٦- مشاركة خارجية

During the mandatory break I took, I missed the opportunity to participate in Race half Marathon of Ayla, held every December in Aqaba—the Jordanian coastal city overlooking the Red Sea—made me feel frustrated at the thought of not being able to participate, especially when I saw photos of my friends and teammates from the “Running Amman” team and other running teams taking part in the race and enjoying the wonderful times they spent together during those events. I promised myself I would make up for it by participating in one of the upcoming marathons at the earliest opportunity.

I searched online for upcoming marathons in 2020 and settled on the Dubai Marathon, which was scheduled to take place around the end of January 2020. I asked Saif, my cousin—who’s more like a brother to me than just a cousin—if he’d like to join me on a trip to Dubai to run the marathon, but he suggested we change our destination to Malta instead, since we’d already visited Dubai more than once before. We looked into the details and decided it might be the better choice, It’s a beautiful tourist destination, no more than a three-hour flight from Jordan, and the cost of travel is very reasonable.

Before we could take any concrete steps, my cousin apologized for being unable to make the trip, as he had to travel to another destination during that same period. Less than a week later, purely by chance, during one of the group breakfasts organized by the “Running Amman” team after their Friday morning runs, we discussed participating in the Malta Marathon on March 1, 2020. About 30 runners expressed their desire to participate, and it was agreed that we would begin preparing for the trip and obtaining the necessary entry visas. Accordingly, I resumed my training intensively, as there were only about two months left until the race.

The days passed quickly, and I left Amman for Malta at the end of February, five days before the marathon, with the aim of sightseeing and exploring that small island in the Mediterranean Sea. During those days, I walked at least twenty kilometers a day, which was a huge mistake stemming from my lack of experience; I overexerted my legs to the point of getting a muscle strain. I tried to remedy the situation the day before the race by moving as slowly and as little as possible, As for the rest of the team, most of them arrived that evening—one day before the race was set to begin.

The race was scheduled to start at 7:00 a.m., and there was a meeting point for the runners about six kilometers from where I was staying; from there, the runners were transported by special buses to the race starting line. I woke up at 4 a.m., had a light, suitable breakfast, gathered the clothes and equipment I needed, and headed to the meeting point. The sky was dark, and there were at least two hundred competitors waiting for the buses to depart for the starting line. I boarded one as soon as it arrived, and it took us to the designated location.

The sun was still rising when the bus pulled up at the destination. I got off, shivering and flustered, as events like this are intimidating—especially since I’d never been through this before, and the distance I was about to run that day was no easy feat. A cool breeze on that sunny winter morning woke me up and made me look around at the runners around me, each preparing in their own way for the start of the race. I met up with my friends from the team, and we chatted and did our warm-up exercises together. After the warm-up, the race was announced as ready to start. We headed toward the starting line, took our places among the hundreds of participants, and the starting gun went off.

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