Palm Prints: The BMR

Six or seven years ago Cheri had come back to visit the states for repat. We were hanging out one night and I was regaling her with stories of my past years' ski trip. For most of the years that I was living back in the states I would plan a weekend away on my own. Well not really on my own. It would usually involve 20 or so of my best drinking buddies. We would either go white water rafting on the Upper Gauley River in West Virginia or go skiing in the mountains of Vermont. Those trips were always a blast and usually took me days to recuperate from. So this night Cheri says to me that if I ever move to the Middle East (I guess she could see it coming) that I would have to do this thing called the Bahrain Marathon Relay. You go over to Bahrain and party for the entire weekend and then run a whopping 15 minutes as part of a 16 person team running a marathon. Sounded like fun back then.

So this past weekend I got my chance. I managed to get hooked up with some people here in RT who were interested in forming a team along with two teams from Dhahran. What people did not tell me was that by the time you got through the Wednesday night party at Senor Paco's, the Thursday lunch party at the British Club, Thursday happy hour at Bennigans and the Thursday night bath tub party (At one of the rented apartments - bathtub filled with ice and beer. Not a good thing the night before a race.) you are in absolutely no condition to do anything. Here I am somewhere between the British Club and going to bed. Looks like I was having fun.

So now it is race day and I have to be up at 6AM. Everytime I take a step I feel like 100 hammers are pounding on my noggin. To make matters worse because it is a relay and I am running leg 5 they have to drive me out into the middle of the desert and leave me there to wait for ONE HOUR!! No water, no shade. I will let the race pictures speak for themselves. What a mess.