Photos: Day 6

Our final day began at 03h00! We caught the bus at 04h30 to the start and began running, flat-out, at 5am. This run, in the dark, was a crazy 'run as fast as you can following a GPS on rocky terrain' stage. Nasty. We did well though and progressed swiftly to complete the run in 2hrs. Next came the canyoneering, up the mountain, which was amazing!

Waiting at the start of the canyoneering. We left in the order we'd arrived and with a bit of a gap between teams to avoid bottlenecks, especially in the beginning.

One of the race's more colourful characters - Hugo, a French racer. He's a super guy and we hung out with him a lot.

Alex and Francois

Up, up, up. There was only a small bottleneck in the beginning. After this the teams moved more swiftly. I found these short stops useful for taking photos.

Francois crests a steep section

Not even half-way up! Without a breeze in the canyon it was hot and humid. We were drinking and sweating plenty.

Alex

A quick photo while waiting for teams ahead to progress

The rocks are amazing - this was a super section. And the amount of roping on the route - a lot of work by race organisation! And very well managed.

Up, up!

Almost at the top. Yes, that's the ground below where we started from. I'm not sure but it must have taken just over two hours to ascend to this point. Must have been an ascent of around 1000m!

Team photo at the top. Unfortunately the weather was overcast and hazy, so the view from the top was quite clouded.

After a bike ride from the top of Jebel Hafeet to Al Ain (37km) and a run from the Al Ain oasis to this fort, the race was over. An amazing six days of sport in this beautiful country.

27th place! Receiving our medals at the awards dinner