Jacques MONNERAT (SUI)

"The MARATHON DES SABLES, I have always dreamed of it without daring to register. " Jacques MONNERAT (SUI) has however taken the plunge: he will be present at the 35th edition next April. "I decided to offer it to myself for my 50th birthday," he confides, and we feel both an enormous desire and perhaps a little fear, or in any case a great respect for the legendary race. "I didn't want to embark on this adventure without being properly prepared, so I get coached. I’m an average runner…” he adds, as if to apologize - but there is no need for excuses: that is all that makes the salt of MARATHON DES SABLES, offer to EVERYONE, elite runners as average runners, an event where they will flirt with their own limits.

Jacques has been a regular sportsman since early adulthood: "I started cycling at the age of 24, and at the birth of my children, to save time, I turned to running." Currently, Jacques runs four times a week, and participates each year in some trail races, such as the famous Sierre-Zinal, or the most original ultra-marathon of Connemara, 63 km in Ireland, sometimes in extreme conditions -" On my three participations, the weather was terrible. "

Jacques’s goal is commensurate with what he said before: "I just want to finish this race. If possible within a reasonable time." Jacques knows that he will have to reckon with the weight of the backpack, perhaps his main enemy. But the heat and the lack of hygiene are also fears for him. On the other side, he is impatiently awaiting the personal adventure in which he hopes to "surpass himself", as well as the common adventure and the social ties that will be forged. And then of course there is the environment: "I can't wait to discover one of the most beautiful regions of the world, and, perhaps, an unknown part of me."