This was one of the richest half marathons in the world and attracted the elite runners from all over the world. The world record was at stake but the winner missed out by less than a minute. The race pack was couriered to us (something that has never happened before). On race morning, I picked Chris Homann up from his place and we drove straight to Ras Al Khaimah for the race. It was an hour away and we got there with over 45 minutes left before the race start. It was quite a chilly day and I had to walk around to keep myself warm. The race start was quite spectacular with the marching band and plenty of TV coverage. There was a helicopter above that tracked the elite runners through out the course. The race was quite scenic taking us around all the nice areas of RAK. The last 10K’s was out and back and I managed to see the elite runners on the way back to the finish line. I finished the race in under 2 and half hours about 45 minutes slower than Chris who was waiting for me at the finish line. The medal was nice as well. The one bad thing about the race was that there was no powerade on the course, just water. Later on we received an email from the race director apologizing us of the mishap and how he was cheated out by the sponsor for not providing the electrolytes. The ones that reached the starting line had the expiry date of 3 days earlier, so had to be removed from the course. This only happens in a 3rd world country. Imagine this happening in States, it would be a field day for lawyers! After the race, we drove back to Dubai and after dropping Chris, I went straight home for lunch. 

This was my first race in Dubai. May is never really a good time to run in this part of the world, and understandably it was the last race of the season. Chris and I decided to take part at the last moment. He picked me up from my hotel in Deira and we drove to Jumeriah for the start. The race was quite nice, set at the back of Mina Seyahi resort. It was 3K track covering Mina Seyahi & Westin Hotel and we had to run around a little more than 3 times to complete the race. I was pretty unfit for the race, had reached 200 lbs before arriving in Dubai. The one mistake I did before the race was to eat a full shawarma early in the morning. During the first 5K’s, all that meat and naan restricted my movement and felt pain while running. Afterwards, the pain subsided and I was able to gather some pace and momentum. Also, 39 degree Celsius at 7am didn’t help either. However, I did manage to complete the race in a little over an hour. The medal was quite ordinary but the all in all, it was a fun race and I enjoyed my debut run in UAE.

This was the only marathon that was taking place in UK at that time of the year when we visited Scotland. So I flew from Glasgow to London Stansted and after renting a car at the airport, I drove straight to Tata Mamu’s place. I stayed with him for 2 days. On Saturday, I visited my cousin, Fahd in London and spent some quality time with the family. Nadia and Zara didn’t accompany me to London as Nadia was expecting. On race day, I left London for Winchester (an hour and half journey). At the starting location in Winchester, we were taken by bus to the neighboring town of Salisbury. On the bus ride some of the runners were quite surprised that I came all the way from Canada to run such a low key event! About 10 minutes before the race start it started to rain quite heavily. Since the course was all country side trails, it became really slippery. There were some down hill stretches where it was even difficult to walk. There were a lot of hills along the way which took a big toll on me. However, the scenery was breathtaking. The biggest challenge was at the 18 mile mark, where we had to run up a hill that continued for the next 3 miles. That was when I decided to quit, and I almost did. But then I realized that I still have to climb the hill to get to the finish line as I was in the middle of nowhere. As usual, I had the mental strength to continue and so I did. About a few miles from the finish, there was a beautiful golf course which helped me take my mind of the pain and move on. I finally finished the race under 6 hrs and there were a sizeable number of people at the finish line to greet me. I stayed back for the post race massage and by the time I left Winchester it was already 6pm. My flight from Stansted was at 9:30pm which I thought was enough to get me to the airport. Little I knew, I was stuck on the M25 for over 2 hours and by the time I reached the airport, it was only 30 minutes left for the flight to take off. I didn’t even have enough time to fill the gas, so just left the keys at the counter and rushed to the terminal. The final twist came when I went to the wrong gate and with 10 minutes left before take off, I was stuck in the tram and didn’t know where to go. Luckily, an airport attendant came to my rescue as she called the airline to wait for me and then took me from a short cut to the plane. I just got there in time before the doors closed. This was a close call. Had I missed this flight I would have to wait till next morning and would have surely missed my flight back to Toronto. All in all, a great adventure that had a happy ending!