Day 2 of the Oman Desert Marathon and after day 1, there was some anxiety. At 55km’s long, the stage was set to be tough. A planned 0630 start with sunrise, would provide participants with extra time in daylight. However, the weather had different plans. An inversion came in during the night and early morning reducing visibility in the valley to zero, the start was delayed 1-hour.

At approximately 0730, the runners were on the way despite some lingering mist. However, the mist was guaranteed to disappear quickly and it did. While it lasted, it gave an eerie feeling to the desert.

Sadly, Mohammed El Morabity was a DNS today. He was tired and feeling under the weather after long delayed travel and a tough first day. Although sad to see a competitor leave, I am sure Salah Al Saidi and Evgenii Glyva were somewhat happy to have one less El Morabity brother to deal with.

Having run a very strong stage 1, Salah Al Saidi took the race to Rachid pushing the pace. As always, Rachid started easy and looked relaxed while following and Evgenii was pushing to hold the pace.

For the women, Aziza Raji must have felt very confident after her stage 1 performance and huge gap. By contrast, Aziza El Amrany was probably wondering how she could pull back any time? Kathleen Leguin who was a pre-race favourite had suffered with sickness on stage 1 but started the day feeling better and the trio ran together with Veronique Messina behind.

Despite 55km’s, stage 2 was billed as a more runnable and easier day, it wasn’t. There was a great deal of soft-sand, several dune section and lots of heat. It was all too much for Kathleen and sadly she withdrew from the race at cp3.

It is never easy to tell if Rachid is suffering, but today there seemed some signs of fatigue and tiredness at cp3. He left with Saleh but looked happy to hold back and let the pace be dictated.

However, in a typical Rachid move, he finally applied pressure and opened a gap crossing the line in 5:47:24 to Saleh in 6:07:43. Evgenii finished 3rd in 6:23:13.

The two Aziza’s were playing truce today and duo ran together all day, Raji happy not to loose anytime to El Amrany and at the same time share the desert with a friend.

With Kathleen out of the race, Veronique finished 3rd, the times of the top 3 8:31:06 and 8:31:07 for El Amrany and Raji, 9:04:37 for Veronique.

Results HERE and GC ranking HERE.

Albert Jorquera and Pol Makuri were battling the day and due for an early evening finish, in darkness.

A long stop at cp3 allowed Pol to get some treatment for his feet and recharge ready for the push to the line; he’s one tough guy!

Tomorrow is stage 3, the night stage. The runner’s will start in two waves. The first around midday, the second early afternoon and they will go in to the night over roughly a marathon distance.

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