Dubai Marathon – January 12, 2007

I left New York on Monday evening, January 8, 2007 for Paris and then connected to Dubai. I noticed the Marathon Tours group at the waiting area and quickly reconnected with some old friends and met several of the new people on the trip.

I had flown through and over Dubai before, but had never actually been in the city. Wow. Driving from the airport to the hotel provided an architectural assault on the senses! It looked like someone had given every architectural student in the world carte blanche to build the project of their dreams. Never have I seen so much good and bad architecture in one place at one time!

We arrived at the hotel, changed, and immediately got on a bus for an orientation tour of the area.

I’ve got to admit – I just don’t get Dubai and all the hype. Oil is depleted in 7-8 years. Yes, there’s lots of shopping, in fact we were there during the 60 day Shopping Festival, and yes, there is a shopping mall that houses an indoor ski slope, and yes, all of the malls and souks appear to be packed. But there really isn’t a store there that you can’t find on Madison Avenue in New York. We visited the Islamic Arts Center, which I at first thought was a tourist dive but quickly realized there was some very good and some important regional art there. I revisited a jeweled rug several times, but couldn’t make a decision on a purchase, thinking I might see something similar later in my trip. We visited the beach, but you couldn’t swim because the water is too polluted from the ship ballast. And we found the coral beds in the Gulf are dying because of the disruption to the natural currents caused by the Palm Island and the World they’re building in the Gulf. We visited the heritage museum, where “old Dubai” has been recreated, although modern Dubai is less than a century old, built around “the Creek”, the trading port from which Dubai originated. All in all, Dubai is an interesting experience – I just don’t see what will make it sustainable long term.

The next day we walked across (or under), the ten lane highway in front of our hotel to the Expo, sparsely attended yet offering the basics (our numbers). Then that evening I took a desert safari, crammed into a van with five very drunk Russian tourists who sang and slapped my back and hugged me during the VERY long tour in the desert. We careened around the sand dunes, nearly flipping (part of the fun), and ended up in a desert camp where we had a cook-out, completed with belly dancers, hookah smoking, and sand boarding (which I really enjoyed). After that, it was back in the van with the Russians who were even drunker at this point (they brought their own vodka) for the long ride back to Dubai. Great preparation for tomorrow’s marathon……

Friday, January 12 th dawned bright and sunny and cool – really a perfect day for a marathon. We could walk to the start, which was nice. There were only a few hundred signed up for the marathon, despite the $50,000 prize for the male and female winners. They said 5-6,000 were signed up for the 10K.

It was an out and back course, which followed the coastline of the Gulf. At the iconic Burj al Arab hotel, we turned around and headed for home. It was a flat, somewhat dull course, but aid stations were plentiful. There was virtually no spectator support. It was actually a pretty uneventful race.

The finish was something else. I didn’t particularly feel great during the race, and had a pretty sucky time – let’s just say over four and under five….. At the finish, however, it was really confusing to figure out where to go and what to do. I had to ask someone if there were medals for finishers, because no one was there to greet me. When I asked if there was food for the finishers, I was directed to an outdoor festival, which turned out had nothing to do with the marathon, but where we could buy food if we were interested – burgers and spicy regional cuisine – nothing really appropriate for the finish of a race. Very curious, considering how the folks in Dubai seem to have no qualms about spending whatever if takes to make everything they do “world class”. (Next year they’ve upped the prize money to $1 million – making this marathon tops in prize money.). It just seemed to me that should have spent some of the money on advice from a race director who really knows how to organize and conduct a marathon!

The evening of the race, several of us had dinner reservations at Burj al Arab, the signature “sail shaped” hotel where rooms start at $1,800 per night and where you cannot even enter the grounds without clearance at the gun guarded security gate and a reservation for either dinner or the evening at the hotel. We had dinner reservations for the $155 buffet dinner. Before dinner we had a $35 martini in the hotel lobby lounge. How to describe this place? Let’s just say everything is over the top. If it doesn’t move, gold leaf it. It is spectacular and ostentatious and pretentious and stupefying and grand and overwhelming and a kick to visit. Dinner was good but not great. There was a lot of everything – you want 10 lobster tails? Fine. I’m glad I did it but I wouldn’t go back. A couple I befriended got a room there for the night and was agog at their 2,400 square foot two floor suite. They said they felt guilty sleeping – that they should stay awake to enjoy it because it cost so much!

After the marathon, we went to a resort in the desert for a little R&R – it was a sumptuous place with a wonderful spa, of which we took full advantage. Sundown cocktails over the desert, falconing demonstrations, camel rides, sunrise horseback rides through the desert, and an evening dinner under stars with whirling dervishes and belly dancers.

We then flew to Oman where we went to another incredible resort outside of Muscat on the coast – again, opulent accommodations, wonderful food and a knock-out spa, where I had an incredible Hammam – which involved sweating on a marble slab, and rigorous scrub down, a massage, and being flayed with birch branches. I took a sunset cruise along the coast and saw the lit fortresses and shopped for beautiful carpets made in the mountains of Iraq – beautiful designs and great prices – I bought three (and they all made it to the States!). I went to the heritage festival and had an Omanian dinner followed by fireworks. I toured the Sultan’s palace and the fish market. There was a wonderful sense of history and heritage that I found completely missing in Dubai.

Then it was back to Dubai and then a flight to Amman, Jordan. I was met by a driver who took me on a tour of Amman before taking me to Petra. Early the next morning I was met by my guide and began a magical day of visiting Petra. We entered this special place as early as we could, well in advance of the crowds. We snaked our way along the narrow passage until we came to the three story carved façade that many associate with Petra (or Indiana Jones!). Some of the Bedouin arrived on camels, but other than them, there was no one else around. We continued on, amazed over and over by the massive carvings into the sandstone walls of the valley. I hired a donkey to take me to the top where the façade of a cathedral stands. As early afternoon arrived, the crowds also arrived, but by then I was heading out. It was an incredible day.

The next day I had a driver take me to the Dead Sea where I also visited the River Jordan with Israel just yards away, guarded by machine gun toting soldiers. The history and beauty of the area were spellbinding. Visited a sheltered workshop where I bought a beautiful little mosaic. Then it was back to Petra for a hammam and bed. Next day I flew to Dubai, went to the Souk for a little more shopping, and then flew back to Cincinnati the next day. What a trip – and what opportunities my running has created for me!