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<\/a><\/p>\nThe marathon was scheduled to start at 6 AM and I wanted to be there a bit early to make sure I could check the bag — per usual, we were far too early.\u00a0 But in my defense, we were there at about 5:25 AM – who knew THAT would be too early.\u00a0 Reda seemed okay with it though… and honestly, is 35 minutes too early?\u00a0 Maybe.<\/p>\n
People slowly filtered in with about ten minutes to the start…<\/p>\n The race announcer said there’d be a warm-up stretch led by a harem of pretty fit women from sponsoring organization Horizon Fitness (the women were pretty and fit and therefore pretty fit).\u00a0 But they announced the warmup at 5 minutes to the start and just as folks were gathering at the tail end of the starting chute, the race announcer said we had 30 seconds to the start, prompting a mad dash to the other end of the starting chute… ya know, to the start line?\u00a0 It seemed like a crazed warm up as is five minutes before… but the fact that the warmup was a mad dash from one end to the other to start the event was, well, an unusual choice let’s say.<\/p>\n Seconds before… maybe just moments before… they said “Go!” I snapped a quick selfie with Reda.\u00a0 She wished me good luck in Russian which according to my google search is something like “udachi<\/span><\/em>” but it seemed like A LOT more syllables than that when she said it to me this morning at 5:59 AM.<\/p>\n Per usual, my iPhone cannot take decent pics in low lighting, especially on the run.\u00a0 The sun wouldn’t really rise until I hit about 10 KM. I deleted most of my attempts to shoot things prior to this as the shots were just of blurred masses of blobs… and while some of those blobs often resembled me more than I’d like (I made some poor nutritional choices both before and after the race… binging is I think the term), I still think erring on the side of a more curated photo posting is the way to go.<\/p>\n The opening mileage was along a road then onto a construction site.\u00a0 Somewhere a few kilometers in the road lights timed off plummeting us into even darker conditions.\u00a0 I used my phone’s flashlight feature; hours later at the finish, Reda said she had the same weird, “What the heck?!” moment when the lights went out over Oman.\u00a0 I’m not sure what time they are set to extinguish — we started at 6 AM and though we were a few kilometers in and therefore after 6:15, it was certainly not yet 6:30 when it happened.<\/p>\n Around the 10K mark I started taking photos that would come out, which coincidentally, was right about at the first turn around point:<\/p>\n This was fortuitous because as the sun broke over the horizon, I couldn’t help but snap away like a paparazzi pursuing the latest celebrity trainwreck.\u00a0 By that I mean, I took a TON of photos of that rising sun:<\/p>\n It was around here that I saw Reda.\u00a0 She was looking strong but she was definitely a few Ks behind me… making me think checking my bag as a good idea (oh, how naive I was).<\/p>\n Continuing back to the start line to finish the first half of the course, I continued my time-lapse chronicle of the rising sun:<\/p>\n Passing runners just arriving at the race village for their 10K event, I headed off through the residential areas of Al Mouj and was quickly passed by a cadre of sandbagging negative split runners.\u00a0 I don’t know where these guys came from but they zoomed past me like they had downed a six pack of Red Bulls.<\/p>\n Following the color coded arrows (marathon runners were to stick to the blue ones, we would cross another construction site… this one apparently doubling as a Spartan Race\/Wipeout Obstacle Challenge event setting.\u00a0 I loved seeing this sign as I was about to run through the area:<\/p>\n From there we headed onto the winding paths of Al Mouj golf course.\u00a0 The brick pavers made for a smooth running past tees and putting greens.<\/p>\n From the golf course, we headed onto the highway… I thought it might be closed to traffic… that is until a giant semi truck barreled past me.\u00a0 Still, it was early on the weekend holy day of Friday so there wasn’t really a lot of traffic anyway.<\/p>\n At the final major turnaround (there’d be a few more roundabouts and zigs and zags but this was the 3\/4 mark), I saw one of the few supporters along the course.\u00a0 The aid stations were well staffed every 5K or so, and there were course marshals, but there was almost ZERO spectator support.\u00a0 And while this woman was a course marshal, I definitely had to give her credit for her props.\u00a0 Because, c’mon, say it with me — MARACAS!<\/p>\n From there it was retracing our steps on the highway..<\/p>\n …back through the golf course…<\/p>\n …ducking and weaving the faux-Wipeout “sweeper” (that never moved)…<\/p>\n …and back through the Al Mouj residential areas…<\/p>\n …and finally straight on to the finish line.<\/p>\n I hung around waiting for Reda and snapped a lot of photos whilst stuffing my face with too much “recovery” food.\u00a0 So much for burning calories…<\/p>\n When the nice Omani woman told me to jump for an action shot at the photo board, well, I didn’t say how high (‘cuz I’m not a high jumper on my best days), but here’s how that went:<\/p>\n Here’s where it all kinda went sideways.\u00a0 Bag pickup was a disaster.\u00a0 Instead of keeping the bags sorted by bib number or even by event, they just tossed them all together in one Bag Mountain.\u00a0 So when asking for your bag, 99% of them were in the Muscat Marathon white goodie bag and tagged as we were told to do with the little numbered bag check.\u00a0 The volunteers working the bag check then had to dig through all of the slightly less than 1300 runners’ bags (as presumably there were some SMART runners who DIDN’T check bags) to find the one lucky bag that was each person’s belongings.\u00a0 It was a real blind spot for the organizers and one that should not have gone unnoticed in the prior 5 years of the event (this was year 6).<\/p>\n But one can’t get too upset — it’s not like yelling will help expedite the process any.\u00a0 Eventually they found my proverbial piece of hay in the haystack (as a needle would be far easier to locate than an individual strand of hay — who was it that first pointed out how much easier it would be to find a needle than a stray bit of hay in a haystack?\u00a0 One could use a magnet for example… or just look for the silver bit even…).\u00a0 Plus I had time to kill waiting for Reda… nonetheless it was annoying and an easy fix for next year if the organizers spent just five minutes thinking about it.<\/p>\n Scarfing down sandwiches and fries and all sorts of bad things for me, I felt a bit warumph.\u00a0 That’s a thing, right?\u00a0 Warumph?\u00a0 If not, it is now.\u00a0 Because it’s on the internet.\u00a0 And the internet never lies.\u00a0 It may offer alternative facts but it never lies.\u00a0 No, siree, Trump!\u00a0 No lies here…<\/p>\n Reda came in shortly thereafter, clocking in at a sub-5 hour marathon.\u00a0 She looked strong but she said she had to walk a good bit.<\/p>\n Unlike in Dubai, I didn’t feel dehydrated, just overloaded blotto with post-run foodstuffs.\u00a0 It’s odd that one can traverse 26.2 miles \/ 42.195K and still feel like you need to go for another run to make up for the poor eating decisions.\u00a0 Sigh.\u00a0 It’s a never ending battle of the bulge with me.<\/p>\n On the plus side, I snapped this selfie with a clown.\u00a0 An Omani clown doing facepainting and proffering balloons for the kids… nothing creepy about– Oh, MAN!\u00a0 That is one creepy clown!<\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n