Tag: Dubai Creek Striders

Another RAK half marathon – 2017

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Yesterday the RAK half marathon impressively lived up to being the world’s fastest half marathon. Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya set a new world record for the women’s half marathon, in 65:06. I heard she was hunched over after the finish looking like she was about to vomit. No history books will mention that.

The weather conditions were absolutely perfect for running. Even before the race the announcer said there are no excuses for not running a personal best time today. I objected to the people around me, “This guy clearly doesn’t know me!”

I started the day with a thought that 1:40 would be a decent finish time, given the training I’ve done. In the end, I finished in a fair 1:39:59 .. And this time was with one toilet stop. If it wasn’t for that huge wee, I may have also finished the run in around 1hr and 5 minutes.

Soon after the start I was alongside one of Dubai Creek Striders’s most charismatic characters, and wellness gurus.  A lot of his recent social media posts have been relating the ill-effects of sugar on us. I facetiously told him to “Leave my sugar alone” .. then nervously overtook him – with an immediate worry that he’s probably right, and my diet will be my demise in this race and he and the rest of the group would overtake me with much cheer.

A single glimpse of something can lead me to think about it for huge stretches of time. Along the way I passed a guy wearing an Iron Man body suit. I pondered, at what point in a race would I deploy the jets. I don’t know how many kilometres I had completed at that point, but I was pretty sure I’d put on the jets right there and then.

That was a more enjoyable thought than when I passed a shirt slogan, “There is no finish line”.  I know their marketing folks are inspiring an ongoing lifestyle, and promoting a continuing journey of fitness. I know that now. At the time, I just muttered “Bugger”.

One distance milestone I do remember was passing the 12km marker. I remember this because the lady next to me said out loud “Single figures”. She didn’t seem to be running with anybody else. So maybe she was talking to us. I thought about it, then thought about it some more. It could have been 5 seconds later I figured it out, and apologetically verified back to her “Ah, [single figures] kilometres remaining!”

I wore the race shirt they provided us. Lots do. Why not, it’s the newest in my wardrobe. At one point I noticed a guy to my right was wearing not only the shirt, but also the same Nike “look-at-me” running shorts I had. He may have seen me looking him up and down, so I shared that we could be twins. He thankfully laughed. Then we both decided to split up before the camera people just ahead could take a cute picture of us together.

It was funny to hear Kat, the default voice of the Runkeeper app, coming from someone else’s smart phone. The guy was getting a comprehensive update on his time, distance, average pace, and I was curious if bladder levels would one day become part of the story. I told the guy I thought the Runkeeper lady only talked to me. But he was quick to explain. That app is important company he has during his away-time running.  It gets him through the many times he’s in the bad books for being anti-social, having to go to bed early & run in the mornings. Then he put up his hands and shrugged, “What else can we do when we love such a crazy pastime as running?” I agreed and wished him a lovely run.

In the final 4-5kms I maintained a pace between slouching off and feeling like I was about to vomit. After giving High 5s to my family (who was leaning inappropriately out over the fence) with 200 metres remaining, I sprinted to cross the finish line – with one second to spare.

I look forward to doing it again next year.

Yet another Striders half – 09 Dec 2016

Reading Time: 4 minutes

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.

Dubai Marathon 2015 – Ouch

Reading Time: 4 minutes

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.

    Another great half marathon – tho not a personal best

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    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.