241 Pizza

When spirits flagged, there were ways of coping. Climbing a long, steep jebel for three hours, I kept my eyes glued to the thrilling rear view of number 470, never letting any man — and certainly no woman — disturb the view. I met the tent-65 boys at the checkpoint on top of the jebel. Gerry said he had followed my luminous poppy-coloured shorts at one point — the tried and tested ass-following instinct.

Day four was the long stage. Ems and I promised to stick together. The trauma of what we were undertaking had brought my period on from nowhere; I felt weak. Her blisters were nasty. Every night, she lay amid the carnage of the clinic tent to have her feet taped back together.

Emma has to be force-fed energy gels when she bonks (runs out of energy) in the dunes after checkpoint one. My eyeballs roll into the back of my head coming into checkpoint three and I lie, semi-unconscious, for 10 minutes, trying to remember my birthday. Emma and I take two hours out for me to pull myself together before we push on for the final 15 miles through the moonlit night.

As the miles creep by, Emma starts walking weirdly, as if on broken glass; she doesn’t mention that her blisters are beyond tolerable. Other competitors, coming up behind us silently with their head torches, look like aliens. We walk with Clive, until he stops to “spend some time talking to my [dead] dad”. We pass a young Japanese competitor, Mina, also tottering in pain, silent tears streaming down her face. I give her a hug and she hugs me back, holding me like a child, letting out sobs. I give her prescription painkillers and spicy biltong, then we walk together. Within 20 minutes, she is chattering away. She’s an actress. “A famous one?” “Yes.” Like I said, surreal.

Two miles from the bivouac, we are wrapped in our foil blankets, cold, creeping along at less than two miles an hour. Emma is making tiny, anguished steps — and I laugh, because if I don’t, I’ll cry. I want to pick her up and carry her. Emma is brave. With blisters like hers, I might have given up, as many with feet like steak tartare already have.

After the euphoric end, I cram my feet into mules and spend two days with tent 65 drinking beer and leaping around in Third World hotel discotheques. Then I have to come home.

The Marathon des Sables is a race that most people with a basic level of fitness could complete if they can handle long, intense and specific training, and do their homework. The fact that the pursuit of this goal had taken nine months of my life, and filled my every waking thought and much of my dreams, had a great deal to do with my crossing that line.

I think I just did the most astonishing thing in my life, but I don’t feel proud. I feel bereft. All I am left with is a terrible void that feels like the end of a relationship, or the comedown from an incredible party. I wasn’t prepared for this at all.

Times recommends

• How I lost the gift of joy for a while
• How to get Coleen Rooney's post-baby body
• The A-Z of winter style rules