I
came to Marrakech full of anxiety about running the half marathon. My glutes,
hams and knees had been giving me hell during the training, and lately even my
toes were playing up. Combine this with
an irritation in the eyes and a persistent mouth ulcer, and you have a very
sorry me.
The day I arrived I
stupidly made it all worse by going out on a run and deciding to have a race
with a caleche (horse-drawn carriage): I went too fast and so the next day my
hams were worse than ever.
But Marrakech is
really the place to sort all these things out. I went to the pharmacy about my
mouth and they gave me a very homeopathic-looking spray containing bee pollen
and cloves and cinnamon and eucalyptus. I told them about my aching legs and
said should I go for a cream or a massage. A massage the two men said without
hesitation.
In Morocco massages
are everywhere. You can go to a hammam (public bath place) for the complete
treatment or you can go to a centre for ´remise en forme´ (putting you back
into shape).
As I said, hammams are
all over the place in Morocco – all Moroccans pay them a visit at least once a
week and I am sure that is why they have such fantastic skin and hair.
Treatment consists of steaming first in a sauna, then being scrubbed and
exfoliated (could not quite believe the amount of skin coming off my legs the
first time I went) and washed with chunky bars of olive oil soap. The finale
and the best part is the massage: lying on a stone slab, bit by bit your body
is dealt with in a series of wonderful strokes and pummellings, using a
combination of sweet-smelling oils (rose and argan seem to be predominant). You
come out feeling 25 years younger.
This time, however, I
decided I needed some putting back into shape, so went to have my legs attended
to by Leila: she told me they were too hard and I did not leave until she had
completed the job of softening them up.
It was so wonderfully relaxing I almost fell asleep on the table.
The morning of the
marathon loomed and I was up bright and early and having my hot chocolate when
the next crisis occurred. Aziz, who was
coming with me to the 9.15 start, rang at 8 and said the race was starting in
15 minutes! Aaaargh, I threw down my croissant and RAN out the door, past the Koutoubia
and through the park to Bab Jdid (the New Gate) where I found him waiting with
Hicham, his friend who was running and who confirmed that I was right and the
race was starting at 9.15 after all.
(Hicham is young and
fit and last year ran the race in 1 hour 35 minutes. This year he knew he had to equal that time, because his
shift in a restaurant was to begin at 11!)
The start, on the
Avenue de la Menara, was an impressive sight. This year there were over 10,000
runners, seemingly from every nation under the sun. Huge silky red Moroccan flags
unfurled in the crowd, while drummers dressed in the green and red of the flag
thundered away, stirring the crowd of dancers, stretchers and chatterers. I was
surrounded by Arabic, French and Italian commentaries as people bent and jumped
and generally tried out their muscles in every way.
The mass moved slowly
over the line as the start gun went off at 9.15 and we headed down a leafy
avenue through Hivernage (the hotel area) into Gueliz, the ´nouvelle ville´,
turning away from the huge new railway station to plunge down a route of back
streets which finally emerged into the olive groves of the Menara Gardens.
The Marrakech marathon
really has to be one of the most stunning marathon routes in the entire world.
After we left the Menara´s olive groves, we ran down the main airport road
(traffic blocked to allow our progress – I was wondering about people missing
flights!) and then turned right to face the sun, with the pink city walls on
our left and the towering snow-capped peaks of the Atlas mountains ahead. The
sun in my face felt good at that point (too early to be hot) and helped pass a
good 5k in this direction before we turned again to run in some welcome shade
past yet more olive and orange groves, this time the Agdal Gardens.
Another 2k and this time
the turn was to the left, and now we had the sun behind us, bleached city walls
on the left and vast stretches of desert on the right – a real sense of
northern Africa.
Every so often there
would be pockets of people cheering and clapping – ´bonne courage madame´, some
said kindly to me. Happy kids held out their hands for a high five – having fun
with them like this gave me bursts of renewed energy and off I would go again.
There were thousands
ahead of me of course, so every 5 km or so I came across a section of the road
both soaked and covered in orange peel … and then a little further on there
would be a rainbow of sponges littering my way – a bit of a slithery hazard,
but you need your water and the sugar-fruit boost on runs like this.
We were back into the
city for the last punishing 5 km or so, and this really tested my reserves. It
also tested the patience of the traffic being held back by policemen – at one
point a bike just in front of me tried to break through, but a furious gendarme
had got to him before he had any chance of getting to me. Those bikes revved
and roared in frustration, but the police (and army, actually) were having none
of it.
A final lung-choking
sprint to the line, and then there really was a bit of Moroccan (or French, as
race organized by French) chaos, as after medals were handed out we were all
squashed into one long narrow corridor on the road in the sun, queueing,
shoving, pushing, to get out past the barriers and be given a precious bottle
of water. People unable to wait – a woman by me nearly fainted – were screaming
out ´lma! lma!´(water) and race officials were torn between compassion and
duty...
I was too dazed to be
able to focus on anything. I had crossed the line after about 2 hours (still
awaiting official results) and could scarcely believe that the legs had held
up. I copied a ring of runners doing stretch exercises and then sat on the
pavement and felt hot and hungry and wished I had some money to buy a sesame
bun from the man offering them to me. He can´t have done much business as most
runners were like me and had nothing with them (except their phones of
course!).
And Hicham? Again he achieved 1 hour 35, which
meant he finished the race at 10.50 and ran over to the restaurant where he
works to start at 11. A 22-km run before a 12-hour working day: that is what I
call impressive.
I walked slowly back
home wearing my T-shirt and medal, and street sellers and taxi drivers and
people everywhere called out: ´Felicitations six thousand three hundred and
thirty three!´ (6333, my number, but everyone spelt it out in full). They made
me feel great. Would people in England have called out to me like that? I
wonder.
En route to my
favourite café, I stopped to look in a shop. Seeing my T-shirt, the shopkeeper
asked if I had won. Not exactly I say. He asked to see my medal: ´oh it´s a
gold one!´, he said, ´you are the winner! You must have won a lot of money!´
I explain sadly that
apart from the medal I won walu (nothing). But no, he corrected me, ´you have
won sport – vous avez gagné le sport – and with this you have won your health´.
Oh they are so good at
making the most of a situation these Moroccans.
