Well another special race for me as this was my first international Marathon and the first time I’ve been to Africa. The Marrakech Marathon has been running for 20 years now, and has an average temperature of 20 Celsius at the end of January when it’s held. Sadly for me though it was overcast and probably about 17 Celsius. I entered this race with Dave and so it was yet another MdS training event for us! The brief results are below
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Men’s results only (only because this is how the organisers published the results)
Position Gun Time Chip time
372 out of 547 4:06:51 4:04:01
Gross result Net result
10 km 1:04:01 1:01:11
21 km 2:08:10 2:05:20
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I’d had a bad case of Man Flu in the week leading up to this marathon and so nearly had to pull out of running, but fortunately the old white blood cells managed to rally and shake most of the illness off by race day and I felt about 90% or so. Given the less than ideal build up I had to play this one cautiously and so I dumped the plan to run with my backpack, but this worked out OK as Dave was weighed down with his MdS backpack so I’d have company at the back :) Given the circumstances we thought we’d get a time of around 4:30:00 to 4:45:00.
We had to pick up our race numbers on the Saturday and this proved to be entertaining as many fellow Europeans from France and Spain displayed a complete inability to queue and pushed past us and a fellow Brit on several occasions. Maybe they had decided they were more important then us, and so shouldn’t have to wait like us? It didn’t help with the organisers being so slow when handing out the numbers.
Anyway at the start line it became obvious that this was a “serious” marathon. There was a reported 5 hour cut off, and rather sadly, no outlandish fancy dress or mascots in sight! I was wearing much of my Sahara gear to protect me from the Sun in case it came out whilst we were running, so I looked a bit of a prat - Oi, I heard that :)
The gun went and Dave and I were slightly confused as to where the exact start line was due to there being several inflatable archways all looking like the start! We took the first 10km easy and were surprised by how intimidating the Atlas Mountains looked as at one point we were running towards them. There was one humorous point in this stage where a team of “Save the Children” runners all decided to do a group toilet stop in a little forested area, it looked very odd like some “modern” art stunt! Afterwards Team “Save the Children” shot past us and I remember thinking it would be nice to overtake a few of them later in the race if I got the opportunity :)
As the race wore on we slowly increased the pace. At one point we saw a chap carrying several wooden chairs on his back in some clever interlocking structure that looked very heavy and I was glad it wasn’t me carrying them! At the halfway point point we passed a Brazilian woman who had run 41 marathons in different countries round the world and had lots of little signs pinned to her listing the places. She was a great sport full of energy and good vibes and lifted the crowd who seemed a little bored in this section of the race. We passed the halfway point in a time of 2:05:20 which was excellent going considering Dave’s backpack and my recent illness.
Some of the second half of the race was through the small settlements containing rich mansions and farms on the outskirts of Marrakech. The gap between rich and poor was quiet obvious though when we hit the poorer settlements as some of the kids seemed excited by the empty plastic bottles from the water stations, as well as asking us for our shades, watches, and Dave’s proper water bottles from his bag. We also saw some camels in this section which was really odd as there seemed to be no point to them being in this area as it was sparsely populated and they were just tethered to the ground.
Eventually we hit the main highway and started heading back into Marrakech. My legs, heart and lungs still seemed OK, so with 10km to go (my favourite race distance) I thought I’d up the pace. I checked with Dave and at that point he didn’t feel he could go any faster (though I’d later find out he pretty much kept up with me). My main targets were members of a running club called AirSac running and Team “Save the Children”. There were plenty of them scattered around and I kept targeting the next one in front and slowly pulled myself past them. I could see one lone “Save the Children” in the far distance and eventually I caught him up. However this chap proved to be a tough cookie to shake off and it was only with 2km to go to the finish line that I finally managed it. The legs were tired by this point, and I could feel the pace slowing a little and that overwhelming urge for the finish line to appear so I could end it was there.
Dave ended up crossing the finish in 4:08:43 which was an incredible performance with his backpack weighing him down for the whole 26 miles. We also both ended up doing negative splits which is tough to do in a marathon. I was really glad to have just been able to take part as it would have been miserable to have travelled out there and then been forced to watch from the sidelines. A big thank you must go out to all the police, army and other officials who controlled the traffic (they didn’t shut the roads down for this Marathon) as I never felt in the slightest bit in danger from the usually crazy drivers of Marrakech due to the numbers they had manning the junctions. Another mention must go out to the cleaners as there was loads of them every 600 metres or so throughout the course picking up any discarded bottles! Overall I enjoyed this race and Marrakech, but it is certainly not the place for a post race beer as we found it difficult to find places selling alcohol due to obvious reasons. It was great to see Ben too who came along to cheer us on, offend the market owners with certain comments, and get a dodgy tattoo!
Cheers
Andy
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