Our bus rolls into Al Wasil, a sand-dusted stone fort on the edge of the desert. A group of men dressed in formal Omani attire—long-sleeved, ankle-length dishdasha robes, muzzar turbans, and ceremonial, curved khanjar daggers around the waist—await. They greet us with smiles and a quick wave as we arrive in this small village known as the gateway to the Wahiba Sands—a desert in Oman known for its towering dunes flowing in waves of buttery yellow and coppery orange as far as the eye can see.

It’s also where the Oman Desert Marathon, a five-day, self-sufficient 165-kilometer (103-mile) stage race through this ocean of sand begins. That’s why I’m here.

Not only will I need to quickly learn to run on sand, I’ll have to contend with a harsh desert sun that will send temperatures close to 100 degrees Fahrenheit. I’m hoping to tap into the wisdom of the Bani Wahiba tribe for whom this desert is named. They’re known for their nomadic heritage and desert survival skills.

I find the inflated arch marking the start line. The looming pale brick tower of the Al Wasil fort looms behind like a giant sand castle. Otherwise, it looks like pretty much any other race village. There’s the usual array of promotional pop-up tents and runners waiting in line to pick up race bibs for the single-day distances—10K, 21K, and a full marathon. That’s an overwhelming majority of the crowd. The 32 of us who’ve chosen to take on the multi-day challenge are in the—what people have told me—crazed minority.

Author Joe Baur takes on the Oman Desert Marathon, a five-day, self-supported stage race through the Wahiba Sands featuring endless dunes, oppressive heat, and desert critters. Watch his full breakdown on his Youtube channel: Off The Beaten Path Travel. 

Learning to Sand Run

Stage One: My first encounter with the sand comes quickly, just outside of Al Wasil. It’s a mere dusting over roads that reminds me of running in and around the high-altitude training grounds of Iten, Kenya. In other words, it’s mostly runnable.

Before long the course opens up to a panoramic desert expanse with dunes rising in the distance. Fahad Alabri, a “minimalist athlete” known for running with sandals and a ukulele, strums his instrument as he makes his way between myself and Shane McShera, a 34-year-old Irishman joining for the full five-day run.

“We’re going to watch you guys until the end,” Alabri says. “It’s a brave choice.”

The desert road continues past the 10K and 21K turnarounds, thinning the runners down to just us stage racers. Suddenly I’m alone, save the race crew truck which occasionally passes by to check in on us. Before I know it, the sand thickens as it starts to slowly ascend into the nothingness beyond the horizon.

I make matters worse by chasing flag markers to their literal location. Runners are not given a GPX file of the route to follow on their watches, but rather are told to look for tall banners marking the course every 500 meters. Only later do I learn that these are meant to mark the general direction and that you don’t need to actually run right up to the flag. In the end, I’ll add an extra kilometer to my day.

After the first 21K (or roughly 13.1 miles), my stomach takes a turn. I came prepared to fuel my runs just as I would a marathon, taking in roughly 30 grams of carbohydrates every 30 minutes. The problem is, I’m not running at the same effort as I would in a road marathon, I’m often hiking, and I’m on my feet much longer given the subtle (and often not-so-subtly) draining experience of running through sand. Coupled with the hot midday sun, running becomes a nauseating proposition. So I pause my rigid fueling schedule to focus on hydration, eating again as my body starts calling out for food.

This retooled strategy allows me to eventually return to something resembling a running form. That is, until the dunes appear.

One of the reasons Omani and Moroccan runners excel at this race is because, like the indigenous Bedouin nomadic tribes from here, they’re able to read the sand. It’s a skill Bedouins have sharpened through centuries of living in the desert, making their living with livestock and herding, specifically goats and dromedary camels, for meat, dairy, and wool. These one-humped camels especially are regarded as “atta Allah” or “a gift of God” because they provide so much of what they need in life, namely transport, food, and clothing. Arab poets would even refer to camels as the ships of the desert.

But on day one, when it comes to reading the sand, I’m illiterate. So I watch my feet plummet into ankle-high sand with each step as I slowly schlep from dune to dune, following the footprints ahead of me.

At roughly 35K (about 22 miles), my eye follows the flag markers across a flat field and to the top of a comically steep dune. If this ascent were made of rock, I’d need a proper climbing harness and ropes to ascend the thing. Because it’s sand, I can sink my feet into the ground and make my way up the side without risk of crashing to my Darwinian demise.

After 42K (26 miles), I reach the finish line for the day. There’s not much of a reception. Just a guy tracking bib numbers and handing out a can of Pocari Sweat, an electrolyte drink in a can, and a bottle of water before sending me on my way to camp. I hobble over to the communal tents, set up in the traditional rectangular Bedouin style with intricate Arabic patterns running along the wool, and allow my body to collapse onto the floor before recapping the humbling day with my fellow foreigners.

“[It was] painful,” says Mo Abdin, 29, a running and strength and conditioning coach from London. “Everything that could’ve gone wrong went wrong.”

Patrick Wiltshire, 42, is an English finance manager living in Dubai using the run as a fundraiser for Prostate Cancer UK. He’s raised $15,000 in honor of his father who was recently diagnosed with the disease. He concurs with the sentiment of the day that the dunes were far more humbling and draining than any of us could imagine.

“Even just walking it, my legs were completely destroyed,” he says. “It’s got me fearing what’s in store, because looking around, the huge mountains of sand dunes surrounding us, and I know that’s going to be coming up…Yeah, I’m nervous.”

One Step Forward, Half Step Backward

Stage Two: The tent lights blaze around 4:30 A.M. I can’t seem to rip myself out of the comfort of my sleeping bag. But I have to get moving with my new morning ritual of instant coffee and freeze-dried muesli if I’m going to digest it all in time for the early morning start. I’ve got another 32K (20 miles) ahead of me.

As the sun casts its rays across the desert expanse, the temperature begins to climb just as I’m forced to do the same alongside a dune. Each step is a shockingly draining endeavor, requiring just that much more effort to move along the course.

Back at camp, I throw myself into the hands of the podiatrist to pop a blood blister and tape me up. Next I move over to the two Spanish masseuses, Anna and Carmen, to do their best to prepare my body for the next stage—believed by many to be the most challenging of the course.

Meanwhile, the Moroccans and Omanis seem completely unbothered by what lies ahead, settling into their ritual of collecting dry twigs and lighting up a fire to boil some tea, collecting empty water bottles to clean up camp, and scrolling on their phones like they’re embracing a bit of downtime on the couch back home.

The Dune Roller Coaster

Stage Three: There’s not a calm soul in camp before taking on the next 40K (25 miles). The consensus among us mere mortals is that we’ve got a 12-hour day in store for us, especially as Moroccan Rachid El Morabity gave us all a reality check after the first stage.

El Morabity is an eight-time winner of the Oman Desert Marathon and has plenty of experience with his home country’s Marathon des Sables—the iconic seven-day, 257K (160-mile) ultramarathon attracting over 1,000 runners to the Moroccan desert every year. He’s won the race 10 times, most recently in 2024.

Many of us from outside of Oman and Morocco came to the Oman Desert Marathon thinking it would be a good entry-point to desert stage racing before considering something more challenging, like Marathon des Sables. This is a misconception that El Morabity was quick to dispel, telling me that the mixture of sand, heat, and distance actually makes the Oman Desert Marathon more challenging.

Wonderful.

With the “three-two-one!” we settle into a march up the first sand dune easily visible from camp. We’re not even 100 meters into this thing and the heavy breathing is underway.

“What a day to be alive to do this,” Steven Green tells me in passing, ushering towards the striking desert scenery pulled straight out of a cinematic epic. The British-born, Oslo-based 41-year-old is a relative newbie to ultrarunning. He’s moving along in a comfortable stride, surprised by how runnable the first 10K have been while exercising a bit of caution. “The best is yet to come, I think.”

Indeed, they call this stage the “dune roller coaster” for a reason. The dunes may be punishing and unrelenting, but climbing the suckers is the only way to get those epic views of pristine, windswept sand as far as the eye can see.

While by no stretch of the imagination easy, stage three was not the death gauntlet nightmare many of us imagined. Plus, crossing the halfway point (and then some) of the five-day race felt like reaching a power-up in a video game. Now we’d have the evening and a lazy morning to rest before setting off on the 30K (18.6-mile) stage four the following night.

The Rhythm of the Night

Stage Four: Confidence is high among the runners, even if there’s some uneasiness about running in the dark given the countless snake tracks we’ve all seen in the sand throughout the run.

Lydia Oldham is an ultrarunner from England who’s holding down second place among the women. She’s a 30-year-old digital designer who ran the  340-mile The Speed Project from Los Angeles to Las Vegas solo last April. Moroccan Aziza Raji holds the top spot, which isn’t particularly a surprise given her previous wins and years of experience running the course. Nonetheless, Oldham is happy to be in second and feels like she’s finally found her “sand legs.”

“I feel like at the beginning of every stage, maybe the first 5K, it’s really hard just trying to get back into it,” Oldham says. “But definitely with each stage, I’ve become better at running in the sand. Not as good as the elites here with the Moroccans, but definitely better myself.”

It’s Oldham who I’m chasing along the rolling dunes of the first 8K, so much so that I realize I need to back off a little bit or my couscous lunch might make a comeback as we bop up and down the dune waves. I end the night stage with a strong push purely for my own validation. It’s the strongest I’ve felt, thanks again to the more runnable terrain and more suitable night temperatures for a guy like me who’s about as acclimated to the desert as a snowman. McShera, Abdin, Wiltshire, and Oldham are already at camp, informing me of the latest happenings. A member of the volunteer staff was just stung by a scorpion.

Usually after a stage, I’d take my bar of soap I swiped from the hotel in Muscat and grab a quick shower. But not tonight. I’m leaving as little to chance as possible.

The Finish Line

Stage Five: The buzz on my watch alarm goes off at 6 A.M. I’m awake after a night of tossing and turning on a deflated air mattress. But there were no middle-of-the-night visitors in my sleeping bag and I remain blissfully without stings.

The finish line is calling.

Stage five begins with one last ride along the dunes with some of the strongest winds of the race. Children wearing Oman Desert Marathon tech tees jump in at various points of the route. The way one child sprints up the dune, barefoot, catches my eye. This, I think to myself, is the kind of training you miss out on when you grow up in the suburbs where cars take you everywhere.

I settle into a comfortable rhythm—at least, as comfortable as one can be after five days of running across sand as soft as powdery snow. Like most days, my GPS watch is telling me I’m further into the race, and hence closer to the finish, than I am in reality. When you’re chasing flag markers and not following a narrowly defined route, you tend to get a little extra time in the desert, for better or worse.

Still, I’m hesitant to believe my eyes when I see a building loom in the distance, roughly 500 meters ahead of an Oman Desert Marathon flag. The crew was joking earlier in the morning about offering up bonus miles at no extra cost. Some of us couldn’t help but wonder if there might actually be a little extra something in store.

Fortunately for our defeated legs, this is, indeed, the end of our exhausting journey. The gates of Jawharat Bidiyah Resort lead to the finish line where an announcer calls in runners with the pent-up euphoria of a Kentucky Derby commentator. The finisher medal is placed around my neck, photos are snapped, and I’m handed one last can of life-saving Pocari Sweat.

‘Through Suffering, We Get to Appreciate Life’

If there’s one thing every runner, at least the Europeans and this American, had in common, it’s that we all had a story of someone calling us crazy for doing this race. They wanted to know, “Why?”

“When I’m older, I want to be able to look back and know that I did some things, and turn to my son and lead by example,” Wiltshire says. “I think through suffering is where you really get to appreciate life.”

“I quite like being pushed outside of my comfort zone,” Oldham says, who’s already turning her sights to an April fastest known time attempt in which she will try to run 650K (404 miles) from Lisbon, Portugal, to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain. “If you do hard things, then you’re able to find out a bit more about yourself.”

Others point to the sense of camaraderie built among like-minded people under challenging, unique circumstances. Green mentions how he came into camp after struggling with nausea throughout the night stage. His heart sank when he saw his freeze dried meal and wanted to skip it. But his German neighbor, Rafael Fuchsgruber, gave Green his meal and even prepared it for him.

“That’s what these events are good for,” he says.

When the last participant comes through, Luigi Fanell, a hiker on his third go-round with the Oman Desert Marathon, everyone gathers at the finish line to cheer him on—the army of volunteers, the Omanis, Moroccans, and Europeans. In my experience, there are few settings that can bring about that kind of joy and fellowship among folks who were strangers just six days earlier.

“I’m glad that the race is over, but I’m not glad that this that we all have is over,”47-year-old Ronan Kirby says. The Irishman from Cork still considers himself a relative newbie to the sport despite running Marathon des Sables in 2023 and knocking off “quite a few” 100 milers and Ironmans over the past decade.

The Oman Desert Marathon was Kirby’s second multi-stage race. And for him, above all, he’ll miss the community built among the other runners over the past five days: “Because that’s as big a part of it as anything.”