٨- الماراثون المنزلي

After Coming back from Race The Malta Marathon has begun preparations for the Dead Sea to Red Sea race (Dead2red) organized by the Amman Road Runners Foundation, covering a distance of 242 kilometers; it is a relay race lasting approximately twenty-four hours, in which competitors can choose to run the distance individually or as part of a team of either five or ten runners, a team Running Amman He formed several teams, and I was a member of one of them, which consisted of ten competitors. The race was scheduled to take place in less than ten days. I prepared well, but the race was canceled due to the weather conditions in Aqaba on the day of the race.

The next event took place about a month later: the Full Moon Desert Marathon in the Wadi Rum region of southern Jordan, organized by Treks... Less than a week later, the race was also canceled following the World Health Organization's declaration that the coronavirus was a pandemic.

I felt frustrated by the restrictions that limited my ability to go running, as this sport has become a part of who I am and my life. At the suggestion of members of the Running Amman team, we started running on our rooftops—an attempt to stay as fit as possible, in the hope that the situation wouldn’t last too long.

A few days later, I read a post on one of the social media pages I follow, which is run by the team530 run), with whom I used to go running while I was in the Emirate of Dubai, have announced that they are organizing a race Marathon “Run at Home” for a distance of forty-two kilometers, in collaboration with several organizations in the United Arab Emirates. One of the most important conditions of the race was that the entire distance had to be run indoors. I submitted my registration and began preparing.

Race day came quickly. The alarm went off at 5:30 a.m., and as usual before any race or run, I had a light, energy-rich meal and some unsweetened coffee. I put on my running clothes and my sports watch, and headed up to my brother’s apartment right at the race’s 7:00 a.m. start time. He owns an apartment in the same building but lives abroad. I’d brought along the water and snacks I needed, and started running inside the apartment. I divided the distance into four sections; the first section ended at the halfway point, I finished it with some difficulty—not extreme, but I felt a slight ache under my heels from the constant pressure on the same spot due to running in circles in a confined space. I decided to take a break for about half an hour. I went down to my apartment and had a light snack to help me keep going without negatively affecting my ability to run.

I resumed running, and I was already starting to feel tired. “I’ll stick to the same plan,” I told myself, “but I’ll make a slight adjustment: instead of running the remaining twenty-one kilometers in three equal laps of seven kilometers each, I’ll run nine kilometers, then seven, then five.” Moving from room to room—the kitchen, then the living room—I ran inside the house. My feet started to ache, but I told myself I wouldn’t give up; I would keep going.

The pain increased significantly, so I decided to add another section to my plan for finishing the race, bringing the total to four. I divided them into eight, six, four, and three kilometers, and gave myself a break ranging from ten to fifteen minutes between each one.

With great difficulty, I reached the last kilometer, and as usual, the farther I went, the harder it got. I felt dizzy and thought I was going to fall face-first from sheer exhaustion, so I slowed down—I was almost done, with less than half a kilometer left.

After a tremendous effort, I finished the virtual race around 3:00 p.m., eight hours after the start, with several breaks in between as permitted by the race rules. My final time was five hours and fifty-eight minutes.

Another grueling race has come to an end. I was too sore and exhausted to even walk down the stairs to my apartment, but this race has added a great deal to my experience and knowledge—not only in the field of running, but in every aspect of life. After all, nothing is impossible when you decide you can do it.

This was the last story in my “My Running Story” series—I really learned a lot from it—and I’ll share a summary of what I learned in my next post.

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