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      I indifferently clicked on the link, not knowing that this click would divide my life into two halves. It was an Ironman1 race report. After reading it, I was taken aback. I read it again. Still not realizing that I was infected with no chance for recovery, I began to passionately read the reports of “ironman”. Ordinary men, there were guys like me who could swim 4 kilometers without stopping, bike 180 km and run 42 km “for dessert”.

      That night I didn’t come home, and in the morning, with red eyes, I couldn’t think of anything else except that I urgently needed sneakers. That’s how it all began. Five years have passed since that day and I’m no longer that sad fat man with hypertension and fireless eyes. My life has completely changed.

      I ran dozens of marathons, crossed deserts and frozen lakes, climbed mountains, swam across rivers, straits, and canals, dived to depths, held my breath, participated in Swimrun2, Triathlon races, and world championships. I became an ironman. It was difficult, but I managed to inspire a love of sports in dozens of my friends and acquaintances who, in turn, had hundreds of their close ones hooked too. My Sporter team and I organized the Chisinau International Marathon and dozens more sports events.

      Hundreds of hours of training alone with myself, similar to meditation, have greatly changed me. I became calmer and more confident, I learned to hear my body and to be here and now. This immediately influenced my family relationship and now my wife and I are closer than ever, although she sometimes get annoyed by my constant sports activity.

      My life, of course, hasn’t become ideal. It has turned into a fight. I get the greatest satisfaction when after another madness I come back home with my shield, or on it (it doesn’t really matter), embrace my loved ones, I lay on the couch with them and allow myself everything that comes to my mind. I eat and drink whatever I want, I forget about work, I hang out with my children, my beloved wife, and my friends. Only at these moments do I enjoy life.

      But after some time, it sucks. I feel uncomfortable because of idleness and inaction, and here I am, planning the next adventure and starting to train. Again a tough regime, diet, restrictions in everything, and only one goal is ahead – to run across Baikal, climb Mont Blanc, become an Ironman, swim across Gibraltar, hold my breath for seven minutes, and so on, and so on, and so on…

      I feel uncomfortable in my comfort zone. For me it’s like a short break between two fights. I don’t know why but God has created me in such a way that I feel happy only when I take great pains to pursue my goals. I don’t know how I called down the wrath of God in past lives, but in this one I have to roll my stone up the mountain to the very end…

      However, the main thing that gives me the strength to move on is the belief that someone very tired of life will late at night accidentally bump into one of my reports and his life will change.

      Marathon Des Sables

      When you begin running, you never know where this “bad” habit will lead you. You cannot even imagine it.

      Four years ago, after my first training where I heroically ran two kilometers, I felt like a typical white-collar worker: fat, breathless, and mad, with pain in my knees. My greatest sports achievement at that time was a descent from a water slide in Turkey. If anyone had told me back then that only four years later I would go to the Sahara Desert and run 250 kilometers on the sand with a full backpack, I wouldn’t have believed it!

      But time goes by, your first training is followed by the second, the tenth one… Then you run five, ten kilometers, a half marathon3, a marathon4], “Half Ironman”5, “Ironman”, “Comrades”6, “Otillo”7, “Rubicon”8. This unfinished list is familiar to many racing lovers. And when you see an ellipsis at the end of the list, you understand that you were right four years ago. Because the list continues with the Great and Terrible…

      Marathon des Sables (MDS, Marathon of Sands). It is a 250-kilometer, six-day ultramarathon through the Sahara Desert. The MDS is considered one of the world’s toughest endurance contests.

      That is why it attracts the attention of hundreds of madmen every year.

      Marathon des Sables was invented by the French concert promoter Patrick Bauer. In 1984, he traversed the Sahara Desert alone, covering 350 kilometers in twelve days.

      The first official launch of the Marathon des Sables took place in 1986 in Morocco. Then, just twenty-three participants finished the race. In 2017, about 1,300 people toed the starting line, provided that there are quotas for different countries. Moldova is participating in this outrage for the first time, and it seems to me that our quota will not be exhausted soon. Here are just some of the joys awaiting the participants of this adventure:

      – The air temperature reaches +50°C in the daytime and drops to +5°C at night;

      – Strong winds blow and sand storms may arise in the desert;

      – Participants must carry all personal items and food with them in a backpack that weighs about 12—13 kilograms;

      – The race passes through sand dunes and stony terrain with long, rocky climbs and descents;

      – During the day one participant is given only 12 liters of water;

      – Almost all runners’ feet bleed because

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