Run Like an Egyptian

My recovery from the Valencia marathon wasn’t going too well. These stupid heel niggles just don’t want to get better. I wondered if it is a good idea, to do this Egyptian Marathon thing after all. The idea had been from Instagram. Desert and ancient temple running had come up on my feed, hooked me, and I signed up. But was that reason enough to go through with it, despite not getting back to pain-free running? My streak of finishing every marathon had been broken in 2022, but my other streak is getting to the start line of each marathon I signed up for. Worth keeping it going? — Okay then, let’s get it.

I am not used to doing a lot of travel prep for marathons. And that whole stay-or-go turmoil meant only a few weeks were left for planning, booking, and organising everything else. That made me a bit anxious: it’s Egypt for crying out loud! You need to get your act together so as not to lose out on seeing all that epic stuff besides the marathon. And also educating myself on how to navigate cultural differences to minimise the risk of behaving like a complete idiot. So, friends were consulted, a travel guide was ordered, some package things were booked (something I rarely do), and off I went.

I have a good friend who prays and blesses me for my travels, and I have to say, I needed it more than ever. The connection flight Cairo-Luxor allowed only one hour for the transfer. The immigration needed to be done in Cairo, before catching the flight to Luxor, which was a challenge in one hour, not knowing what I was supposed to do (who said “idiot”?). I got my German plowing-my-way-trough attitude out and managed just in time. In Luxor, I then got ripped off by the cab driver, since my bartering skills are no match for the locals. But eventually, I arrived safely at my resort 48 hours before the race started, which gave me time to get adjusted to the temperature difference of easily 20 degrees.

To celebrate this smart move (I mean the planning to give me time to adjust), I went out for a run first thing, running in my silly sandals 10 km down roads in Luxor, that are shared alike between lorries, busses, motorbikes, cabs, carriages, donkey carts, kids, elderlies and now also one runner. It’s not boring. And it did not feel unsafe, because everyone made everyone aware of each other with friendly beep-beeps and shouting. And as a runner, you draw a constant reaction from all of those cited members of traffic: hellos, waving and beeping… It’s great. (Maybe they all wanted to tell me, that running in sandals is a bit, well, idiotic… but hey, what do they know.)

Anyway, after this highly successful ease-in run, I woke up the next day with a splitting headache. And when I dragged myself to the breakfast buffet at 10ish, I couldn’t eat much because my tummy felt a bit squeezy. So, I spent day two in the shade, drinking buckets of water and waiting for the best. That even did happen! My praying and blessing friend said she is not sure if it’s just a bit negligent not to travel with painkillers and to Egypt without anything for an upset stomach, or if it’s plain stupid. I was a bit hurt. And got better none the less! Yay!

The morning of truth arrived. My heel, too, felt slightly better than usual, so maybe the extra medical massage from the day before had also helped. We got a transfer bus to the start, the ancient temple of Hatshepsut (1,600 BC – I know, mind-blowing), located at Luxor Westbank, just behind the Valley of the Kings (like behind the separating mountain). It was the most magical marathon start I ever had. Luxor Westbank is known for its hot-air balloon flights. It looked like all those balloons had been arranged to fly for our event, and were filling the sky. Beautiful.

The course was four laps through mostly desert, passing much more ancient monument goodness (apparently 15% of the world’s monuments are here), incl one little side street up and down, a bit of a “commercial” road with crossing sort of train rails, and also greener bits and fields, watered by the river Nile. Because there was so much to take in, other runners claimed, it did not get boring. Every new lap you discover something new. For me, however, I discovered that my heel was playing up, and I had started off too optimistic. and was now more managing what was going on in my foot than being swept up by the environment. (One fellow runner asked later: “Have you seen these beautiful huge bright red fields, were they dried tomatoes? – Me: “No.”) But it wasn’t too bad, I was just very cautious that I did not want to walk or even abort the race. I focused on trying to keep my pace low but consistent. It helped that despite the thinning-out running field (there were about 200 marathoners in total I reckon), there were always at least some friendly familiar faces before or behind me.

But the main buzz came from all those kids who said hello, were running along you, and were trying to sell you something (picked flowers, please?). I think it was the first marathon where I had to bring my slightly harsh I-am-not-buying-anything persona out while struggling along the last miles. With running between highly motivated kids on one side and quite a bit of traffic on the other I felt my new experience of Egyptian road running from two days before had built resilience towards the fumes and constant beeping, especially for the one or two road crossings which were part of each lap (and which would have flustered a less prepared running me). I felt like: “Ha! I made it! I am finishing a marathon in Egypt. Yes, that Egypt, with all the monumental stuff going on, and craziness, and business, and noisiness! Who is an idiot now!? I am running like an Egyptian! Yeah!

And there isn’t even a punch line. That’s it. I even had something left in the tank for the last kilometres and finished as excited as I had started. Time-wise, it wasn’t my finest moment, I ran even slower than Valencia. On the runner’s gala that night it came out that my chip time wasn’t recorded. It seemed my number had been part of a faulty batch. They scrutinised the personal recordings of us affected runners and used those times. In my case, it added even a few minutes because I had forgot to stop the watch. But who cares!? Running like an Egyptian in what feels like an one-in-a-lifetime event, is what counts. What an uplifting start to the running year 2024. And special thanks to my friend for her prayers! It is not farfetched to think of an alternative version of this race, where everything would have gone the other way. What a blessing that it didn’t.