Preparation for the Rallye Aicha des Gazelles 17-31 March 2012. Three months and 2 weeks to go.
9 day car rally +- 4 day drive Casablanca/Essaouira.
Goal: Endurance, stamina, strength
To include core, injury preventing workout and stretches
Aerobic fitness: hillwalking, cycling, rowing, tennis, swimming, skipping
Core session to include: bridge, planks, dead bug, alternate arm and leg raises, superwoman. Hold for as long as you can. Remember good breathing technique


2nd session with Charlotte Rehn in Richmond Park yesterday.
Charlotte, my trainer, has got a plan; It includes 3 sessions at the gym as well. It demands commitment on my part.
Charlotte trained a friend Jan Meek to go to the North Pole pulling a sledge. Jan was 61 when she did it.
She trained me to climb to the top ok Kilimanjaro. She's also a lovely woman. You want someone to train you, go to www.gonordic.co.uk . She's your woman!
By the way, my backpack weighs 7 kgs altogether:

sponsorship : we have our first 2 sponsors, both American : "Givezooks"(www.givezooks.com), started by 2 friends Joe Fazio and Carol Schrader, and Alex Gambal (www.alexgambal.com ), a wonderful wine maker in Burgundy. The thing with Americans is that despite everything, they still have their pioneer spirit, their sense of adventure. They're ready to support 2 women rallying in the Moroccan desert.
And we have a partnership with a magazine called North South (www.northsouthmag.com) which is going on line and global in January. You will be able to follow us in the sport section and in the life style section.

Tuesday there was a great party at Momo's to say good bye to Ali Kasmi, the director of the Moroccan Office of Tourism for the UK and Ireland for 15 years. I got somewhat drunk and that was the evening before my 2nd session with Charlotte. I swear, I am not drinking again the night before my training with Charlotte. She had no pity.

Time for a cup of tea. Cheers

a month later

We're booked or at least pre inscribed in Morocco for the Rallye Aicha des Gazelles, I've booked the 3 day driving course in Zagora in January for Jamila and me so technically it's all going well.

We're looking at training programs. My friend Charlotte, a personal trainer and Nordic walking instructor has appointed herself my guru, which is wonderful. I must be strong, both physically and mentally.
This is her last email :

The race is 17^th of March which gives you  just under  4 months to train and get you fit for this event.

10 days driving and walking/running up and down in the sand dunes means you need to get aerobically fit.

Also some resistance training is needed. Especially, core and back training.

I understand you are already playing tennis, which is good as part of your aerobic training.

What else are you doing at the moment? Are you going to the gym?

How much time have you committed to your training and what kind of training do you enjoy?

Hill walking and cycling at Richmond park would be great.

And she hasn't mentioned nutrition yet!

Finding sponsorship is quite a task. Most people agree that €25,000 ( cost of the rally for a team) for an automobile sport is not a huge amount so really, we find 2 big sponsors and we should be fine.
I have rewritten my presentation so many times, adapting it each time to a potential sponsor that I have to be careful to choose the right one for the right sponsor.
There's the presentation for the sponsors who are associated with alcohol (in which I show that Celliers de Meknes is sponsoring the whole event and so we should be able to have alcohol sponsorship in a muslim country). .

Then there's the document to sponsors who could lend us a car. I remove the mention of alcohol and talk mostly about TV coverage.

The 3rd one is to look for media partners. We don't talk about alcohol, nor cars nor costs. Only us, the team and the rally.

Also depending on the nationality of the potential sponsor, I describe our team alternatively as Anglo-Franco-Moroccan or Franco-Anglo-Moroccan.

And then I repeat the whole thing in French.

But we are getting somewhere. Us women are fashionable with big and not so big brands. Early stages but I should have some names in my next blog.
Anyway, this is the map of the 2011 edition :

This represents about £1500 miles and 8 days in the desert, waking up at 4am. One of the item we must have ( apart from a shovel) is a head lamp! you know, to calculate our trajectory while having breakfast at 4.30am.

Jamila's off to Alger today for a food fair. 

some info about the rallye

RALLYE AICHA des GAZELLES

MARCH 2012

This is the first female rally in the world, created over 20 years ago. It lasts 10 days, 8 of which in the Moroccan desert. It’s not a question of going fast but of taking the shortest way possible, without GPS, the old fashioned way with a compass and a map. When our 4x4 will get stuck in the sand, we’ll get the shovel out and helped by other “Gazelles”, we’ll dig ourselves out.

Because the main values of the rally are commitment, audacity, determination, courage , generosity and solidarity.

We like that, Jamila and I. We are not professional rally drivers, we are normal women . We just want to challenge ourselves and at the same time bring humanitarian aid to the villages the rallye drives past. We have been successful at challenges in the past : I climbed to the top of Kilimanjaro which at nearly 5900m is the highest mountain in Africa. Both Jamila and I have put together a team of all ages (the oldest member was 75) to go to the top of Toubkal, the highest mountain in North Africa (4100m), to help raise money for the British Moroccan Society.


Also this is a responsible rallye : it won the ISO 14001 certification because carbon dioxide emissions are kept to a minimum ( again, speed doesn’t matter, to win the teams must drive the shortest distance).  Also part of the profits are redistributed through a charitable foundation called “heart of Gazelles”. It’s an event that respects the local population and the local environment.


But before we set off anywhere, we must find sponsorship. That's part of the challenge and the fun. Today I spoke to Alex Gambal, an incredible winemaker in Burgundy.
I don't know if he'll sponsor us, that was my first "sales pitch". It certainly helped me to focus on what we want to achieve.


Went to the gym this morning. Lasted 30mn. Must do better!

2 weeks ago Jamila and I made the decision to enter the Rallye Aicha des Gazelles in the Moroccan desert in March 2012. The excitement! This is the biggest women only rallye in the world. It's not about going fast but about driving the least amount of km. It's about endurance, solidarity, effort and achievement. No GPS, no mobile phones. We sign an agreement swearing we won't cheat. We'll use a compass and a 1/100000 map( whatever that means!)

All we need now is to find sponsors! 3 months to do that. Jamila likes working under pressure, I'm not so keen but hey, I'll try anything once. So we have a list of major potential sponsors and a list of minor sponsors. I'm so optimistic that I worry that everyone will want to sponsor us and we won't have enough space on the car for their logos. My husband Ian says we'll cross that path when it happens.

I've talked to 3 companies renting 4x4 for the event. I've talked to them about learning to drive a 4x4 in the desert and Jamila and I are booked for a driving stage in January. 3 days South of Zagora.

We'll learn to use a shovel to dig ourselves out of the sand!
And I found the picture next in the Gazelles album. Just looking at it I go pale.

Off to the gym, we need to be fit.