After leaving Hong Kong I spent some days in Beijing and Shanghai, and I have a photograph of Tienamen Square to prove it. By the way the square is absolutely huge so I couldn't exactly get a lot of it in the photo, but at least at one end you can see a picture of Mao in front of the entrance to the Eternal City.
From China I crossed back across south-east asia, over the Indian sub-continent to finally arrive in the Persian Gulf and more precisely in the bustling, business 24 hours a day city of Dubai. This photo shows the Burj Al Dubai construction, soon to be the tallest tower in the world.
My reason for going to Dubai, apart from visiting a couple of clients was to compete in the Dubai marathon. For years I had been noticing that the marathon in Dubai was run every year somewhere betwen the 10th to the 20th January and had thought about competing but I had never had the chance to arrange one of my business trips around those dates. Finally the opportunity had presented itself and I had jumped at it. The marathon itself is a small event with no more than 700 competitors, but there is a 10k race and a 3k funrace attached which bring in thousands of participants. Despite the size of the race it is a big payer. This year there was a 250,000 purse for the winner and an additional $ 1,000,000 (yes those are six zeroes) for anyone who could set a new marathon world record. Since Hailie Gebrelassie had just set a new world record in Berlin and was probably the only person who could beat that record they had invited him to participate and imported 4 Kenyan pacers to assist him.
Expecting long queues to pick up the race bag I arrived at the Marathon centre really early on the morning before the race. Number of people in my queue - one - me! Efficient? Of course, this is Dubai where everything moves at lightening pace - except the traffic. The race was due to start at 8 0'clock the next morning - even in January the midday temperatures can get over 20°c and so I guess they were doing us a favour. I was already at the marathon start area at 06.30. I know I like to get to races early but this was ridiculous. It was still dark which is great for taking a sureptitious pee in the bushes but lousy for finding the start line and above all for finding the bag drop off area. I latched on to a South African guy who seemed to know where he was going - he didn't and we got lost somewhere behind the grandstand area (how about that, they even had a grandstand for a marathon with less than 700 people).
Finally as the sun began to come up and the darkness faded away we found a group of volunteers who even had an urn of hot tea - a hot cuppa and the right directions - thanks guys!
While getting ready and leaving my bag in the drop off zone I chatted with a couple of Dutch guys who were aiming at 3 hours 15 minutes. Now if I could just follow them I might be in line for a new PB (presently standing at 3h 20' and a bit). So I lined up with them in the corral. A few minutes before the start Hailie and the other pro runners were brought up in front of us. I was surprised how friendly they all were - waving, smiling, acknowledging our applause and cheers. Bang - we were off. By the way that was almost the last I saw of Hailie and Co., except for a brief few seconds as they flashed past us on the way back while we were at about the 17 kilometre mark and they were already at 24k - wow I can't even sprint 100 metres at that pace and above all I can't do it while my feet don't touch the ground - well that's what it looked like. I hung with my Dutch friends for a while but after a few kilometres I had to let them go - I would die at their pace. I latched on to another runner who was nearby and we started turning over kilometres in 4' 30" / 4' 35". I found that that he was Polish but lived in Dubai. He was also aiming at 3h 15' but was going about it in a more sensible way.
After a few more kilometres my Dutch friends came up behind us - "how did you do that?". They had stopped for a pee and were now catching up. Off they went into the distance. The course is just one long road out and back with a few kilometres at the beginning and the end between that road and the park which is the start and finish area. On the way out it is quite nice with the Burj Al Arab hotel in the distance getting closer and closer telling you how close you are to the half way point. There were a number of people along the road who had come out to cheer us on but mostly it was pretty lonely except for the other runners. As I said before at about the 17k point we saw the first runners retuning and from then on it was a constant stream of runners going the other way. Then my Dutch friends caught us up again - another pee stop - they had drunk too much beer the night before. They disappeared again as we reached the turnaround just under the hotel. It was then I realised that we had been running with a light wind behind us - now we had it coming at us. I started to struggle and suggested to my Polish friend to leave me. Now it was everyman for himself. I don't remember much about the next fifteen kilometres except it seemed to go on forever - on the way out there had been the silhouette of the hotel to encourage us - on the way back there was nothing, just the long straight road in the distance. At about the thirtysixth kilometre one of my Dutch friends appeared again, shooting out of a side street where he had been answering another of nature's calls. His friend was still there but apparently suffering too much to keep us with us. We continued together till the road started to twist and turn it's way back towards the park. We were still on schedule for a 3h 20' so I started to push the pace and encourage my Dutch companion to do likewise. Unfortunately he couldn't accelerate and I had to leave him. In the last two kilometres I managed to overtake quite a few runners who were hurting even more than me - I didn't think that was possible. Finally I could see the finish arch and with a desperate last 200 metres crossed the line in 3h 22".
My Dutch friends arrived some minutes behind and we had our photo taken with our medals.
I was disappointed with my time since I had hoped to do a little better but arriving 97° out of over 650 and 12° in my age category was not too bad.
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