Category Archives: Sporting

Yet another Striders half – 09 Dec 2016

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Yesterday I ran my seventh straight Johnson Arabia Dubai Creek Striders Half Marathon.

It’s clearly a race I don’t want to miss.

Every year the event gets bigger and better.

As I began running with the large community of Dubai runners I wondered, what colour would you need to wear these days to stand out?
Fluororescent colours have returned to fashion.  And there were running kits of every other colour and shade. I noticed even past running shirts from obscure events are rarely alone. It was interesting to see us running as a full palate of running regalia.

This year I wasn’t aiming for a quick time, preferring to run conservatively as a training session for next month’s full marathon.  In fact, I was quite nervous about what pace I should stick to.  Each time I decided to pass somebody, it was only after  I had quite an internal debate. On one occasion I wondered if I could pass the guy in front, then I looked up and was surprised to read on his shirt “Unlikely”. Was it an omen?  It turned out the shirt is from the Unlikely Runners group. I love that honesty in marketing.

A little later I caught up with the pace runners for people aiming to finish in less than 1:45. I checked in with the leader whom I knew.  I had to ask, if I ran ahead and they later catch up to me, are they then required to carry me? Nope. They were quite clear, they’d kick me up the butt.

With that motivation, I gradually ran off (with a slight worry).

I realised also, countries and nationalities become irrelevant during running events. At a running event there are merely runners, and supporters. For anybody running, I sympathise with their effort, and have a deep, specific respect for them. And for anyone there that isn’t running, they’re supporting and I appreciate them fully.

Addendum: Scrap the thought that nations become irrelevant. It turns out, I was the 1st Australian to finish for my age category. I left a massive contingent of 8 people in my dust. HA!

Once again I chose to listen to music while running.  And again, I had an issue. Selecting my “Run Calm” playlist from my running tracker, only played the songs I had locally-stored on my phone. What happened to the huge & brilliant selection I have curated in the cloud?

When you’re listening to music during an activity, it has less than your full concentration.  SO I guess it took a few run-throughs for me to notice my phone was playing only four different songs.

My four locally-saved songs from a complete playlist

Exhibit A: My playlist

I tried talking reasonably with Siri to skip and change play lists, but that just freaked out the people running alongside me.

I decided to continue through it. For some reason, repeating music seemed better than none.
In fact, bopping along a few times to a song like Even Flow by Pearl Jam seemed quite helpful. When I couldn’t quite understand the lyric
“Moths are all like butterflies,
He don’t know, so he chases them away”
it seemed helpful that I could listen more intently to it in a few minutes.
I later researched the lyrics, They’re actually,

Even flow, thoughts arrive like butterflies,
He don't know, so he chases them away

How many more kilometres of this song looping would I need to run to get those lyrics?

As a song finished, I was able to hear a clicking sound at a regular tempo, though not quite in sync with my running steps. I immediately figured it was one of those people with a sophisticated watch beeping far too often at a regular pace to help the runner keep their steps or heart beats in time. These are so annoying to everybody else around. I look over to the person running beside me and roll my eyes – communicating, “Oh dear, we’ve got one of them with us”. But then as the volume of my next song increased, the sound of the clicking reduced.  Oops. The sound was always there and it was quite clearly the noise from my headphone cable hitting my race number bib.

As I was getting into the final quarter of the race, I considered upping the tempo to finish strong.

I used to have an extra gear to finish fast and overtake pretty much anyone in the vicinity. Now I feel more like a taxi driver asking for directions.

I finished more steadily in 1:41.14, which was two minutes slower than the same race last year. In the scheme of things, that’s quite reasonable.

The next stage of the event was the Breakfast Buffet.  Here I feel I may have had a personal best.

There’s nothing quite like the feeling of accomplishment after a 21.1km race; then replacing double the calories that were burned.

The only complaint with breakfast was that at our table I was sitting with an impressively overflowing plate of bacon and pork sausages, while a humorless Dutch couple sat next to us to share a tiny box of cornflakes & milk. I think they should be banned next year from participating.

The prize-giving went through with very few surprises.  The regular male open winner was from Uganda,  and the women’s open winner from Finland is becoming a regular. I wonder if I was the only person who was imaging what would happen if these running freaks from two different continents had babies together.

Again, it was a hugely enjoyable event to kick off the start of the running season. I look forward to next year.

Another Striders half – 4 Dec 2015

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Finish Striders 2015

All other pains are forgotten once you see the finish line.

Yesterday I enjoyed my sixth straight Johnson Arabia Dubai Creek Striders Half Marathon. It’s always enjoyable, so much so that many describe it as the most beautiful in the world. 

I love seeing so many examples of wonderful human achievement. And that’s just afterwards with people piling their breakfast plates with mountains of pork and bacon, seemingly beyond the physical limit.

On the running side of awesomeness, Cheetah won again, breaking the course record with a not too shabby, 1.07. 

People outside of Dubai often assume it’s hot here all the time. We actually enjoyed perfect conditions with temperatures around 19-25. 

So the timing is perfect weather-wise, as well as fine preparation 8 weeks before the Standard Chartered (full) Dubai Marathon. I suspect, a few cunning runners if they miss their half marathon goal, may relegate the activity to a training run. Or just a means to earn the wonderful breakfast at Dubai Creek Golf & Yacht Club.

This year I was in reasonable shape from having a couple of months of good marathon training under my belt. Though things still got tough in the second half.  I assumed I was beaming an appreciative smile to the lovely volunteers handing out water. In actual fact (I thought later) I could well have been looking like a zombie extra from The Walking Dead. 

Truth be told I visited the physio earlier in the week.  The prognosis was a strained TFL. Nothing ibuprofen couldn’t mask. It led me to using the post-race masseurs for the first time. Poor planning by me was to visit the same Dr/physio I had seen earlier in the week, with his thumbs made of rock, and sick affliction with others’ pain.  What was funnier than me visiting him, was him telling me to relax while my body was practically entering into convulsions.

This didn’t detract from the run. The Striders put on a brilliant event as usual, I thoroughly enjoyed it as I do each year. And Inshallah I’ll join another one next year. 

The only other slight blip on the morning was the annoying sensation that my toe was wearing a hole in my sock, and was beginning to peak through. It’s an annoying feeling that just gets worse as time goes on. Once home I removed my shoe, and my sock was intact. Uh oh. It was my toe that was the problem, with a blood blister. In an attempt to make it look less gross, I superimposed a couple of props. Enjoy!  

Today I owned a school sport day

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This morning at Lewis’s school sports day they had a Dad’s race. I didn’t want to take it too seriously, in case I lost. But I certainly wanted to be calmly competitive and give a good show for Lewis.

As the 10 or so of us took off I tried to stay close with a fit-looking father. He took off with much gusto, clearly trying to take out the race. Prior to the race he happened to share he was a club rugby coach (an intimidation technique). At the halfway turning-point, I took it very slowly to avoid demonstrating my leather shoe’s lack of tread on the carpet-like surface. As I turned around I noticed a couple of other fathers had taken the risk and slipped over amid their 110% efforts. I almost came to a stop to avoid them, which gave a bit more of a lead to the other father – dastardly wearing just his socks instead of shoes. I upped the effort to catch him. As we drew close, with just 10-20 metres to finish, he slipped, fell & rolled spectacularly. I passed him with some caution to not get caught by his somersaulting legs, and I crossed the line in first place. The poor other Dad had to dust off a significant amount of fake grass from his office attire, and accept 3rd of 4th place. At least he gave it a go.

In those final triumphant strides my smile hid a slight grimace. I had pulled my hamstring. It was still totally worth it. After the race I walked back to my spot, concealing my limp. Lewis ran up to me, jumping up and asking if I had won.

I said ‘Yeee-ah’, as if no other outcome was possible.

I’ll skip football tonight.

This tale was inspired by Steve Bradbury.

Oh, and in other news, Lewis had a great sports day himself. And his house team won.

Don’t take my word for it about the Daddy’s Race, here’s the video evidence:

Update:

I found that this highlight of my life, led to an unhealthy anticipation in future years:

Another RAK half weekend – 13-14 February 2015

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For the second year in a row I ran in the world’s fastest half marathon. The “in” is important here. The RAK half marathon claims this title I think based on the top ten finishing times being faster than any other.

Dennis Kimetto – the holder of the world record for the marathon, started the event after saying something in Swahili. The adjudicator had a bit of a pause and shared that he probably said best of luck to everyone. Truth be told, he could have said just about anything. I had a wry smile thinking he might have said “running’s for losers, get a life.”

I happily started out slow. After around a kilometre I heard the loud barking of a dog coming from somewhere behind me. I figured one of the spectators must have brought their dog and thought little of it. A little later I heard the loud barking again quite close to me, is there a dog running the RAK half? I turned around and it was a runner, cupping his hands over his mouth, and letting out this loud woof. A few minutes later, “woof woof woof!” Ah, I figured it out. He barks at every kilometre marker. My neighbors had a bit of a giggle and probably ran a little more comfortably, knowing there wasn’t a big dog to worry about chasing us. Although getting chased by an actual dog could probably help with posting a great time.

I always run with my iPhone on my arm. It allows me track my progress and record my pace, not to mention receive the odd random call at an inopportune time. It also allows me to listen to music, when it decides to work. I admit having a device on my arm is a slight inconvenience. I won’t complain again though after seeing the guy I passed with what looked like the Samsung equivalent of an iPad mini strapped to his arm. I even thought it looked like he was running slightly lopsided. But if you do want to stop to read a book or watch a movie, he’d have the last laugh.

And I saw the perfect running shirt. It was a standard-looking t-shirt with a picture of Captain America’s shield on the back – set at the height as if he had it stowed there – ready for action – like Steve Rogers himself.

Once again it was a perfectly planned and executed running event. I’m talking about the organisers, not my running. At least I took things relatively easy and was able to enjoy it to the end.

We stayed up at RAK again this year. It gives us a head start in the morning and allows us to enjoy the evening in a different scene and climate – the northern emirates are renowned for being cooler. My brother and his family had come over to stay with us, so it was doubly good reason to stay. We loved the place we stayed at last year so I quickly searched booking.com for Al Hamra, golf, beach which was in the title and made the booking. It was only when we went to check in that I realised I’d stuffed up. There are two or more different hotels with similar names. We had stayed at the (Hilton) Al Hamra Beach & Golf Resort. I now had a booking for two rooms at the Al Hamra Village & Golf Resort. Close enough wasn’t close enough, but it was quite nearby – and clearly a common mistake. Our actual place was nice enough with lovely views over the golf course. But when we looked outside there was a cat sitting on our patio furniture. I wondered if I had made another error, I had thought I had asked for a “cot”.

The hotel had a buffet breakfast that we just made it home in time for. And there was a pool. And in the evening we ate in the bar and the boys – especially the youngest ones – loved dancing to the band. So all in all, it ticked all the boxes.

The next day we had the obligatory expat stop in Barracuda to restock our adult beverages. Then we left onwards to home, til 12 February 2016 when we look forward to doing it all again. The hotel we need, “Hilton Al Hamra Beach & Golf Resort”.

Dubai Marathon 2015 – Ouch

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My new employer is big into health & wellness. I was caught up in the emotion and nominated with the team to run the full marathon, my third Dubai marathon in four years.

This is a blog about a marathon I ran. So I should start with all the excuses from the outset.

  • I hadn’t planned or trained for this marathon
  • The temperature was warmer than most of my runs
  • At the buffet on the evening before the race, the queue at the pasta (carbs) station was too long
  • I wasn’t born and bred in Kenya, nor trained with their highland tribes
  • I’m not Ethiopian. (2015 marathon male results).

    • With that out of the way, I can share that this was an amazing, painful, gritty, enjoyable run.

    I joined forces with a 4 hour bus which formed from the Striders running group. Four hours was always going to be a stretch goal for me this year. But i figured their pacing would assist to tame the cheetah in me that usually goes out too hard.

    Perhaps typical to Dubai, it was a dodgy bus. It disintegrated practically before it began, with all members having different plans how to reach their goal. After the usual pre-run rituals, I positioned myself with those whose strategy was to go slowest.

    For something different I had planned to listen to Rock My Run. It plays pumping music and adjusts the beat to your preferred pace, or heart rate.
    It only worked until I opened my running tracker. Oops. Then I switched back and it only worked until my phone went onto standby. So I gave up on that just as we were about to start. The crowd of runners at the start began to move forward and I needed a plan B, so I just put the music on my iPhone onto shuffle.

    It was a fitting song for that moment, Sam & Dave’s “Hold On, I’m Coming”.

    The song soon after was Adele – Chasing Pavements. If I had planned ahead I wouldn’t have included that in the playlist. What depressing lyrics for a marathon:

    “Should I give up?
    Or should I just keep chasin’ pavements
    Even if it leads nowhere..”

    The pace was much slower than what I’m used to. It gave me the opportunity to watch more of the other runners, and enjoy being part of such a special event. I’m always in awe how there are so many different people running the same course. There are the professionals and the rest of us. Then there are all the different ages and body types. And some have every piece of gadgetry and all the expensive running brand apparel, yet they get overtaken comfortably by a guy with a pony tail wearing what looks like his pyjamas, although I suspect he may have even come directly from a Shisha cafe.

    Another guy was singing out loud and waving his hands around with great enthusiasm which was fun for everyone around. The lady beside me suggested he wasn’t even listening to anything, the headphones were just for show. Ha!

    Perhaps the most inspiring thing I saw on the day was the blind marathon runner. He and his companion had already turned around several kilometres ahead of me. I struggle to walk 10 paces with my eyes closed without being overwhelmed. It’s impossible to fathom, running at full pace with just a string tethered to someone whom you trust to be your eyes. He received the loudest cheer from me and my fellow runners.

    I felt strong and I could keep up this pace for the whole race. I thought. Around 28kms I began to hurt, and my counterpart in the bus was slowing too. I realised at this point it would only get a whole lot worse from there.

    And each kilometre did get worse.

    I thought I had just hit the wall early. Nope, those were just contractions. At 37kms I could physically not move forward. I stopped and let the various points of agony take over my legs. I stretched. Well, I tried. Then after a lot of grimacing, I started to shuffle forward again. I appreciated the encouragement from a fellow runners. Everyone was hurting, everyone wants each other to succeed.

    As I continued I had to increasingly adjust my running style to avoid the cramps in my legs.

    It got to the point near a water stop I recall I was approaching a bottle top on the road yet I couldn’t lift my foot high enough to clear it.

    If I stopped it would take longer. So with determination I just continued with whatever tiny amount of movement I could manage, and kept moving forward. Then it was just a count down. 5kms to go. 4, 3, 2, are we there yet? 1km then I turned right onto Umm Suqeim road and the finish line came into view. It still looked so far away.. Though nothing could stop me now.

    I crossed the finish line. All I could do was stand frozen and enjoy the relief from no longer having to move my cramping legs. It could have been a minute or five, tho I suspect it was somewhere in between.

    I stopped tracking my running activity on my phone. My phone’s battery was down to 7%. My own battery might have been lower.

    Before we both switched off I called my wife to tell her which tree I’d be passed out under.
    Despite the hardship, perhaps because of it, I thoroughly enjoyed getting through my sixth full marathon in eight years.
    It hurt, but not as much as the regret of not doing it while I can.

    Runner knits his way into record book

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    via Runner in KC Marathon knits his way into record book – KansasCity.com.

    I heard about this strange but true story on the morning radio. A guy has run a complete 42.2km marathon, while knitting a 12 foot scarf. When I came home I just had to see if there was an accompanying photo that showed whether the guy looks completely crazy or not.
    I gotta say, he appears quite normal.

    What possesses someone to add such complexity to an already grueling event?

    Did he do it in the hope that at a dinner party he can painfully trump any other running story? Others may be proud to report they’ve completed a half marathon, at which point this fella would jump in that he ran a full marathon while, all the way, knitting a world record scarf!

    Perhaps I’m a little bitter about these novelty runners. I remember in 2007 in my first half marathon feeling quite demoralised as I couldn’t keep up with the guy in a clown wig, and ballerina tutu skirt.

    It made me now wonder what other crazy marathon records are out there.
    A couple of years ago at the Dubai marathon, we got talking to a guy juggling a football the entire 10km event. It was an awkward conversation, cause I didn’t want to be responsible for putting him off. He allegedly had world records for football juggling.

    That now seems less impressive, compared to the world record for the Fastest Backwards Juggling Marathon I just spotted:

     

    The knitter and the backwards juggler’s marathon times are just over the 5 hour mark, which isn’t terribly quick. Other novelty records though are embarrassingly fast.

    I’ve compiled a list of my favourites, and included my own personal best marathon time – free from any intended novelty.

    • David Stone, 2:42.15, dressed as Pirate Captain Jack Sparrow
    • Ian Sharman, 2:42.52, dressed as Elvis
    • Camille Herron, 2:48.51, dressed as a superhero (Spiderwoman)
    • Paul Simons, 2:55.50, dressed as Santa Claus
    • Joe Elliot, 2:58.03, dressed in full business suit
    • Ryan Brinkworth, 3:22.23, normal as I can be
    • David Ross, 3:25, dressed in a wet suit
    • Mike Ellicock, 3:25.21, carrying a 40lb (18kg) pack
    • Bruce Moore, 3:31, dressed in full gorilla suit
    • Xu Zhenjun, 3:43.39, running backwards
    • Dale Lyons, 3:47, carrying an egg on a spoon
    • Paul Simons, 3:49.21, dressed in full military uniform
    • Chris Baron, 4:28.48, while skipping
    • Darren Weissman, 4:39.12, dribbling two basketballs

    Sourced, http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/, 24 October 2013.

    When the going gets hot, the hot go to #Dubai Sports World

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    The Summer heat in Dubai was making my weekly tennis matches a game more of perseverance, attrition, and stupidity than fun or skill.

    Rather than migrate to the air-conditioned squash court, a friend found a good tennis deal going at Dubai Sports World.  To be clear, it is on planet Earth between June 21 and August 21, in a large hall of the Dubai International Convention & Exhibition Centre. It’s where they bring outdoor sporting activities indoors into the luxury of enjoyable temperatures – thanks to our good friend, air-conditioning.

    This massive arena offers a wealth of sporting facilities for all ages, including academies and tournaments.

    – Dubai Calendar, http://www.dubaicalendar.ae/en/event/events/
    dubai-sports-world-2013.html     (accessed 18 July 2013)

    I was aware of the place through my running club using the facilities from last year.  Though, like a naughty student cutting class, I never attended.  Coincidentally, on Tuesday evening this week when I went as part of a tennis foursome, the Striders happened to be doing their speed session. A few seemed to have a gaze of “Hey, isn’t that that guy, what’shisname?” Or it could have been my imagination.

    As I walked into Dubai Sports World, I was very impressed that such a massive, fun-filled facility exists. In Dubai’s regular July-August climate of  35+ degrees outside, it’s crucial to have something like this available.  And it was encouraging to see how many people made use of it, rather than doing nothing with the excuse it’s just too hot.

    DSW supports a large variety of sports and wellness activities. From what I couldn’t help but see, there was a preference for activities popular with very fit and attractive females.

    At our regular tennis game, we’d see no one – except maybe an occasional compound kid wanting to play with one of our tennis balls.  Here, under one big roof, there were complete tribes of active Dubai residents everywhere doing their thang.

    Actually, for the four of us, it became a little distracting.  In fact, with our wives away for the standard Summer break, we may be more comfortable telling our wives that we’ve been drinking all night at various seedy bars rather than share the actual jewel of a venue we’ve discovered and enjoyed.

    See you next week!

    Another great half marathon – tho not a personal best

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    Today I ran my third Dubai Creek Striders half marathon. It was a thoroughly enjoyable and wonderful event, even though I didn’t quite achieve my goal of bettering my personal best time from last year.

    Early on it seemed it wasn’t going to be my day.

    I started out a little behind where I wanted to be, so I sped up which is usually not a good idea. It wasn’t helped by my shoe lace coming undone. I felt like a rookie, even more so when, unforgivably, it came undone again at the 13km mark.

    After the first glitch I did find a bit of a rhythm. I enjoy this time, trying to find the right pace. It’s when my mind starts getting into an even more ridiculous mood. One thought I remember playing with was it’d be funny if the marathon had evolved from something invented as the “half marathon”. Perhaps someone dared to ask, “Hey, why don’t we take this half marathon concept and double it into a full marathon.” Sometimes it’s worrying how my mind spends its time during a run.

    After 4-5kms I hit trouble. This is the first time in a running event that I’ve suffered stomach cramps, and that I’ve had to stop during the race for a toilet break. Possibly related, it was the first time I’ve eaten my neighbour’s oily curry the night before a race.

    I crashed and burned, or more correctly, I stopped and pooped at the first public toilet I could find.

    The toilet happened to be a “squatty” – hole in the ground, however beggars can’t be choosers, so I did what I had to do.

    Overall I finished in 1:37:33. Altho the race officials won’t hear a bar of it, if you remove the 22 minutes* I spent trying to manage the awkwardness of the bathroom, I would have had a podium finish, probably finishing 3rd overall. If you also minus tying laces twice, I may have given Cheetah from the Striders a run for his money for 1st place.

    After the pitstop I felt physically fine. However I couldn’t really push up the tempo a whole lot. It may have been due to the missed chance to finish close to my best. Or another thought I had was, perhaps I’m rubbish at pushing myself to run fast when there’s no automated voice from my iPhone and the adidas miCoach app telling me to.

    My real running goal is for the full Standard Chartered Dubai marathon on January 25, 2013. I’ve been training very well for it. I feel I’m in better shape now than I’ve ever been. When it came to this half marathon though, I didn’t do as well as I’d like. The old adage, ‘Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance’ may help explain why I didn’t get a finishing time to reflect better fitness than where I was last year.

    It was lovely to see the Dubai Creek Striders official pacers doing a wonderful job to finish within their respective times. I loved their easily identifiable Pacers shirt with the time they’d finish, with a big “Inshallah” written beneath.

    Any disappointment in my own missed goal time was long gone before the homeward stretch up to the Dubai Creek Yacht and Golf Club. This is where I saw my family, and my boys are now at the age where they run beside me to the finish – and I don’t need to slow down very much.

    If crossing the finish line after 21.1km wasn’t satisfaction enough, there was a spectacular buffet breakfast with all the trimmings. Old runners, new runners, fast runners, slow runners, many of us went on to eat like Kings and Queens. A finisher’s breakfast is well-deserved. And as a result, it tastes amazing!

    All in all, I had a wonderful day. I love seeing the beauty of a fit city participating as a single community. Runners come from all walks of life, yet for the few hours of this event we all shared something special which we’ll always have. And for the great majority of people, we’ll probably all do it again.

    * may be exaggerated.

    Marathon PB at Dubai Marathon, 27 January 2012

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    Yesterday at the Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon I crushed my running goal of 3:30. I crossed the line in a net result of 3:23.32 – which I’m very happy with. The time’s 15 minutes faster than my former best, in 2007; and 35 mins better than my last marathon just over 2 years ago.

    I’m not sure why more people don’t run marathons. In the morning for breakfast I ate a whole family block of chocolate, guilt-free. I can justify eating almost anything providing it has high carbs. I guess as my running will now reduce, that diet will be a luxury of the past.

    I’ve now run three marathons in three countries. And I’ll deny it if you ever bring it up, but at the starting line of each I’ve shed a tear or two thinking how fortunate I am to be in a position to do this.

    My music collection didn’t really help me in such an emotional moment, hearing John Butler singing about having to believe. That was resolved with the next track “Don’t worry be happy” by Bobby McFerrin.

    Sadly my iPhone lost its GPS signal for a moment, so my GPS girlfriend was overwhelmingly pleased thinking I was on world record pace. Once the distance is miscalculated there’s no recovery, she’ll tell wrong information every kilometer. This was a bit of a pain, as my phone had become my training partner for the past three months. It was now just a very distracting iPod. The music was at least helpful. Gloria Gaynor singing “I will survive” was timely and encouraging.

    On the timing part, I did have the backup of my stop watch, so I could keep an eye on the times of my kilometer splits.

    Marathoners generally have an A and B goal, so if things don’t go to plan, there’s still something to aim for. This year a guy ran wearing a 10kg rhinoceros suit to raise awareness for Save The Rhino. So most people also had a C goal in this run to not be beaten by a rhino. I saw him getting assembled at the start line, then thankfully not again for the rest of the day.

    The run was fantastic. I ran the majority of training runs required in the three months before the race, so all the hard work was done. In the race I could just relax and enjoy – which I did. Although there weren’t large crowds of spectators throughout, there were still enough people screaming encouragement. Including my family who had come out bearing animal masks, vuvuzellas, and a “Go Daddy Go” sign. Being a Dubai Creek Strider also helped immensely, as wearing the team “vest” got plenty of vocal support from the extended Striders community.

    The night before I asked my two sons if they could write some encouragement on my arms, which I could look down and see if I got tired. Myles wrote “Go Ryan” with a smiley, Lewis scribbled all over the other arm, which allegedly said “Go Ryan” also.

    It was probably not the most well-executed plan. When I woke up race day at 4am stumbling into the bathroom I laughed out loud when my eyes focused. My face had in permanent pen a mirror image of Go Ryan, where my face must have rested on my arm.
    It did come off.

    It was tough to stick with the plan of breaking marathon into three parts, running slow, not so slow, then fast. The first 7kms was relatively slow, but then I’d say the rest was a fast medium pace, until the last 4kms when I had to fight to not be too slow. The training prepared me well, but there’s no getting around the fact that 42.2kms is a freaking long way to make the body run. The crowd were cheering the loudest towards the end, which was appreciated. With 3kms to go I caught up with a guy from the club who was struggling more than me. He came back with a bit of a sprint which helped me find an auto drive setting, which pushed me to the finish. On the line I couldn’t help but just stand in a triumphant, relieved, fatigued, blissful, agony. (I hardly even heard my club mate call me a bastard)

    My family joined me. Then I hobbled to the Dubai Mall carpark. It seemed like a second marathon – along the way giving an understanding nod to other runners hobbling also.

    My mind was a bit of a blur also. As I was walking, I heard a voice behind me say Ryan a few times. All I could register though was, I know that name. It was a colleague who ran the marathon also. I cursed the fact he was walking so comfortably, perhaps the benefits of more experience – this was his fifth marathon in recent years.

    Once home I cracked open a beer, had a lovely hot shower to wash off the litre of dried sweat, then had a very relaxing bath. My bath may have been 15 minutes, or 5 hours – I have no idea.

    That night we had a bunch of friends over for a belated Aussie Day BBQ. I proudly wore my finisher’s medal, which got some mocking. The kids though were very impressed. They spotted on the medal the number 2 of the year, 2012 and assumed I finished in second place. I went with it. So Ayele Abshero Biza won the marathon in a course record of 2:04.23, then I came in next, 80 minutes later. 🙂

    One of the 10 year old girls put it nicely, and said it looked like I just got out of bed. Quite different to all the women who just told me I looked like [expletive].

    Realistically, I have no future running goals at this stage. I guess somewhere there is a desire to run the next marathon, and I wonder if I can achieve the next PB, sub 3:20. Pain in my legs and one foot is doing a fine job to mask such desires for the moment.

    Thanks everyone for the encouragement and well wishes. To state something beyond obvious, I couldn’t have run the marathon without the support of many people.

    Dubai touch footy

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    I played a game of touch footy this evening as a fill-in. The conditions were superb. So the weather was almost the opposite of two nights ago when I went for a run to the Burj Al Arab and back. That night I returned possibly three kilograms lighter from loss of fluids.
    Contradictory to this statement, I was actually running quite strong cause throughout the run I really had to find a bathroom. Dubai is not the kind of place to “go bush”. And the longer I was running, the more urgently I required the finish line. I was definitely running negative splits toward the homeward stretch.

    Touch footy, Dubai style is the same as at home – except you generally need a litre more sweat. It’s one of those activities in a country of expats where you see the usual suspects. Just walking to the field you hear the clear accents of the Aussies/Kiwis, South Africans and British. In fact I made the comment that there were probably only four nationalities on show. The very next second, one of our own team joyously arrived for the game speaking with a distinctive German accent. Woops, there I go making generalisations again.