancient skeletal remains lying in the isolated sand, that I had run past many times during the start of the run.
Suddenly exhaustion creep into my body. My legs began to feel like I did not own them, I had a gritty taste in my arid mouth and my eyes were playing tricks on me, for I was sure I had seen a dazzling waterfall up ahead in the distance, but this was not to be. This was obviously a mirage. The glare across the barren sand unexpectedly revealed a tall, grey building. My hopes of completing the run bust back into my legs and lungs, for this was my check point, which I had been yearning for from the moment fatigue had rotted away painfully inside my body.
I reacted the checkpoint and collapsed on the floor.
“Well done, just another 50 miles to go”, someone said to me as they covered me in cold water. At that moment I didn’t need to hear what had just been said and got up and walked away.
I was awoken the next morning by a deafening howling noise. I gazed out of the window and saw a huge haze of sand, swirling in the air. My worst nightmare, a sand storm. I started running, after the first 25miles the disillusionment attacked my desiccated body, just like the severe day before. Again the water bottles were attached to my waist, but this time it felt like ten bricks weighing me down and the water inside had a sensation that felt like liquid mercury oozing inside the bottles.
The empty desert in front of me also looked different from the day before. The endless and enchanted land now gave the impression of being like a wide ocean floor. The cacti looked like the swaying seaweed and the mounds of skeletons conveyed a picture of prehistoric fossils, which lie undisturbed beneath the seabed.
I could see the finish line. My skin felt parched and my lips were chapped for the immense sunlight. My legs had a mind of their own and I could feel the thumping of my heart up against my ribs, as though trying to free its self from my haggard body. With every step I came near to the finish line, as I crossed it my family, including my son stepped out and hurried towards me. There in front of me was why I had put myself through this stressful and ravage experience, the feeling that I had some how saved a life.
