The Marathon Des Sables (MDS) is notorious for being one of the toughest trail races in the world. If this is news to you then picture this for a minute: Running 250km in the middle of the Sahara desert spread over 6 days where participants have to be able to fully self support themselves and work with strict daily water rations. Your days can range from 30km to 90km and the people who you share a tent with become your only form of support out there. The MDS is for sure not a race for the faint hearted and definitely something that pushes the human limits of endurance.

Every year 100's of runners from all over the world make the trip to Morocco to take part in this incredible endurance event and this year James Miller made the trip hoping to be able to compete alongside the world's best desert runners. He finished 7th overall and second non-moroccan making him the highest placing South African finisher in history at the just age of 26.

After picking up running in 2021 and finishing on the top step of the podium at the 21km UTCT Trail event he has achieved some mighty fast times over the Marathon and Half marathon along with some notable podium finishes in various trail events. Although he is only at the beginning of his running career this remarkable CV (whilst still working full time) definitely shows the potential he holds and whats to come from the future.

Over and above his incredible running talent, giving back to the community is something that he holds very close to his heart and even as a South African living in the UK, he has been working closely with LIV2RUN (S1E9) to raise funds for development runners and dedicated his MDS run to them in the hope that donations would lead to some of these runners being able to attends a "European Training season and Trail race" which would be an incredible things for them to experience in their running journey. Donations for this are still open and you can follow https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/James-Miller59?utm_medium=proxy_fundraising&utm_content=James-Miller59&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=pfp-share.

In this conversation we chat about:

• James Miller's inspiring rise through the running scene
• His move to the UK and what that means for the South African
• Deep dive into his MDS experience; Training, Planning, Preparation & physical experience
• His take aways from MDS and what he learned about himself as a runner
• His involvement with LIV2RUN
• What the future holds for James

Follow James along his journey @therunningbean and enjoy the conversation, we know we did.

Feel free to leave us a review or follow us on socials @makingarunner.

This episode was brought to you by Rawbiotics. Visits www.rawbiotics.co.za and claim your 15% discount using code MAR15.