In his six-day run across the Sahara Desert, Mathieu McCaie hit one of the worst snags on Day Two: blisters all over his feet.

The New Brunswick man, who outfitted his basement with heaters and a humidifier to train for the gruelling ultramarathon, still had another 200 kilometres to go.

In an interview with CTV News Channel on Thursday, McCaie recalled how he pushed through the pain.

“Your brain kind of shuts down after a while and your body just keeps on going for quite some time after your brain says no,” he said.

“It takes all your courage and strength to pull it through the finish line and you never know what’s going to pop up. So you’ve got to be ready for the heat and dehydration, and so on.”

McCaie completed the Marathon des Sables, billed as one of the toughest marathons on the planet, at 3 a.m. last Thursday.

At 230 kilometres, the race is more than five times the length of a regular marathon. In fact, one day, runners were required to run 86.2 kilometres -- equivalent to completing two marathons back to back.

A mortgage broker by day, McCaie conditioned his body with a combination of running and hot yoga. He also has a background in CrossFit and Spartan races, a type of obstacle course that can be just as long as a marathon.

In the Sahara, McCaie was required to carry everything he’d need for the six-day race on his back. (Except for water, which was supplied.) To make his bag a little lighter, he whittled down his toothbrush to little more than the bristles.

“My backpack was about 25 lbs.,” he said. “You have to be fully self-sufficient. Everything you will need in that race essentially is on your back.”

The blisters were an early setback. But the toughest part, McCaie said, was not being able to see his wife or two kids, ages 1 and 3, during the race.

“You’re not able to call them or communicate. We had one email out per day and they could send messages in. That was the worst thing, essentially, was missing my family,” he said.

McCaie came in 475th place out of 936 runners. He described the experience as a strike off his bucket list.

“It was amazing,” he said. “It was a good time to do it now, I guess. The kids are still young, so it was the proper time to do it.”

As for his next adventure, the extreme athlete has his sights on parenting.

“Right now I’m just going to relax until the kids grow up a little more. I’ve got a one-year-old and a three-year-old so it’s quite hectic in the last year training for it.”