Dog Runs For More Than 100 Miles To Complete Desert Marathon

The Marathon Des Sables is a notoriously taxing test of human endeavour, taking place over a 156 mile stretch of the Sahara Desert in Morocco. However, a doggo known as Cactus made it look like a bit of a doddle.

To be fair to his human competitors, he did skip the first stage, meaning he only clocked up about 140.7 miles, but his popularity grew throughout the competition.

He stormed the third stage, finishing 52nd out of around 800 runners with a time of four hours and 30 minutes.

But he went on to really defy expectations the next day by completing the fourth stage, which is a whopping 53.5 miles. Even the added peril of a sandstorm couldn't stop Cactus, who managed to cover the distance in 11 hours and 15 minutes.

He eventually crossed the line on Friday and evidently didn't feel inclined to go for a sprint finish. Still, he was awarded with an official medal by the event organisers.

It turns out that Cactus was just the name given to the athletic doggo by his fellow desert racers, according to his Twitter account (yes, he has a Twitter account), his actual name is Mauricio Odio Truque Diggedy.

The account has been tweeting out a lot of dog pun-based tweets throughout the week and he closed the event in appropriate style.

Having crossed the finish line, Cactus/Mauricio Odio Truque Diggedy/whoever runs his Twitter, tweeted: "So happy to be doing walkies with so many lovely people. Good luck to everyone still doing their walkies and remember anything is paw-sible."