Steve Tidball, one third of Team Men’s Fitness, talks about how he, his brother Nick Tidball and Darren Roberts are preparing themselves for the fearsome 120km Namibian Desert Ultra Race on 8th April.

It’s funny how people react when you tell them you’re going to run a 120km race in a desert. The small number of people who are into pushing themselves love the idea, but most just think it’s stupid. 'How the $@% are you going to do that?' they invariably ask, followed by 'why the &*$^ would you want to?'

To answer the first question, we tend to quote liberally, and probably quite inaccurately, from Dr Mike Stroud’s brilliant book Survival of the Fittest. Not only has he crossed Antarctica, completed the Marathon des Sables, and run seven marathons in seven days on seven continents, but he’s also a doctor and survival expert.

He says it’s actually easier to run an ultramarathon in the desert than it is in an English summer thanks to the complete lack of humidity. He also credits our evolutionary past for giving us bodies ideally suited to travelling long distances in harsh conditions with little or no food.

As for why we want to do it, I think that question reveals more about the person asking it than it does about us. The assumption is that we should avoid things that are physically challenging, dangerous or painful. We don’t agree with that.

Tim Krabbe’s book The Rider sums it up for me. 'Velvet pillows, safari parks, sunglasses; people have become woolly mice. They still have bodies that can walk for five days and four nights through a desert of snow, without food, but they accept praise for having taken a one-hour bicycle ride.'

On that note, I completed my first 50km run on New Year’s Eve and Darren’s also been putting in the kilometres over Christmas. Nick’s been working on his Weetabix eating but worryingly he’s hit a plateau on nine. Maybe he'll feel man enough to add a tenth next week.

Go to the Adventure Racing website for more information about the Namibian Desert Ultra Race.