In the chronicles of British Royal Navy officer and explorer James Cook who mapped the east coast of Australia, Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton, who led several expeditions in the Antarctic, and mountaineer George Mallory, who died while climbing the mighty Mount Everest, readers would find a common thread. The lives of these three pioneering explorers — who pushed themselves into the unknown, often at extreme personal risk — seems right of the pages of popular novels. Having grown up reading such legacies, Con Conlon stepped into the centre of a similar daring landscape earlier this month at the Marathon Des Sables (MDS) Legendary.
Con, an Irishman who has settled in Chennai for 20 years, participated in one of the world’s most challenging physical competitions, held between April 5 and 11 in the Moroccan Sahara, in an attempt to raise funds for two NGOs that he and his company have been supporting for a long time.
Con took a sabbatical from his work at Merit Group last year and in February 2025, he made a decision to take part in MDS, a multi-stage ultramarathon involving six stages over seven days. The participants here run and walk approximately 250-270 km carrying their everyday essentials. After completing in the 440th position, Con and his partner, Natasha Conlon organised a success party at Amethyst on Saturday.
In an exclusive chat with CE, Con vividly paints a picture of his highs and lows in the desert, the silences in the night, the struggles of mid-day, and the sheer will the practice sessions and the competition demanded.
Walking into the unknown
Merit Group works closely with Rehoboth, an NGO that focuses on sheltering destitute women with mental disabilities, and Satkaryaa Trust that works with children from broken families or disadvantaged circumstances. Con committed himself to raising funds for these NGOs. “My company here has supported them for a few years. I went to see them before I ran. It’s just incredible what they do — they try and get those kids out of a cycle of poverty into prosperity,” notes Con.
On a personal level, Con took a liking towards the nature of the competition. “Although it (MDS) did turn out to be a bit of a team sport, other people turning out to be crucial to your success on certain days, what attracted me was the very individualistic nature of it; you own your own success or failure,” he says.
This understanding helped Con prepare mentally for the event. He did not view the contest as an impossible desert ordeal but as a series of smaller, slightly more manageable problems. He says, “When you read about it, it’s a big undertaking. But if you break it down into its parts, like any problem or ambition in life, you understand that there are certain things you can do.”
His friend Sridhar Venkatesan, who ran the MDS ten years ago, guided Con on monthly progress and how to move up through the training gear. Additionally, Srinivasan, Con’s personal trainer, and Anu, a dietitian, also guided him. His training included running/walking 90 kilometres a week — 15 km every day on an average — followed by long-haul weekends of 30-40 kilometres.
The houses, streets, and the people of Chennai seemed to pass by in frames, watching, mildly confused, as a 54-year-old Irish man ran with a backpack through Boat Club Road, Greenways Road, CP Ramaswamy Road, and St Mary’s Road looking like “some crazy foreign fellow,” laughs Con.
Continuing the regressive training in Mahabalipuram, near Alamparai Fort, he tested himself with 60, 70, and even 80 kilometres, 12 hours on his feet, just to see if his body, and more importantly, his mind would cooperate. Because that was the real preparation. These sessions began in August 2025 when he got his “golden ticket”, an entry to the MDS.
Yet, all the training fell short, and he was tested.
Obstacle course
Soon after he soared into the sky to reach his destination, his health started deteriorating. A fever in Madrid, and a food poisoning in Tangier resulted in two weeks of forced rest.
The desert, of course, pushed him further. In his words, Day 1 was tough and Day 2, tougher. “My system was very sedentary. So on the first day, it was a real struggle. I didn’t have enough calories. My body was kind of shocked back into running again,” he shares. Bearing the Indian Flag on one sleeve and the Irish on the other, Con snaked his path forward, leaving a trail in the wide open desert canvas even though his eyes shut, his hand shielded his body, legs trembled, and the breath came in rapid or short.
The bumpy dunes turned every step into effort. His knees hurt and calf tightened. By the end of the day, Con was, “in real trouble.” These experiences did not shake him just like the bedouin tents, undeterred to the desert winds — intense and fast-moving haboobs or hot and dry simooms.
MDS is known to wear one down completely. On Day 4, he had to walk a 100 km. While his gut wrenched and his mind struggled to focus, the desert stretched endlessly ahead of him. Each kilometre was a big step towards the finish line but still far away from any real sense of relief.
Until about 70 kilometres in, his body supported. Then, the pain that had gone numb after hours on the course hit him like a sandstorm — sudden, sharp, and unstoppable. “Clutching on the straws of positivity, I got to this checkpoint, a water stop, and I just fell in,” he shares. Con’s eyes were accumulating water, spilling out on his cheek and the sand, the very thing in the desert that had taught him to conserve. “My hands were shaking, not helping me to get off the backpack, or to sit on the chair. A French guy gave me a bowl of soup, which I barely ate. I was struggling. But after about 20 minutes to half-an-hour, I started feeling better and had three bowls of soup. And then I started the engine (body) again,” describes Con.
By nightfall, lead by a headlight, after enduring more obstacles — broken toenails, twisted ankles — Con reached the finish line close to midnight after 18 hours 45 minutes.
The desert tests your endurance, but it also tests your expectations. The next day, as Con was looking forward to rest and eat a calorie-filled meal, a sandstorm hit, forcing him to make do with just sand-covered peanuts. Comfort, it seems, came with a price.
Con’s body had adjusted to the demands of survival by Days 6 and 7 of the competition. When his determination wavered, the images from the stories of James Cook, Ernest Shackleton, and George Mallory kept him going.
Back in Chennai, he was welcomed by his friends and family. Con raised approximately Rs 14 lakh, and received a medal and a t-shirt with MDS’s logo and the words ‘I am a legend’ printed on his sleeve. Still recovering, Con aims to make the competition accessible to others.