To the casual observer, Patrick Williams seems a perfectly sane young man. In fact his calm exterior hides a rare personality disorder which, in two months' time, will cause him to run six marathons in five days under the blazing sun of the Moroccan Sahara. Voluntarily.
The good news is that Patrick is not alone in his affliction. More than 300 others - "runners with special needs" is the correct term - will join him when the annual Marathon of the Sands kicks off somewhere south of Casablanca on March 29th.
Of all the places in all the world where you could run six marathons in five days, the French organisers have chosen one where daytime temperatures are expected to average 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius) during the race.
Fortunately for Patrick, Ireland is an ideal place to prepare. Apart from the water, underfoot conditions on Dublin's Sandymount Strand yesterday morning were similar to what he can expect in parts of the Sahara. At one point the temperature touched four degrees Celsius.
Another thing he has on his side is that he won't know the exact itinerary in Morocco until he gets there. But he has a good idea of the tortures the organisers have dreamed up: compulsory elements include one marathon run entirely on sand dunes.
And the week will conclude with something called a "25-kilometre dash": forget the foreign legion, these guys kick sand in foreign legionnaires' faces.
Insult will be added to injury, according to Patrick, in that at night, while the runners are tending their blisters, the race organisers and accompanying journalists will be in a separate tent nearby, "dining on claret and steak".
Not that there's anything in the rules to prevent runners having claret and steak too. It's just that what you eat you carry while running, and that goes for everything else you need.
"Some people cut their toothbrushes in two, just to minimise the weight," says the 31-year-old, who thinks he'll leave his toothbrush at home: "It's not as if I'm going to get lucky out there."
Certain things have to be included: basic medicines, including snake venom; a sleeping bag; warm clothes for running at night, when the desert gets colder than Sandymount Strand; a stove; and above all a flare which, once fired, will get you rescued, at the cost of your removal from the race.
The backpack has become a regular fixture in his training routine, which is divided between London, where he works in the advertising department of the Economist, and his home in Co Laois (this may seem a poignant memory when he gets to Morocco, but his home village is called "Coolrain").
His training will not approach the rigours of the week in Morocco. "The idea is, the body reaches a certain basic level of fitness and, in the week of the race, you flog it to death. Well, hopefully not to death, exactly." But the organisers have included a note in the small print to the effect that they'll pay for funeral costs anywhere in Europe.
"It's just bad luck if you're Australian, I suppose," says Patrick, always thinking of the less fortunate. And there is a good cause at the bottom of all the madness: to raise money for the Cheshire Homes, which he hopes will be at least £15,000 better off as a result.
In the meantime, he's looking for an overall sponsor to put its logo on his T-shirt and individual sponsors who, for their £20 each, will be asked to predict his finishing time, with a prize of two Virgin flights to New York for the winner.
Those who'd like to answer this riddle of the sands - and any other Irish people intending to compete in the race - are invited to contact Patrick at 0502-35267.
