The athletes have been undergoing heat acclimation sessions in the University’s Human Performance Centre, which replicates the conditions they will face during the Marathon Des Sables, a six day running event that starts on Friday (7^th Apr) where competitors cover around 150 miles through the Sahara Desert in Morocco.

The sessions involved running on a treadmill in a chamber where the atmosphere can be controlled to maintain a temperature between 35-40 °C and 40% relative humidity.

Athlete Bruce Donald said: “You’ve got to be physically and mentally prepared for it (Marathon Des Sable) so it’s all about doing the heat acclimation sessions at the University. The experience has been fantastic. The staff have looked after us well, monitoring all our obs and making sure our core temperature doesn’t get too high.”

Fellow athlete Tom Dove said: “It’s been fantastic. It has been interesting to see how our body temperatures rose so quickly towards the end, how much fluid you need to take on and how much fluids you lose – it’s all a great learning curve.”

Lecturer in Exercise Physiology at the University, Dr Jeffrey Aldous, said: “It has been a pleasure to open up our facilities to these guys and hopefully we have helped them prepare for what will be a very challenging event. By taking part in our heat acclimation sessions, their bodies will be better prepared to cope with the harsh conditions they will face during the event.”

The Human Performance Centre offers a wide range of services from environment training and health and wellbeing advice to fitness and team sport assessments.

For more information, visit www.beds.ac.uk/humanperformance or contact HumanPerformanceInfo@beds.ac.uk