Saturday, April 08, 2006

Dubai Long Run

Saturday morning Dubai, room service coffee and a banana from the fruit bowl. Then out the door Ipod on and cross the street to the river. Dubai is the commercial consumer capital of the world have no doubt this is where money comes to be spent.

The river is a classic blend of multi million dollar private yachts, refurbished dhows as restaurants for hotels, ten cent ferries for foriegn workers and commercial dhows loading everything from cooking oil to tyres.

The thing that hit me the most was the wind it was brutal, so i turned and headed into the wind not having a clue where the river would take me , had to run on pavers which felt hard and my shins later today will start to ache. The river meandered along getting more commercial and less tourist, past the Gold Souk and the river swung around a bend and ended at the Gulf, which was neat apart from the wind which got evener stronger, you could see the spray of the water breaking

Just kept pushing along at a steady 5.40 pace, heart rate in the 120's before I turned and headed back along the Gulf, starting to get thirsty and with no water in sight it was going to be long second half run back to the hotel, normally traffic is quiet for me on Saturday longs and I had forgotten what it is like to run with traffic , it sucks.

The wind just got stonger and it was a hard push along the Gulf, back to river and relief as I turned and had the wind at my back , man that felt good, felt very lonely doing the long by myself today, so used to running with friends

Life along the river had grown by the the time I was running back, 100% foreign workers no problems here with Immigration everyone is an Immigrant , I could of been in Bombay or Karachi.

Approached the hotel and by now my thirst was the overiding issue to be dealt with up to the Exec lounge OJ water and a banana

A nice 12 km , hot sweaty and smelly

Dubai

3 comments:

SimplyStu said...

Mal:

I've been wondering for a long time how, why, what, ect... about the Tri-Dubai triathon team. Is it more of an American thing, or do they have and idea in Dubai about it? Very interesting to me!

Hope all is well.

-Stu

Mal James said...

Hi Stu
Have no idea about the Tri Dubai dudes but given what Dubai does to attract sport , I dare say in the future that the richest Ironman in the world will soon be held there
Mal

Mal James said...

Hi Stu
Have no idea about the Tri Dubai dudes but given what Dubai does to attract sport , I dare say in the future that the richest Ironman in the world will soon be held there
Mal