The Marathon Des Sables: Seven Days in the Sahara Enduring the Toughest Footrace on Earth

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Customer reviews

review by: date: 2008-10-16 rating:
Very good read
I really enjoyed this book. It was witty and down to earth and after finishing it I am definitely inspired to have a go at the Marathan Des Sables myself. Well worth a read.

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review by: date: 2008-09-21 rating:
It's a training blog
My biggest problem with this book is that the title implies there will be lots of information about the event itself - perhaps the history of the event, or tales of previous competitors getting lost in sandstorms, etc. Only the last part of the book is about the race and it is first person diary style. The majority of the book covers 2 years of training with half a dozen outings (the Christchurch beach mentioned is the one near Southampton, not New Zealand by the way). However, the rest is taken up by an autobiography of the author jogging to and from work in London (this is being pruned down for the 2nd edition apparently). The author has posted some feedback stating that people who buy this book having already researched the event may not like it and it should be instead treated as a "piece of literature in its own right". I received this book as a present, so had done no research on the event, nor intend on competing in the mds. I still did not find it to be a literary piece of genius, or put Mr Hines up there with "other leading fiction writers" as one of the 5 star reviews commented. (I didn't know he had written any fiction anyway...)

Like other reviewers, I did not like the formatting (large font and double line spacing). The inclusion of physiological information in various areas of what is essentially a diary also seems a little odd. Some of the photographs are blurred.

On the plane to Morocco, Mr Hines meets somebody he used to train. He is worried that she will beat him. Disappointingly, this is not followed up at all. (She was not among the 17 women that beat the author in the official results in case you were wondering.) After the race, I was looking forward to the description of the medal ceremony - perhaps a photograph of the winning man and woman? Perhaps the author of such a book would try to get a few words from the winners (or at least describe them)? - that would have made a nice paragraph or two. But no, the author decides that the medal ceremony would be too boring and stays by the pool to play dice instead.

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review by: JG date: 2008-09-09 rating:
A bit more editing and design please
Books about the MDS are few and far between and so it was great that a competitor has taken the time to share his experiences in this way (no authors of specialist books do it for the money).
However, this book needed the attention of a good editor and book designer. The copy and art could have been published in a much smaller volume and laid out much more tightly and effectively.
Despite this, I found the book interesting and hats off to the author for completing the MDS and publishing his experiences.

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review by: date: 2008-08-21 rating:
Very disappointing
I am baffled as to what Mark Hines was trying to achieve with this book, apart from to plug his other books and friends' businesses.
The book is badly written- I'm astounded that this guy is supposed to have published before and have studied a PhD.
It contains a low level of physiological and training facts, which are not informative enough to be useful as a training guide, and only succeed in making it a very dull read.
Most disappointing is the author's complete inability to write a good story or engage the reader. So rather than being inspired by the book, I found myself re-considering my decision to compete in ultramarathons, due to the fear of encountering individuals like Mark along the way!



review by: smiles659 date: 2008-06-06 rating:
Strangely inspiring ...
I bought this book out of pure curiosity, as I do some distance running and am looking for future challenges(!). Initially I found myself struggling a bit with the format, which is basically an extended diary. However, the more I read, the more I found myself drawn along with the author's 'journey' in his training for this event and while the event was a relatively small part of the book, I felt it worked for me.

If you are looking for a book that will tell you what training you need to do to complete this event, this is probably not for you (although if you do what the author did, that would probably work - it did for him!). If however, you are looking for something inspirational that will motivate you to longer term goals, then I would recommend this.

Probably my only criticism is that the photos were not great, but I did not find that too detrimental. On the plus side, I have read it three times now, which must say something!

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