Imagine an endless night sky, blanketed in a million stars. No ambient light and no sound… apart from the padding of feet on sand and the in and out of your own breath. Now, imagine you’re part of a pack 1200 runners finishing one of seven legs of a 250km run. Add to that your backpack containing food, sleeping gear and other essentials that you must have on your back throughout the entire marathon.
This is the Marathon Des Sables – (Marathon of the Sands). And 2023 is its 37th year.
Northern Beaches local, Anna McDonald is taking on the challenge this year between April 21 to May 1st for a special cause. She wants to raise awareness and funds for research into Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG), a fast-growing tumour that forms in cells called glial cells, in a part of the brain stem called the ‘pons’. This aggressive brain cancer is usually diagnosed in children. As there are no treatments available, a DIPG diagnosis is considered terminal – half of the patients diagnosed succumb within just 6-9 months. These confronting statistics haven’t changed since the 1960s, and so Anna will take on this extraordinary effort in the name of raising awareness of DIPG.
This cause is also personally significant to Anna – close family friends Simon and Jasmine Jenkins’ son Alex, was diagnosed with DIPG in March 2022, at just 5-years-of-age. More than a run across the desert, this marathon honours Alex and the Jenkins’ Family, and the challenges brought by a DIPG diagnosis.
When Anna arrives in Morocco, she will prepare for seven days of marathon, running across the scorching sands of the Sahara Desert under the belting heat of the sun during the day – with temperatures regularly reaching 50 degrees, and the limitless starry sky at night.
Over almost four decades, only 20% of the marathon’s participants have been women. Runners open themselves up to scorpion stings, sandstorms, dehydration, and injured feet. Medics and field clinics are set up along the route and they provide treatment primarily for foot injuries and pain, not to mention lots of anti-venom for those scorpions!
In July 2022, Anna began training for the marathon. Her regime includes HITT and spin classes at Premier Gym, Brookvale, core strength, and running or walking with a weighted backpack to get into shape for carrying all her supplies throughout the race. You may have seen her running on an impossibly hot day somewhere on the beaches and questioned her sanity!
Although Anna has run marathons in the past, this time she’s running for Alex, to honour him and his fight against DIPG – a 250km marathon through the desert may be considered easy in comparison.
When Anna hits the Sahara Desert in April 2023, her training and hope that modern treatments can be found for DIPG will help carry her through to the finish line. And
maybe, the awareness raised throughout the process will get us a few steps closer to a cure.
Would you like to support Anna on her epic run and help raise awareness of DIPG?
You can sponsor Anna here: https://rundipg-org.grassrootz.com/2023-marathon-des-sables-anna-mcdonald
And follow her journey here: https://www.instagram.com/mds4dipg/
And if you want to learn more about the marathon: https://www.marathondessables.com/
