Marathon at Dirab Golf Course

The weekend started with some of the hardest training I’ve done yet. I left work on Wednesday afternoon at 1430hrs (our weekends are Thursday/Friday over here and we get an early knock off Wednesdays) and headed for Ban Ban Sands. Ban Ban is a great area for desert driving and has some serious dune contours. I parked up at the North-West corner of the area I know best from the driving trips and set about running a 10km loop. I’d left a route trace with our duty officer and sent him a text just prior to setting off. I kept away from the areas popular with the locals for their driving exploits, as they are not known for their safe practice on the sand (or road for that matter); so I felt I’d mitigated any real dangers.

There’s really nothing like running on sand to drain the strength from your legs. It feels like running uphill when on flat, and uphill feels like running in tar. I would normally walk on the uphill, but this was a short training run and I wanted to try and run as much as I could. Even so, I had to resort to walking on the big uphills as I wouldn’t have made it round. I had chosen to wear thin socks and not put on any lubricating cream on my feet, as I wanted to know exactly where the hotspots were with my race shoes. I could tell whilst running, my right heel was suffering and the outside of my big toes were rubbing quite badly – blister plasters and new socks please!

Where's Wally?!

This was a good leg stretch for the Riyadh Road Runners’ Marathon at Dirab Golf Course on the Friday. Six laps of a 7km route that took in 2km of the half marathon course followed by 1.5km in an ‘L’ shaped loop. The race was open to individuals and teams, with team members doing one or more of the laps each. Doing six laps was reminiscent of the SANGCOM Half, which was a rather dull lap of a housing compound, so six laps with some lovely rocky scenery to look at made things pass relatively quickly, even though my MP3 player packed up on the first lap!

Start of the second lap

I was running with Chris and we had agreed to keep a steady pace, but he was suffering from an injury and dropped back after two laps, stopping after three. I reached the half marathon distance at 1hr 57mins, which I was quite happy with; having chopped 4 minutes off my best weighted effort. Unfortunately the sun was well up and things were about to slow down. Chris had taken some pain-killers and got going again over a lap behind me. The final two laps were quite painful and the hard tarmac road had taken its toll on my legs. I finished in just under 4hrs 16mins. Chris soldiered on, clearly in pain, now in a fairly powerful dust storm, but made the finish with his usual burst of energy, that he normally drops me with on the home straight!

Looking better than I felt at the finish!

I didn’t eat anything on the way round, but drank five x 750ml bottles of water, four of which had a ‘Zero x'treme caffeine stimulant’ drink tab in. These seem to give me a little boost, with enough glucose to make the drink isotonic, plenty of salts, and caffeine to revive me a touch.

I got a lot of encouragement from the other runners when word had spread about why I was running with weight, and one other runner was kind enough to hand over a cash donation on the spot (thank you Tony Caskey). I’d like to thank Chris Denison from Riyadh Road Runners for doing such a good job of organising the race and everyone there who helped build the inclusive atmosphere.

Marathon Distance Achieved

If last week’s endurance effort was sponsored by ‘snot’, this week was most certainly sponsored by ‘blood’! A small nose bleed was caused by clearing a partial blockage of my right nostril (picking my nose!). Then after about 30km I realised that I had begun to lactate haemoglobin! I also had painful rubs under my left arm from my mp3 player’s strap and a few hot-spots around my groin from my cycling shorts. Needless to say; I will be buying a dirty great big pot of Vaseline!

I covered the 42.2km in 4hrs 3mins. I completed the first half marathon in 1hr 53mins, but as soon as the sun was up; it sapped my speed (speed seems like the wrong to use there, maybe ‘slowed me further’ would be more accurate!). I did not do any press-ups or squats this week; I did pause every few km though to stretch off. I felt a lot better than last week and drank less water. I got through 5 bottles totalling 3.3L as well as a can of Pepsi and a can of Pocari Sweat (a sports drink with sugars and salts).

Chris got back from leave this week and we really need to get onto paying our deposits for the race. We’re in a bit of a catch 22 situation, as Chris needs some assurance that we will be able to recover the entry, travel and equipment cost through sponsorship (which I’m taking the lead on), but I’m not keen to start fund raising until we have places in MDS12 confirm, as I don’t believe potential sponsors will take us seriously until we have confirmed slots in the race. More discussion to be had on this next week, which will be the deadline, as I’ll be off on leave for 2 weeks from then! I’ll keep you posted (not that anyone’s reading this, as I am not promoting it until we have the race places1).

First Marathon Distance (Nearly!)

After the Wahba Crater run last weekend, I thought I'd better get out and do a decent distance this weekend, as the terrain would be the nice easy tarmac and concrete of the compound. I set out to complete 20km at no real pace and stopped every few hundred metres to do some press-ups or squats. I slowed to chat a couple of times as I saw friends playing golf or out walking with their babies, but basically plodded on and got to 20km quite easily. I decided to set my sights on 30km, which came and went with little pain; so turned my attention to finishing a marathon distance. Not being too hot on my metrics - I thought 26.2 miles plus 50% = 39.3km? apparantly not. 42.195km would have done it, so I'll have to try again this weekend!
Indications are good though; no injuries sustained from a near marathon, but hellish lactic burns for the next few days, and trying to dance at the McDermott's 25th Anniversary the same night was a killer. 3 days on and I'm feeling good and managed 75 minutes on the exercise bike tonight whilst watching most of the Manchester derby and seeing man U get hooped by City 1-6!
I visited the British Embassy last night to brief the Riyadh Group of British Businesses on my team's half marathon event, which takes place in February. The response was astounding, which is hugely encouraging for when I begin sponsor collecting for the MDS. Chris is a bit nervous about paying the deposit and then getting stiffed with the balance if we don't raise the money, but I'm sure we can more than meet the cost and raise a good bit for our charities.

The start of a long journey

Chris and I finally got an email back from MDS stating that we would gain places on the marathon at short notice owing to our residence in Saudi Arabia. The waiting list for UK residents can be up to 3 years from what we've heard. Now an idea (of Chris's) is starting to look like a real opportunity. The last few weeks of having my Wife and Daughter out here with me have kept me away from training, but the thought of running 250km over 6 days in the Sahara have sparked me into life. I wrote up some ideas for sponsorship last night and a strategy of how we are going to raise the considerable sum needed for entry is forming.
This blogging concept is new on me, in my haste to create the gmail account needed to open this page; I spelt MDS wrong in my new email address! And it took me forever to figure out how to get an 1800x1600 pixel image to be less than 300k!
Leg strengthening exercises are high on the training agenda, in order than old injuries are kept at bay and some serious time out on the sand will be essential to test our ability to conserve water. Letters to write for sponsorship and kit to buy or beg for; it's going to be a busy few weeks especially with the girls here. There's lots to write on here too if you are going to get to know us and I'm going to keep you interested enough to follow us to Morocco.